These are the kinds of dresses that Katy and Mrs Ashe would have bought from Worth when they were in Paris.īut I am getting ahead of myself. There are other novels in the series, concerning Katy’s siblings and their adventures in life, but they’re not as strong. I used to trace them from a book of fashion history onto kitchen paper when I was a little girl, and spent days in the summer holidays lying outdoors on the grass colouring them in. His parents worked for the fashion trade, and he specialised in portraits of parties in the later years of the 19th century, where the dresses are the focus: ruched, frilled, spotted, draped, gored, sweeping, acres and acres of fabric and trimmings, they’re just glorious. Think of the paintings of James Tissot, the French painter who worked mainly from Britain, who is most famous for his paintings of society ladies in wonderful dresses. The origins of my love of 19th-century fiction lie in the frocks.

You can also listen to the original podcast on Susan Coolidge and the What Katy Did books (1872, 1873, 1886) James Tissot, ‘The Gallery of HMS Calcutta (Portsmouth)’, 1870 This is another repost from the vaults of Why I Really Like This Book, a round-up of three books I reread addictively all through my childhood and early twenties.

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