#18 - ... And Life Goes On...

Napoleon: the very definition of tastefully understated

Well, the French Revolution was fun and everything but as France went back to monarchy and everything mostly went back to the way it had been before, see-through dresses, as you might imagine, went out of vogue.  Fabrics became thicker and shapes became more rigid.   It became standard for women to wear dresses during the day which covered them from neck to wrist to ankle, reserving short sleeves and open necklines for evening gowns.

Men, on the other hand, began to strive to look somber, sober, and immaculate.  This was done by eschewing color, whimsy, peacock-y displays of embroider or jewels, and making sure his linens were fresh, white, and starched to a perfect crispiness.   I have already mentioned Beau Brummell, who was the first celebrity to be famous for simply being famous, and who was the pioneer of the dandy aesthetic.  So he, very certainly, was a huge influence on the trousers, quiet colors, and subtle details menswear is still judged by today.

But another element in men and women's wear is the idea of egalitarianism.   The middle class was growing larger, the rights of man were known to all, and the heretofore rigid class levels of Europe were beginning to slip a little.   Far better for the rich to embrace quiet somber respectable clothing and express their financial superiority in subtle quality rather than in flashy displays of wealth (which call into focus the vast differences in status.)  I mean, if you can dress like everyone else but just look better, thanks to your money, then that means you appear to simply be a superior person, right?  Like you were just born better?

"Obviously."

So that's how things were.  Let's look at some stuff.

So, by the 1810's we were here.  Waistline right under the bust but very definately not any visible breasts.  The top dress has a kerchief at the neckline.

This day dress from 1802 has a kerchief OVER the neckline.

I didn't mention it before, but during the height of the Regency/Empire style, the ladies here in the States did not go around with visible breasts.  They wore the same styles but just wrapped and tucked kerchiefs into the necklines to cover up.

Well, what happened next?  Let's see:

Surprisingly, one buttons this fancy-work Spencer in the back.

Check out the padded hem.  It's there to keep the skirt down
and in a pefectly rigid cone-shape.

And that, my friends, is how one puts lace on a hem.

This is a dress in the Hussar style, which means the front details are inspired by
the designs of military uniforms.

This is obviously a court robe (a dress worn at the royal courts.) You can tell 'cause it has a train.

Seashell ruffle insets AND a padded hem!  That skirt has it all!

By the 1820s, the waistline had dropped, with belts defining it, skirts were simpler and more cone-shaped, and puffy sleeves got their start.   As you can see, stuff started getting more ornate and fussy, with lots of shmancy details and ruffles and embroider, though all of them in the same color and pretty subtle.

"Hi Ho, Hi Ho, Dummies swing their arms like so..."

This dress is from the 1820's and the silk STILL looks fantastic!  Go arsenic-based dyes!

I believe this is actually the dress Cinderella was trying to make in the Disney movie...

Mmmm.... nothing says mid 1820's like a giant tippett/cape at your neck...

By the late 1820's waistlines dropped even more and the huge puffy sleeves and skirt which would dictate the rest of the century began to really take off.  In fact, by the 1830s, the sillouette was so puffy on top and on bottom

When you can't get enough tippett/capelet, just make the
ENTIRE FRONT OF YOUR BODICE a cape! Yay!

"Look at my eyes when I'm talking... oh.  Yeah, I guess I don't have eyes..."

Pink AND a capelet!

Enormously puffy sleeves in stealth mode.  Please note that there is also
a sheer silk overskirt which you can't see unless you look for the double
padded hem at the bottom of the dress.  Super sneaky!

that we are practically back at Tudor levels of puffiness.

"As is only right because we, My Royal Highness, are FANTASTIC!"

Well, similar puffy but with a key difference.   The waists of the 1830's are still pretty high (and mostly not pointed) and the shoulders are more slumpy.    Which seems weird to say because those sleeves are so huge, one would think the shoulders are big, too.

"Stare into my crooked eyes and pay no attention to my freakish banana feet...."

