James Gillray (1756-1815) was an English caricaturist known for his satirical and daring cartoons, lampooning politicians, the aristocracy and society at large during the volatile and exciting Age of Revolution. He was himself something of a revolutionary, turning his pen on his subjects with a freedom and grotesqueness that was unprecedented and, in doing so, helping to shape popular opinion.

Like many artists, however, he was primarily motivated by commercial interests and the particular needs of those who commissioned him. Private customers would very often wish only to be amused and for prints, when hand coloured, to look attractive in portfolios and on the walls of less grand rooms of houses, coffee houses and pubs.

Following the Fashion (1794) is an example of such an irreverent and risqué poke at everyday culture. It satirizes the figure-type which was most flattered by the newly popular high-waisted dresses. It also mocks the perception that the lowly class of merchants and their families, associated with the Cheapside district of London (on the right), unsuccessfully copied the on-trend aristocracy associated with the St. James’ district (on the left). In the captions “giving the TON”, was a colloquial phrase for setting the style, and Gillray also plays on the word “body” to mean both a soul without a bodice in the case of the woman on the left and, more disparagingly, an actual body without a soul on the right.

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