“Is there a very great difference between the French and English fashions? That is not the question that must be proposed. But can there be a great difference between the French and English fashions? There is the question that will be admitted for proposition; there is what we must resolve.
“Between two nations as perfectly rivaled as ours and that of the English, between two nations which have their eyes constantly fixed on each other, which spy on each other with much attention, whether for imitation or applause or censure, which also makes a mutual exchange of commercial objects, morals, opinion, and manners; between two nations, in a word, whose nearest vicinity forces them to a sort of habitual society, it is impossible that there would be a great difference in their dress, in their fashions. There can only be variations …”
Le Magasin des Modes, December 30, 1786
Mimic of Modes 