#20 - The Gilded Age/Belle Epoque

Hi,
I know it's been a long time since the last class.  This happened because
1) I got a new job where I had to learn lots of stuff really quickly and
2) I HATE the Victorians.

In fact, I hate the Victorians so much that I did almost everything on the list below to avoid talking about them.

Believe me when I say I WISHED I could have been a Delagator!

Yeah, anyway, six months (and Christmas) later, I realized (today) that I could just skip them!  Move on and pretend it never happened!  Yay!

Yeah, I get it.  Not an impressive excuse.

So, by way of apology, let's start with the interesting stuff... underwear!

If you recall, the Industrial Revolution was in full swing and neat machine-made corsets let everyone compress their inards into facinating new shapes.   Well, 1860 is around the time all this industry really kicked into high-gear.  According to Wikipedia, "From 1860 to 1890, 500,000 patents were issued for new inventions—over ten times the number issued in the previous seventy years."

All sorts of amazing facinating stuff was being made and invented, and more importantly, implemented into the lives of everyone.  By the end of the century folks had electricity in their homes for the first time ever.  There wasn't a lot of war going on (well, in Europe.  There was that Civil War here at home, ) and so there was time and resources and faith in the future and technology.   In fact, the years 1870 - 1814 have their own name.   They are called Belle Epoque in France and The Gilded Age in the U.S.

 [As a side-note, the phrase The Gilded Age is actually the title of a book written by Mark Twain and Charles Dudly Warner.  You will not be surprised to learn that it is satirical.  Twain called it a gilded age because there was all sorts of poverty and suffering by immigrants and folks in the South that was happening and no one paid attention.  "Gilding" is when you put gold leaf over something dark and cheap to make it look pretty.  The phrase immediately took off.]

In Britan the Edwardian era is roughly in this timeframe though Victoria didn't die till almost 1900.  These years are exciting because this is when we got the Eiffel Tower, Art Noveau,  Impressionist and Expressionist painting, railroads and telephones, automobiles and motorcycles, airplanes, and the beginning of things like women's suffrage (go Susan B!) and temperance movements.  We also got Impressionist music and dudes like Chopin and Debussy.   Since I like Debussy, here is a sample:

Another important thing is the world-wide expansion of trade, and more specifically, trade with Japan, which had been closed to the Western world for 200 years.  Japan opened in 1850 and soon the influence of it's art (ceramics, wood block prints, painted screens), furniture, and fashions (specifically textiles and the shape of kimono) began to leech into Western thought.  This process has been labeled Japonism and it's the reason Toulouse-Lautrec made posters which looked like this:

instead of this:

Though, there may have been other reasons.

He may have been slightly obsessed.  He was also pretty silly.

ANYWAY, what does this have to do with underwear?   Well, let's talk about those corset things.

"Remember me?"

There was a lot of discussion by the 1860's about corsets.  It is actually called the Corset Controversy or sometimes "the corset question."  There were all sorts of arguments for and against tight-laced corsets

With exciting infographics!  These armless skeleton ladies are totally gonna FIGHT!

but women kept wearing them all the same.   Really, it was a no-win situation for women.   Everyone, from preachers to fashion magazines told them that tight-laced corsets were terrible for you and made you vain (and therefore morally corrupt) but then you were told that to be acceptable you had to look like this:

Clearly, this is pure evil.

"Are you wearing  corset?" "Who me? No!  I totally just look like this normally!
By the way, what two-year old did you steal your feet from? So tiny!"

There was literally no way to look like a semi-normal human woman and not wear a corset.  (Today's equvalent would be to simply refuse to wear any form of bra.  Ever.  At all.  Go ahead and imagine that.  Then know that people would say things, though not necessarily to your face.)

 So tight-lacing continued and skirt silouttes shifted from bell-shaped

to sort-of pulled back

to not as much stuff to pull back

This is the dress one would wear to the beach.  No, I'm totally not kidding.
Try looking at tide pools in this get-up. 

to just really stinking tight.

Though still pretty because I love plaid!

Anyway, with all this, corsets got longer in the torso, covering the hip.   At the time, the front of corsets were equipped with a "spoon busk",  which was made of metal.  The busk was still pretty new in the development of corsets.  It is metal fastenings on the front of the corset that let you put it on yourself rather than pulling it over your head and making someone else lace you tight. The spoon busk made a curved shape that controled the front of the corset, bringing your waist in and then making sure all your insides didn't pooch out below it in an "unattractive" manner.

Well, well-intentioned corset engineers designed the straight-busk corset, or the "Health Corset."  The idea was, if they got rid of the spoon shape, it would be healthier and better for the wearer.  Sounds awesome, right?

