Georgiana Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire [ Aristocracy / Fashion ]
… was widely reported and imitated. She popularized the much-satirized (and prohibitively expensive) ostrich-feather headdress and when painted by Gainsborough in an oversized, broad-brimmed ‘picture hat’, the demand for outsize headwear was … feathers. Such was her popularity that the mere association of her name with a performer, a play, a book, a style of dress, piece of china or even shade of brown could ensure success. Cavendish was also highly acclaimed in Paris and … a year later. In 1779 Cavendish anonymously published The Sylph , an epistolary novel that owes a debt to Frances Burney’s Evelina (1778); Burney was initially thought to have been the author. The Sylph tells of an ingénue’s entry into …
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