Well, that thinking would be wrong.  As these fashion plates demonstrate, the ideal sillouette for the 1830's doesn't have stand-up shoulders.  It has huge puffy sleeves (which were filled with pillows to keep them puffy), slumpy shoulders, and a horrifyingly tiny waist.

That's right, ladies and gentlemen, Queen Victoria is on the throne

"Heck yeah I am! For the next 63 years! Holla!"

and we have officially entered the age of the tight-laced CORSET!!!

"I say, old chap, perchance are you wearing a corset as tight as mine under your greatcoat?"
"Of course I am, you rapscallion!  I am incapable of supporting the weight of my own torso
without it! Now hold my hand."

Sigh.  Yes, even the men wore corsets.  Everyone wanted the hourglass shape.

This shape.

Right now "WHY?!" is the question you might be asking.   Men wore corsets because soldiers were required to, and as we have learned over and over, if military dudes wear something it won't be long before EVERYONE (male or female) wants to wear it, too.  Soldiers were required to corset because, when the corset is NOT tight-laced, it provides back support and helps the guys lift and throw cannon balls around without as many accidents.  And not being able to twist your torso, oddly, might be a benefit because then you can't do something stupid and twisty and rip your back out.

Also, if a man has a small waist, it makes his shoulders look bigger.  Most rich dudes spent their time managing their estates (doing paperwork in their study) in the mornings then wandering round for tea in the parlor in the afternoons.  (Well, unless they were officers in Her Majesty's Royal Armies and were attempting to colonize the natives.  Then they did paperwork in their tents and had tea outside.)  None of that makes someone look like this.

Which is a shame, really. 

And, bless their hearts, dudes kind of want to look like that because looking all puffy and muscled and bulky is a time-honored way to compete with other men.

See?  Two dudes competing = puffy.

This, so far, is the only reason I can come up with for jacked-up trucks and tight-laced corsets.  If you disagree or have other ideas, you may tell me about them on the test.

Anyway, that's men.  What about women?  They have been sporting the corset for years now.  Why the push for a small waist?   Well, in 1994 a study was done by Devendra Singh and Robert K. Young at the University of Texas at Austin where they had a bunch of college guys assess attractiveness of female torsos.  From they figured out that something called the Waist-To-Hip Ratio, (which means how small a woman's waist is compared to her hips) determines how attractive a woman is considered and also in a good indicator of fertility and lack of disease.

This was considered a cool idea filled with groovy facts and lots of popular articles were published on it.  When I considered the question of tight-lacing, this idea is what I thought of.

Well, thank goodness for Google because as I was researching the topic today, I found this study by Elizabeth Cashdan:

Waist To Hip Ratios Across Cultures: Trade-Offs Between Androgen- and Estrogen-Dependant Traits

And you can totally read that article if you have a library card with a university or want to pay eight dollars.   For everyone else, here's a neat article explaining Cashdan's research.   But, the basic gist is this - low WTH ratios (that's Waist-to-Hip not What The Heck) which look like this

are an indication of very much increased fertility and lack of disease.   High WTH ratios, which look like this:

indicates an increase of androgens, which are a group of hormones, and means the woman is stronger, has more stamina, and is better able to deal with stress.

According to Cashdan, the torso shape men prefer depends on what women are expected to do.  If a woman's only job is to sit around and have babies, then the low ratio is prefered.  If women are expcted to take care of themselves, find food for their families, or deal with massive amounts of stress, then the high ratio is awesome.  Sure, the woman without a waist isn't as fertile but it's probably an okay trade-off if it helps her survive a war, raise crops, or throw rocks at bears (or whatever).

Now, let's look again at what women wore during the French Revolution.

Yeah.  That's a pretty high waist-to-hip ratio.   Women fought in the revolution along with men, and the principles of equality for everyone were very much in vogue.

Thirty-ish years later women looked like this:

You might not know the morals of the Victorian era but given the extreme shape you probably won't be surprised to learn that women were considered delicate and were expected to have lots of babies -- and that's about it.  Queen Victoria had nine children herself, even though she hated being pregnant, thought babies were ugly, and viewed breast-feeding with disgust.

