Gilded Age Horseback Dining

The guests were notified to arrive at Sherry's at eight o'clock the next day, their dress code jodhpurs, boots, and formal jackets.  
—Public domain image of the famous stag party on horseback 

A BLACK-TIE DINNER ON HORSEBACK

Millionaire C. K. G. Billings, a New York sportsman and “regular fellow,” became president of the exclusive New York Riding Club in the autumn of 1900 and issued invitations to a stag dinner for members at his medieval castle on Riverside Drive. Alas, the newspapers published rumors of the upcoming dinner, and the irked Billings appealed to restaurateur Louis Sherry. “This notoriety is driving me mad!” he exclaimed. “Reporters are bothering the life out of me. . . . What can we do about it?”

“Leave it to me,” replied Sherry. “Give me carte blanche, and we'll fool the papers as they've never been fooled before.” The guests were notified to arrive at Sherry's at eight o'clock the next day, their dress code jodhpurs, boots, and formal jackets. 

On arrival at Sherry’s at Fifth Avenue and Forty-Fourth Street, they found Sherry’s ballroom converted to a twilight woodland garden where a circle of fine horses were hitched, each one saddled and ready to be mounted. (The horses were brought up earlier on a freight elevator.) The waiters, dressed as grooms in scarlet coats and white breeches, scurried about to serve each guest on a tray affixed to his saddle. 

Two saddle-bags hung from each horse’s flanks, the contents iced champagne to be sipped from rubber tubes. The guests feasted on trout with green sauce. Each horse was provided with a feedbag of oats to chomp on as well. Total cost: about $50,000 (or $1.28 million in today's dollars). — From “What Would Mrs. Astor Do?,” 2018

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia 

Gilded Age Bathing Fashion

Larking about with a “ride” on the beach, two young women in their proper sea bathing attire.— Manners, Culture and Dress of the Best American Society detailed the fabric and shape of the garment, which “should be made of flannel.” A “gray tint” was advisable because “it does not soon fade and grow ugly from contact with salt water.” The “best” style was either a “loose sacque” or “yoke waist.” The dress was belted at the waist, and the skirt reached “mid way between the knee and the ankle.”

- Image source, Etiquipedia private image library

At the Newport shoreline, Bailey’s Beach offered “a dip in the sea at the society bathing grounds on which the public were not permitted to trespass.” Guarded by a low wall, Bailey’s Beach, according to May Van Rensselaer, was "the favorite bathing beach of the fashionable world" Elizabeth Lehr called it “Newport's most exclusive club. A syndicate called the Spouting Rock Beach Association (aka Bailey’s Beach,) purchased the beach in the little cove in 1896, having constructed one hundred new oceanfront bathhouses and a pavilion was guarded by a “watchman in his gold-laced uniform” who “protected its sanctity from all interlopers” (“He knew every carriage on sight, fixed newcomers with an eagle eye, swooped down upon them and demanded their names.”) Those who did not have proper credentials were dispatched to Easton's Beach, "the Common Beach," as the habitués of Bailey's were wont to call it.

Some few ventured to swim, but a lady's bathing costume, when wet, almost nullified the effort. The apparel for Bailey's Beach (or any seashore of the Gilded Age) was better termed a “bathing dress.” Manners, Culture and Dress of the Best American Society detailed the fabric and shape of the garment, which “should be made of flannel.” A “gray tint” was advisable because “it does not soon fade and grow ugly from contact with salt water.” The “best” style was either a “loose sacque” or “yoke waist.” The dress was belted at the waist, and the skirt reached “mid way between the knee and the ankle.” Beneath this dress were “full trowsers” with the pant legs “gathered” into bands at each ankle. An “oilskin cap” was suggested “to protect the hair, which becomes harsh in salt water.” A pair of “socks the color of the dress complete the costume.” — From Cecelia Tichi, in “What Would Mrs. Astor Do?” 2018

Etiquette Enthusiast, Maura J. Graber, is the Site Editor for the Etiquipedia© Etiquette Encyclopedia