| Title: | Toilette |
| Original Title: | Toilette |
| Volume and Page: | Vol. 16 (1765), p. 382 |
| Author: | Louis, chevalier de Jaucourt (biography) |
| Translator: | Courtney Wilder [University of Michigan] |
| Subject terms: |
Fashion
|
| Original Version (ARTFL): | Link |
| Rights/Permissions: |
This text is protected by copyright and may be linked to without seeking permission. Please see http://quod.lib.umich.edu/d/did/terms.html for information on reproduction. |
| URL: | http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0003.137 |
| Citation (MLA): | Jaucourt, Louis, chevalier de. "Toilette." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Courtney Wilder. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2015. Web. [fill in today's date in the form 18 Apr. 2009 and remove square brackets]. <http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0003.137>. Trans. of "Toilette," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, vol. 16. Paris, 1765. |
| Citation (Chicago): | Jaucourt, Louis, chevalier de. "Toilette." The Encyclopedia of Diderot & d'Alembert Collaborative Translation Project. Translated by Courtney Wilder. Ann Arbor: Michigan Publishing, University of Michigan Library, 2015. http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.did2222.0003.137 (accessed [fill in today's date in the form April 18, 2009 and remove square brackets]). Originally published as "Toilette," Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers, 16:382 (Paris, 1765). |
The toilette is a type of fine cloth, trimmed with lace on all sides, covering the table on which men and women fond of tidiness place their clothing at night after undressing, and where in the morning they find what they will wear laid out. [1] Similarly, one calls toilettes the hangings made of silk or other rich fabrics and trimmed with lace or fringe, which are placed above the mirror ornamenting women’s toilette , or even that of men who today have become women.
Note
1. See, for example, a satirical print depicting a women’s toilette embedded in her massive hairdo. The toilette also refers to the morning ritual of dressing and socializing, which took its name from the cloth covering the dressing table. See Jessica Portner, “Power Breakfast Inspired by a King: The 18th Century Toilette,” on the J. Paul Getty Museum’s The Getty Iris (07/28/2011), for more information on the ritual and paintings depicting it.