drapery miss, n. — Green’s Dictionary of Slang

drapery miss n.

also bit of drapery

[defined by Lord Byron, who heard it in 1811, as ‘a pretty, a high-born, a fashionable young female, well-instructed by her friends, and furnished by her milliner with a wardrobe upon credit, to be repaid, when married, by her husband’]

a woman who is considered sexually forward and who emphasizes her appeal by a flashy style of dress.

1823		Byron Don Juan canto XI line 385: The milliners who furnish ‘drapery Misses’ [...] upon speculation Of payment ere the honeymoon’s last kisses.
1823		New Mthly Mag. 382: How many would acknowledge the convenience to a ‘drapery Miss,’ when far past her teens, of hiring a set of teeth by the ball-night!
1834		Spirit of Chambers Jrnl 96: The most undesigning girl, like the above poor man, feels in their presence as if she were liable to be construed into an absolute ‘drapery miss’.
1837		Southern Lit. Messenger Apr. 257/2: But they were copied, and the copies of copies have been so multiplied, that we are as familiar with them as with the picture of the dandy, the exquisite, the lounger, the real gentleman, the drapery miss, the humble friend, the starched old maid [etc.].
1886		Poor Law Mag. 14 384: Clearly a husband need no longer feel alarm for that peril of matrimony pointed out, inter alia, in ‘Don Juan,’ of requiring to pay to milliners the cost of that outfit of a ‘drapery miss’ that had been provided to inveigle him or such as he.
1905		Sporting Times 20 May 1/5: It was hard lines to see his legitimate bit of drapery flirting with a friend.
1909		J. Ware Passing Eng. of the Victorian Era 117/1: Drapery Miss (Com. Class). A girl of doubtful character, who dresses in a striking manner. Libellous generally.