Samuel Pepys was a secret fashionista! Famous English diarist had a ‘guilty pleasure’ for chic French clothes, research reveals

He is one of England’s most famous diarists, but Samuel Pepys had a secret love of French fashion, new research has revealed.

According to a Cambridge University academic, luxury garments were the diarist’s “guilty pleasure,” citing a collection of French fashion prints he owned.

But at a time when the English were in a ‘moral crisis’ over the influence of French culture, Pepys was ‘internally conflicted’ over his love of the Parisian style.

Pepys (1633-1703), the son of a tailor, was a famous English diarist who served as a director of the Royal Navy and a Member of Parliament.

But his famous diary reveals him as a corrupt official and a serial seducer – even a sex offender by modern standards.

The new study, which publishes eight of Pepys’ fashion prints for the first time, was conducted by Marlo Avidon, a historian and PhD candidate at the University of Cambridge.

‘There were certainly hints in the diary that Pepys was interested in French dress, although this fascination has never been the subject of specific study,’ she told MailOnline.

‘He described in the diary several instances of acquaintances returning from a trip to France with an affected manner of speech, behavior and appearance. He even called one of them “an absolute monsieur”.’

Most of what we know about Pepys comes from the diary he kept for nearly ten years, from 1660 to 1669, when he was in his late twenties and early thirties.

He wrote about everything from his sexual experiences with women to Parmesan cheese and the Great Fire of London, which he witnessed with his own eyes.

But the fact that he stopped keeping his diary in 1669 – for fear of losing his eyesight – means that we know relatively little about the second half of his life.

During this later period, Pepys rose to the position of Chief Secretary to the Admiralty in 1673 and was first elected a Member of Parliament in 1679.

To find out more, Mrs Avidon studied Pepys’ private collection of fashion prints in the Pepys Library at Magdalene College, Cambridge, where Pepys studied.

The etchings were printed between 1670 and 1696 and suggest that the owner was a lover of lace cuffs, ribbons and elaborate accessories including masks, wigs and fans.

“Because his poor eyesight made it impossible to keep the diary, the prints suggest that he remained fascinated by current trends,” Ms. Avidon said.

‘They represent a visual continuation of his writings, and are evidence of his upward mobility and continuing interests.’

Pepys never got rid of concerns about inappropriate dress, fashion blunders and the moral dilemma of wearing designs imported from France, Mrs Avidon claims. Yet he had ‘some conflicting feelings about these styles’.

At the time, French clothing was often considered scandalously lavish in England, as the clothes combined luxurious silks with exaggerated embellishments and lace.

‘There were concerns about the relationship Charles II was developing with the Catholic French king Louis XIV and about the growing French influence on English culture,’ she added.

A print from Pepys’s collection shows a female model wearing a black mask and negligee, probably similar to an outfit he bought for his wife Elizabeth (her father was French).

Another photo shows a model wearing an ornate riding suit, a feathered hat and holding a riding crop.

Another painting shows a woman in winter clothing, including a tall ‘fontage’ headdress, named after one of Louis XIV’s mistresses.

There are already some references to pleated dresses in his diary, which Mrs. Avidon has linked to some of the garments depicted in the fashion prints.

In 1669, Pepys wrote that he was ‘afraid to be seen’ in a summer suit he had just bought ‘because it was too pretty with the gold lace on the hands’.

Eventually he dared to wear it in public, but a colleague of higher social standing saw him in the park and told him the sleeves were above his station.

Pepys resolved ‘never to appear in court with the sleeves’ and had them cut off by a tailor, ‘as they should be’.

He then purchased a print entitled ‘Habit Noir’ (Evening Wear) which shows a French elite man proudly displaying his very similar lace cuffs and dangling ribbons.

Pepys also described an occasion when he went with Elizabeth to a shop in Covent Garden known for selling French accessories and run by a family called the Cherett’s.

‘What we can gather from Pepys’s writings is that he had an ongoing relationship with a number of French merchants, who sent him prints and items of clothing for him and his wife Elizabeth,’ Avidon told MailOnline.

‘A particularly notable moment in the diary is when his wife wears her new French dress, a “sac”, which Pepys finds incredibly flattering.’

Sadly, Elizabeth died in 1669, at the age of 29, shortly before Pepys began collecting his fashion prints.

References in Pepys’s diary suggest that Elizabeth herself was interested in prints, and Mrs Avidon believes that she influenced what Pepys later collected.

After her death, Pepys quickly took on a teenage housekeeper, Mary Skinner, who soon became his mistress. He never remarried, however, and died in 1703 at the age of 70.

In 2024 it will be 300 years since Magdalene College acquired Pepys’ private library, including his original diaries.

The research was published today in the journal The seventeenth century.