Napoleon's War on Muslin: Fashion, Politics, and the Continental Blockade

After the French Revolution, fashionable young women adopted muslin dresses inspired by ancient Greek and Roman simplicity, rejecting the opulent silks of the Ancien Régime. This Empire style (Regency in England) featured high-waisted, gathered gowns of fine soft fabric. Muslin, a cotton cloth originating in northern India and traded since antiquity, was imported from England, which controlled the trade. Napoleon, who had closed French ports to English goods via the Continental Blockade, saw this as a threat to France's textile industry. He famously tore or spoiled muslin dresses worn by Empress Josephine and his step-daughter Hortense, reportedly dousing them with coffee, and banned the fabric at court. He required formal dress of silks and velvets, primarily from Lyon, to revive French manufacturing. In a separate incident in Egypt, Napoleon spilled a drink on an officer's wife's dress as a seductive ploy.