Definition of "toilette"

No such very great degree of genius can be displayed in the rest of the toilette. The dress has been chosen—it fits you à ravir—it has simply to be put on with mathematical accuracy: but the bonnet is the triumph of taste,—you must exert your intellect,—your destiny is in your own hands.

1831, L[etitia] E[lizabeth] L[andon], chapter XXIII, in Romance and Reality. […], volume I, London: Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley, […], page 291

He was elaborately attired. He would ogle the ladies who came to lionise the university, and passed before him on the arms of happy gownsmen, and give his opinion upon their personal charms, or their toilettes, with the gravity of a critic whose experience entitled him to speak with authority.

1848 November – 1850 December, William Makepeace Thackeray, chapter 19, in The History of Pendennis. […], volumes (please specify |volume=I or II), London: Bradbury and Evans, […], published 1849–1850

It is so painful in you, Celia, that you will look at human beings as if they were merely animals with a toilette, and never see the great soul in a man's face.

1871, George Eliot [pseudonym; Mary Ann Evans], chapter I, in Middlemarch […], volume I, Edinburgh, London: William Blackwood and Sons, book I, page 25