Wrong

Women took the health corset and tight-laced that sucker, which gave them the S-curve posture.  This, to me, looks really dumb, and worse for you than the previous corseting.

Do you mean I get to be smug and rude to folks who don't look like me? This is some compelling advertising! 

All your friends are doing it!

And that one girl looks AMAZING!

What's NOT super stylish about having to carry a walking stick with you so you don't fall over?
(..though holding yourselfl up with furniture works, too.)

So, straight busk corsets and S-curves are now the thing, no matter what anyone says about it.  There are a couple interesting things about this, though.  First is the extreme emphasis on the backside.  This bottoms-out posture started with bustles but now is supposed to be the woman's actual bum.  This back-curving extreme position reminds me of something we see these days.  What is it.. hmm... let me think...

Oh yeah!  Now I remember!  It's the same weird pose that women do when they are being decorative objects in front of stuff folks are trying to sell!  Both of these models are holding on to the motorcycle just to stay upright, (though the female is better at it.  Perhaps if the gentleman had worn higher heels?) just like the lady in the picture before!  So hyper-sexualization is what tight-laced S-curve straight-busk corsets brought to fashion.  And, really, you shouldn't be surprised because reproduction and decorative capabilities were a woman's primary role.  In fact, menopause was seen as a mental defect and a sign of moral degredation at the time, never mind it's just a normal biological process. I mean, who WOULDN'T want to be 85 years old and pregnant? (Did I mention that I hate Victorians?  'Cause I really really do.)

The other odd thing is the mono-bosom, or the pidgeon-breast, or, basically, the really weird way everyone's chest looked.

Super weird.

I really have done some research over the past 6 months and I haven't been able to find one solid reason for why this look happened.  The closest thing I could suss out was about Prince Edward's sexual preferences.  He was a wild partier (you would be, too, if your mom was Queen Victoria) and he liked heavy older women.

"Hi!  I'm an Edwardian super-hottie!"

So, heavy large full matronly breasts were preferred.  None of that young-looking stuff, please.  No thank you.  If you don't look like you've had six kids, we don't want ya.

"Done!"

The look also didn't want anyone even thinking that there were two actual breasts.  Yuck.  No, better to have them all compressed and pushed down low to the middle, right above your tiny freakish waist.  That's WAY hotter!

Is that a mangled Buzz Lightyear doll on the step in front of her?  What sort of time-traveling freak is she??

Obviously, actual people aren't shaped this way, or, at least a small percentage of them are.  This heavy look is particularlly tricky for young women to achieve.  So, naturally, solutions were found. One could put ruffles on your dress

or lace

or LOTS of lace

Totally works!

or lots of beaded fringe

or beaded anything, really.

For everyday wear you could just pouf your shirt

though for the tragically perky, there were sterner measures.

Apparently, if all else failed, you could also go with just super creepy.

Anyway, that's underwear up to about 1900's.  Weird, huh?

ALERT!
I apologize but there has been a change.  It seems I totally missed the fact that the pidgeon breasted shape was THE ideal shape for Victorian men in the 1840's.  In a time when women were wanting to vote and ride bicycles in public, the assumption of a masculine but outdated men's sillouhette is not surprising.  Sorry for the incorrect guess.

Well, let's get back to Japan.   We were getting influenced by them artistically, and they were influenced by us as well.  Traditionally, Japanese women's kimono was pretty unconcerned with the bust of their dresses.

"Whew, it's hot today!"

"Seriously.  I'm melting here."

At the time, everyone could go topless, including women because, well, why not?  Whatever.  However, when the Western women started showing up the Japanese women saw their dresses and thought "They're wearing a dress, I am wearing  dress, what's the difference?"

"Well, besides our totally awesome shoes..."

What happened was the bustlines of kimono got a little pouf over the obi, just so they could look pidgeon-breasted like the white ladies.  This look continues to this day.

Anyway, I'm mostly done.   But, before I go, you might be asking, "What did men wear for 50 years?"

"Oh, you know.  Man stuff..."

"More specifically, AWESOME man stuff, yo!"

"My hat is the ONLY hat allowed at formal events."

"We're cowboys and don't go in much for formal events.  However Ralph here
does really like his doll."

"I'm Prince Albert and I approve all this man stuff... including the doll. I am also wearing a corset."

"We just got married and we are really happy.  For reals."

"I don't know what it is, honey.  The doctor just said it was 'mouse-clicker finger'.
What do mice have to do with anything?"

If you will notice, the dudes in the bottom two photographs are wearing clothing that looks modern. This is because only tiny details have changed in menswear for a long time.  More on that next time.  For now, though, here's a test!

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1AsWQvGADlTU4pozCU3slA_xyATeD8yKcLp4uXhUIAWg/viewform