Eighteenth-century fashion was cosmopolitan and varied. Whilst the wildly extravagant and colorful elite fashions parodied in contemporary satire had significant influence on wider dress habits, more austere garments produced in darker fabrics also reflected the ascendancy of a puritan middle class as well as a more practical approach to dress. With the rise of print culture and reading publics, fashions were more quickly disseminated and debated than ever, and the appetite for fashion periodicals went hand in hand with a preoccupation with the emerging concept of taste.

Richly illustrated with over 100 images and drawing on pictorial, textual and object sources, A Cultural History of Dress and Fashion in the Age of Enlightenment presents essays on textiles, production and distribution, the body, belief, gender and sexuality, status, ethnicity, and visual and literary representations to illustrate the diversity and cultural significance of dress and fashion in the period.