Mantua (clothing)

The origins of the term mantua, to mean "a robe", are unclear. The garment may have been named after Mantua, in Italy, a centre of production for some of the expensive silks that would have been used to make up such garments. The term may also derive from , the French term for a coat. From this garment arose the term mantua-maker, an early term for a women's dressmaker. ==Evolution of the mantua==

Previously, predominantly undertaken by tailors, a trade heavily made up by men, the making of outer-garments only involved women in a less formalised manner. '', silk plain weave with supplementary warp- and weft-float patterning. France, c. 1775. Los Angeles County Museum of Art, M.70.85. By the mid-18th century, the mantua had evolved into a more formal style. The draping of the overskirt became increasingly stylized, with the back panel of the train almost entirely concealed. Known as the sack, sack-back, robe à la française, or French gown, this garment was supported by panniers which expanded in width in the 1740s and 1750s, and fronted by a decorative stomacher. Underskirts were displayed at the front, with two substantial box pleats to the back allowing fabric to trail loosely from the neck to the floor. This style of mantua was most typically worn as formal attire between the 1750s and 1770s. The three gathered back sections of the skirt and fitted bodice of the 1770s incarnation of the mantua, known as the polonaise gown or robe à la polonaise, were distinct to this style, with the puffed skirt achieved through cording or ribbons. A variant of the polonaise gown was known as the robe à la circassienne. The ''robe à l'anglaise or English gown was also a popular style in Europe. The English-style gown featured a fitted back and open front skirt to display decorated underskirts, as in the robe à la française''. The final version of the mantua, which emerged around 1780, bore little resemblance to the original mantua of nearly a century earlier. Instead of the elaborate draperies and folds of the late 17th and early 18th century, the train had evolved into a length of fabric attached to the back of the bodice, as illustrated in an example in the Victoria and Albert Museum. ==Surviving examples==

, from c. 1760 Extant examples of the 17th-century mantua are extremely scarce. Perhaps the only known extant adult-size example is an embroidered wool mantua and petticoat in the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute. Norah Waugh has published a pattern taken from this mantua. The Victoria and Albert Museum owns an extremely rare late 17th-century fashion doll dressed in a pink silk mantua and petticoat. Also in the Costume Institute is a mantua and petticoat in salmon pink bizarre silk dated to 1708. Another early mantua, the silk dated to roughly 1708–09 belongs to the Clive House Museum, Shrewsbury; a pattern for this mantua has been taken by Janet Arnold. Most mantuas preserved in museum collections are formal versions from the mid-18th century, intended for court dress. The Berrington Hall mantua of the 1760s in Berrington Hall, most likely worn by Ann Harley (née Bangham) as Lady Mayoress of London, and a blue silk mantua with matching stomacher and petticoat dated ca. 1750–65 in the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art's Costume Institute, are examples of this type of mantua. ==See also==