Creole Chic

Portraits by José Francisco Xavier de Salazar y Mendoza provide some of the earliest examples of Creole fashion in Louisiana. His paintings, which feature prominent new Orleanians of the 18th and early 19th centuries, show the influence of French fashion on wealthy New Orleans Creoles. The bouffant hairstyle above was popular among the upper classes, and, like the gold earrings, speaks to the wearer’s wealth and status. The many layers of clothing, which fit the weather of western Europe better than that of the Gulf of Mexico, are evidence that practicality was not a priority for elite women. Brocades, hoopskirts, panniers, stiffened and boned bodices, and heavy embroidery were the order of the day.

Some early Creole fashions seemed better suited for American climates. Here we can see lightweight white muslin dresses that are still elegant, but are better suited to the tropical environment. Such dress styles, while eventually adopted by white Creole women, were pioneered by free Creole women of color. These fashions eventually crossed the Atlantic to France, where women imitating them were said to be dressing “in the Creole style.”

Marie Antoinette was painted wearing a similar gown in 1783. Some were scandalized that the queen would wear a “chemise gown” that resembled women’s undergarments, but the style proved lasting. Through the 1820s, flowy white muslin fabrics dominated fashion trends throughout Europe. Many fans have admired the beautiful styles of a Jane Austen or Bridgerton heroine, most with no idea they were witnessing the lasting influence of 18th-century free Creole women of color on fashion.

One of the most recognizable items of 18th and 19th century Creole fashion is the tignon. These headdresses, usually associated with Creole women of color, are evidence of Louisiana’s fraught racial history.

Tignons were common among free and enslaved women in colonial Louisiana and the Caribbean. The tradition has roots in West African cultures and, for enslaved women in particular, had a practical purpose: to protect hair, preserve hairstyles, and keep clean while doing dirty work. But wearers made these headscarves beautiful, too, using bright colors and patterns and tying the wraps in intricate ways.

The Spanish governor of Louisiana issued a law in 1786 that required all women of African descent to cover their hair in public. Intended to regulate Black women and reinforce the racial hierarchy, these tignon laws had the opposite effect: Creole women of color used their elaborately tied headwraps to accentuate their status and beauty, highlighting their hair rather than hiding it. Many used the finest silk fabrics and adorned their tignons with jewels and feathers. Eventually, white women in Louisiana and even France began to appropriate such headwear.

While the colonial Louisiana Creoles modified European, African, and Caribbean clothing traditions to fit their New World society, 19th-century Creoles had different concerns. With the Louisiana Purchase in 1803, Creoles faced a new threat: Americanization. To differentiate themselves from their new Anglo-American neighbors, Creoles recemented their ties to Europe through trade, travel, art, and fashion. English philosopher Harriet Martineau described the “mutual jealousy” between the two groups in the 1830s: “The Americans ridicule the toilet practices of the French ladies; their liberal use of rouge and pearl powder.” Anglo-Americans may have mocked fashionable Creoles, but for the women themselves, French-influenced style was an important way to maintain their identity.

The demand for French fashions in New Orleans was so strong that European craftspeople established their own stores in the city. Olympe Boisse came to New Orleans from France in the 1840s and took over a successful millinery business on Chartres Street in 1853. She soon expanded the business to include ballgowns, shawls, fans, and other fashionable accessories of all sorts for the ladies of New Orleans. She took frequent trips back to France to ensure that she was always importing the latest fashions, allowing her Creole clientele to keep up with their continental cousins, and giving Boisse, in the words of the New Orleans Business Directory, “the most brilliant and fashionable store in the city.”

Madame Boisse brought more than just the latest fashions from France. Like Charles Worth, the Parisian dress designer who is widely accepted today as the first true fashion designer and the father of haute couture, Boisse dictated to her clientele what they should wear, instead of the other way around. She also followed Worth’s example by adding labels into her dresses. She and Worth were among the first designers to do so, making the designer label of one’s dress even more important than its material or design in showing the status of the wearer. One could argue that this French-born immigrant who catered to wealthy Creoles was one of the first true American fashion designers, with a blending of cultures and influences reminiscent of Creole identity itself.