Sans-culottes, but not sans Style

Tell me, how do you picture the dress of those in Revolutionary France? Ragged members of the mob? Jacobins in torn shirts? Cold-eyed Robespierre imitators in eyeglasses and tight coats? The Scarlet Pimpernel in disguise?

Perhaps you are right. But the French Revolution saw a change of many things, in line with rational principles. A new calendar, free of the names of the past. The metric system, the same system of measures across France. The Rights of Man.

Behold then, the rationally dressed man.

Thank you, Wikipedia.

This is the costume of a member of the Council of Ancients as formed by the Constitution of the Year Three. This was the Upper House; the Council of Five Hundred, the lower, didn't look dissimilar. Take in the heavy, tall hat with its plume; the immense sash, the red pseudo-Grecian cloak. It really is something.

Bonaparte's Coup of the 18 Brumaire. Slightly less detail here.

Whilst the Constitution does not per se go into details of the costume, it is clear that a legislators uniform will be worn.

Article 165:

The members of the Directory, when engaged in the exercise of their functions, whether upon the outside or within the interior of their residences, can appear only in the costume which is appropriate for them.

Article 369: 

The members of the legislative body and all the public functionaries wear in the discharge of their functions the costume or symbol of the authority with which they are invested: the law determines the form thereof.

The picture of revolutionary fervour.

I have made mock, but this was a serious issue: an invocation of a new way of life for lawmakers, an obvious sign of their position - a clear break also with the fashions of the old regime. There will be no display of status by legislators, for they will all be dressed alike.

There was even conflict over the uniform: I understand from this chap that the uniforms were meant to be of purely French manufacture. When it emerges that some were not, they were seized by a local governor.

I'm not sure these uniforms were ever that prevalent (even given the changes wrought to the French Republic by Napoleon). They don't seem to have worked their way into the popular consciousness or the elite self-image of the legislators themselves.

Nevertheless, the above is worth considering. If depicting a Revolution in surroundings or with features like that of 1789, Che Guevara-style 'men of the people' in drab khaki or boiler suits may not be the image that should come to mind. There's no reason the new order can't look good.