ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses what extent and in what ways had European society and culture changed from 1780 to 1830. The dress of aristocrats and of upper income groups in general is of courses the easiest to study, not only because such clothing was shown in fashion magazines at the time but also because the garments' intrinsic value led to their survival in museums and private collections. A society divided into a reduced number of crudely defined categories was bound to show, in manners as in food and dress, fewer distinctions and less exact indicators of status than had that of the Old Regime. Although details of food and dress and manners can sometimes amuse without revealing much that is fundamental to history, the latter would be cold and inhuman if it ignored the most mundane, but also the most tangible, features of life in the past.
