Originally posted in substantially similar form on February 11, 2011, at Historical Fancy Dress.
As can be seen from my other posts about fancy dress and masquerade balls, newspapers from the eighteenth century well into the twentieth often published lists of the costumes worn by the guests. The lists were often provided in advance of the actual event, so it's possible not all of the costumes worked out, as anyone who's ever tried to finish a costume at the last minute before a ball will understand.
The costumes were evidently more important than the dancing; while lists of outfits are routine in these writeups, full dance programs are rare and any information at all is not very common. This apparently held true even halfway around the world. The excerpts and costume lists below are from a fancy dress ball held by British expatriates in Singapore (!) in 1884. The sole mention of dancing is the opening quadrille.
From the description of the ball itself:
On Thursday evening, the Fancy Dress Ball, which for some time past had been looked forward to, took place at the Town Hall. The upper room is well known to all visitors as being one of the handsomest in the Far East. On the present occasion it was simply and tastefully decorated, in a manner which was well adapted to enhance the architectural features of the building. The result was such as might have been expected from the interest evinced by the fairer portion of the community, and the skill and attention they bestowed upon their costumes, which contributed so materially to the success of the entertainment. One could not fail to notice, among the many handsome dresses, that there were several in the disposal and arrangement of which the fair owners displayed an intimate and correct knowledge of true artistic and aesthetic principles. The style of the costumes was exceedingly diversified, some being of a purely classic type and thus pertaining to the tragic, while there were some which were the representatives of comedy, and others again which successively adopted comic character.
The general effeect [sic] of the intermingling of these many and varied styles and colors, whether seen in the Hall itself or viewed from the gallery above, furnished a spectacle not only charming to the eye, but one which those who witnessed it, will not readily forget...
...Dancing commenced shortly after nine with an opening quadrille which extended the entire length of the Hall. The floor was in excellent condition, and the music was performed by the Regimental Band of the Royal Inniskilling Fusiliers. It is no wonder that these and other attractions rendered the visitors loth [sic] to part, and prolonged the dancing after supper far into the small hours. At what precise time the company would have separated it is difficult to determine, as dancing only stopped upon the Band playing the National Anthem.
The article was published in the Singapore newspaper Strait Times Weekly on February 23, 1884. It may be found online at the website of the National Library of Singapore.
In looking through the lists of costumes, some of the trends were the obvious, perennial ones: historical costumes of the previous few centuries, characters from plays, and national/ethnic costumes of various kinds. Classic fancy dress costumes such as Harlequin and Folly were also represented. More unusual examples were the gentlemen attending as "Bat", "Paint Box", and "Triple Alliance" and the lady depicting "Economy." There were also a few cop-outs: "Civil Service Uniform" and "Evening dress, 19th century" suggest that not all the attendees made any special effort at costuming. The unusual disparity in numbers, with substantially more gentlemen listed than ladies, probably reflects the balance of the sexes in a distant colonial posting of that era. One wonders if that led the gentlemen to go to some extra effort in their costuming!
While some couples may have coordinated costumes -- the Cavalier and the Lady of the 17th century appear to have been husband and wife -- it seems to have actually been more common for the costumes not to have matched: Ralph Rackstraw with Follie, Peasant of the Black Forest with Persian Lady, and so forth.
Following are the lists of costumes, reformatted to separate the ladies' and gentlemen's costumes and with the names of the wearers omitted to save space:
Ladies' costumes
Ancient Greek costume
Gook [sic] Luck
Spanish Lady
Spanish costume
A gipsy
Fortune-teller
Union Jack of old England
Merveilleuse (Directoire)
Lady of the 17th century
A Gipsy
Ophelia
Evening dress, 19th century
French peasant
Italian minstrel
A Mih-no-loong
Lady of 19th century
Queen of Hearts
Venetian Fish Girl
Spanish lady
Hindoo lady
Italian girl
Rachel the gleaner
Lady of 18th century
Duchess of Joyeuse, 1581
Shepherdes [sic]
Follie
Fairy Queen in “Iolanthe”
Poudré
Spring
Undergraduate
Student
Persian Lady
Bernese (Swiss) Peasant costume
Helvetia
Fair Maid of Perth
Circassian lady
Gitana
Economy
An old fashioned girl
Court lady in the reign of Henry IV of France
Gentlemen's costumes
d’Artagnan
Dublin uniform
Canadian skater
Kadak Singh
Siamese gentleman
Musketeer of the end of the 17th century
Pitchley huntman
Joe Lacy
Gentleman of the 19th century
Court dress
Ingomar
An Arab
An Albanian
Bat
Costume à la dragonne
School-boy
Court dress, of 1760
Gentleman of Venice of 15th century
Court dress early in the nineteenth century
The Mahdi, Sultan of Kordofan, &c.
Charles Surface
Gentleman of the 17th century
Uniform of Grenadier company in 1751
Little Jack Horner
Golden Sprite
Cavalier
The Bailie (les Cloches de Corneville)
The Ancient Masher
Triple Alliance
Robin Hood
Neapolitan sailor
Paint box
Patissier (French cook)
Pekin
Page of the 16th century
Windsor Uniform
King of Diamonds
Italian nobleman of 1530
Matador
Magpie
D’Oricourt, in the “Belle’s Strategem,” time 1780
Huguenot from “The Huguenots”
costume à la dragonne
Brother Jonathan
Spanish gipsy
Windsor uniform
Old Jinks
Albanian fisherman
Highland costume
Gentleman of the 17th century
Page to Henri of Navarre
Philip II of Spain
Russian gentleman of the 17th century
Ralph Rackstraw
Silver sprite
Brewer’s drayman
Harlequin
Gentleman of the last century
Sergeant Ballantyne
Norwegian nobleman
Major Read, Loyal Singapore Invnicibles [sic]
Knight of Malta
Arab gentleman
Civil Service Uniform
Henri of Navarre
Peasant of the Black Forest
Irishman
Fra Diavolo
Old Flemish gentleman
British tar
Masonic Knight Templar
A Jockey
Old Style
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