A Brunswick gown or Brunswick is a two-piece woman's gown of the mid-eighteenth century.
Description The Brunswick comprises a hip-length (or three-quarter length) jacket with a high neckline and a hood, worn with a matching petticoat. The jacket sleeves consist of an upper sleeve with flounces at the elbow and a tight, wrist-length lower sleeve.
The Brunswick is one of several informal jacket-and-petticoat costumes popular in the later 18th century, derived from working class costume but made up in fine fabrics (usually silk).
Originating in France (based on a German fashion), the Brunswick was also popular in England and the United States as a traveling costume.
Today, the term is generically used to describe a hip-length, close-fitting padded coat with a neckline (and not necessarily with a hood).
Paintings depicting Brunswicks
Portrait of Lady Mary Fox by Pompeo Batoni, 1767. Self-portrait of Anna Bacherini Piattoli, 1776. Portrait of a Girl Holding a Spaniel by Alexander Roslin.
References
Bibliography Baumgarten, Linda: What Clothes Reveal: The Language of Clothing in Colonial and Federal America, Yale University Press, 2002. Ribeiro, Aileen: The Art of Dress: Fashion in England and France 1750–1820, Yale University Press, 1995, Ribeiro, Aileen: Dress in Eighteenth Century Europe 1715–1789, Yale University Press, 2002,
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