‘My Day as a Bridgerton Lady consisted of corsets, rings, and Regency dance’

My long buttoned coat is sliding through the puddle, my rings are popping in the drizzle, corsets are killing me, and I see no sign of Regé-Jean Page, who they promised to be part of the deal if I took a day to dress up as a Regency woman to celebrate Bridgerton’s return.

With no Regé-Jean – or any other dandy Regency cove – on hand, I was left to stroll alone along the beautiful Royal Crescent in Bath, idly wondering why gaglets never untrendy.

It’s cold and so I’m also grateful that the evening coats I’m wearing aren’t the kind of tight tops that Bridgerton actresses have to wear to stay true to the times.

For Regency underwear designed – by men, I bet – for women to fall in love with with minimal fuss. The show’s costume designer Ellen Mirojnick said: “They just need to lift their skirts.”

Tut tut. That manners of ladies and gentlemen, we could say, the virtue of ease, made Bridgerton’s series, based on the novel by Julia Quinn, a hit movie, watched by 82 million people. monitor.

It focuses on Daphne Bridgerton (Phoebe Dynevor) and her dashing Duke Hastings (Regé-Jean Page).

The second series follows Daphne’s brother Anthony (Jonathan Bailey) and his love triangle with sisters Sharma, Kate and Edwina (Simone Ashley and Charithra Chandran). It was released last Friday and racked up 193 million hours of watch time in its first three days.

The gorgeous costumes and sets keep the viewer hooked, and so, to get a Bridgerton look, I head to Bath Theatrical Costume Hire, Aladdin’s cave with over 30,000 outfits.

Owner Rusette Auton, 56, led me to their studio, telling me, “Welcome to Tardis.”

I hope she doesn’t think I’m here for the Doctor Who costume, although, to be fair, I’m traveling through time to the Regent period, from 1811 to 1820, when King George III mentally ill fit. to rule and his son became Regent.

While the tight dresses of Bridgerton, by Emmy-winning Ellen, showed plenty of bulging busts, women of the period escaped the horrors of the earlier, fixed Georgian corsets. more famous for creating unbelievably small waistlines.

Instead, as Sylvia Spilsbury, Bath Theatrical costume designer, 64, explains, Regency corsets celebrate the natural female figure. Usually, it will be a bony coat, or one with a ribbon tied underneath to elevate the bust.

Well, after a failed attempt to get a chemise with a bone on the chest, I opted for the second method. It’s surprisingly comfortable, if a bit tight.

Over my cream nightgowns and flowing skirts, I wore a purple dress and lavender jacket, and accessories with a fur muffler and a feathered headdress.

With hair and makeup, once again, the Georgians live dangerously, using deadly lead and mercury in their facial white powder. Beauty expert Rebecca Rose Robinson said: “Regent women preferred a more natural and safer look. They claim to have smooth white skin, rosy cheeks and plump lips, to be mild-mannered and avoid the sun, but in fact, they wear makeup to achieve the effect.

Realizing that women were dying young from mercury and lead poisoning, Regency makeup products were made from non-toxic substances, such as saffron and safflower, mixed with wax to create a powder. chrome. For me, it’s the stage where white and red makeup is mixed together to form a single color.

Next, my thick, unfussy hair was styled into elegant Regency bangs, a process that took three hours of my preparation. Rebecca, 28, said: ‘The royal hairstyle is inspired by the ancient Greeks, with a headdress, feathers and headband. They tend to have a lot of bangs and tight braids. “

For small rings, maids would heat metal clips in a fire, then spit on them to try to bring them to a temperature that wouldn’t burn the hair, with varying degrees of success.

“Curly curls are seen as part of being a woman,” says Sylvia. So women have to achieve them by all means. Many of them burned off their hair in the process and would use wigs and hairpins instead. Poor women can make a little extra money by selling their hair to wig manufacturers. “

I kept my hair, and the rings even stayed while I strolled, admiring the Georgian architecture of the Royal Crescent.

Although Bridgerton is set in London, much of the shooting takes place here in Bath, with the Featherington family’s infamous home at No1 The Royal Crescent.

A Regency lady must have a lot of talent, so I had to go to the nearby Jane Austen Center, use a quill to write a love letter to my daughter… Dear Regé-Jean… Oh, wait. If I were to be a proper Lady Bridgerton, I would need to learn to dance so that I could go to the ball and find a husband.

Thankfully, I have the Bath Regency Dance Team to show me the moves.

Charlotte Cumper, 30, said: “We have the balls and we dress well. There are hundreds of dances, like the Duke of Kent’s Waltz or Mr Beveridge’s Maggot. ”

If a Regency woman refuses a man to dance, she has to sit there dancing and move on. “You can dance with someone terrible, or not dance at all,” says Charlotte. Can’t imagine dancing. That’s why so much material includes women dancing with men they don’t like. “And if you’re bored with your partner, you can’t show it,” says Martin Souter, 58.

Fortunately, Martin proved to be an entertainment partner for our Waltz, but for the sake of his poor, limp legs, it was time for me to grab my hat and go. My carriage is waiting… my carriage back to London and the 2020s.

See baththeatrical.com and janeausten.co.uk. Bridgerton is streaming on Netflix