So the connection between social expecations for females and prefered sillouettes in historical fashion is NOT a study someone has done but I still think it's a cool idea to play around with.  Now go take a test!

TAKE YOUR TEST HERE!!!

#17 - REVOLUTION!!

The French Revolution that began in 1789 changed everything.   Well, everything in Europe, and fashion.   The American Revolution in 1776 didn't affect fashion all that much.  Maybe because no one in Europe cared about what sort of rags the colonies managed to dress themselves in.  Maybe because the Americas were busy building a nation and weren't so interested in changing fashion.   Probably because the folks in the states didn't overthrow a monarchy.  I mean, sure, we rejected unfair taxation and non-representational government, but there wasn't actually a king on U.S. soil.   The Declaration of Independence was just an expansion of the sense of social equality and the right to profit from one's own labor that was the backbone of Yankee culture.

The French, though, they overthrew the established monarchy of a major world power.  This was something totally different and exciting and inspiring.  Beethoven wrote a symphony about it.  (Here's a video if you want to listen to it while you read the rest of this post.)

The other cool thing about this time is that it all happened only about 225 years ago!  This is awesome because there are actual items of clothing from the period that we can look at!  With the Enlightenment the gentlemen scientist became a thing.  Dudes like Isaac Newton thought about physics and Franklin played with electricity, and everyone began thinking that maybe Copernicus was on to something with his non-heliocentric idea about the universe.  Folks started taking scientific voyages and the whole era was called the Scientific Revolution.  Well, the emergence of natural history as a thing meant that fashion also began to be collected and studied which leads me to the the largest book I own:

This seven pound book is filled with illustrations of clothing, silverware, hats, weapons, and anything else Auguste Racinet, the author, felt like drawing pictures of.  Here are some photos of the illustrations:

Now, let's contrast these images with some photographs of the clothing actually worn in this period:

Yup. It's that sheer in the bust.

And, yes, I am aware that these are all white dresses and there is no menswear or color
 but they are just so PRETTY!

So, Racinet had a lot of details correct.  But, he was drawing pictures of these clothes in the 1830s, which means his perception of what a human body is "supposed" to look like influenced all of his drawings.  This is called Historical Bias and is an example of Mark Twain's statement "The very ink with which history is written is merely fluid prejudice."  Here's a video explaining this idea:

So, that's all very Australian, but what does that mean for us?  Well, it is one of the reasons we try to go back to original sources when we study something.  You could read Darwin's theory of evolution, or you could read interpretations of what Darwin's theories are.  You could read the scriptures, or you could read interpretations of what people think the scriptures mean.   Anytime you move away from original sources, you leave a lot of room for historical or cultural bias, and this can really affect how you think about the idea, or if you even think about it at all.  So, now that we have clothing which has been preserved for us to actually see (original source) we can make our own determinations about it's function and filter the data through our own cultural bias.   (Because that's what this entire class really is - Susan's Fashion bias!)  For a long time we have been working from paintings and while this gives us some information, it's also like learning about what we wear by looking at fashion illustrations.

Our ancestors will be shocked to discover that none of us actually looked like this.

You also see a lot of bias in the costuming for movies.  Historical accuracy is all well and good but if the audience the film is made for would be appalled by the fashion and would get in the way of the viewer actually engaging with a character then the weird fashion has to go.

Modern hair, leather pants, a shocking lack of bulky furs, and a totally codpiece-free zone.

So, now that I have gotten my random commentary over with, let's begin to actually look at the styles that evolved.  If you will recall the painting at the beginning of this post

this one

you will notice that Lady Liberty there has kind of lost her shirt.  (Note: I have no idea why the dead guy in the lower left has lost his pants. And his shoes.  And a sock.)  This is, in part, because the French, in their revolution, began to idealise the Greeks with their democratic system of government, and women's fashion tried to reflect what they thought Greeks looked like

i.e. pretty naked.

There was also a push to be more natural (because of that whole scientific revolution) so breast feeding your OWN children became popular.  And you could even do it IN PUBLIC. (Prior to this, anyone who had any money at all paid someone else to breast feed her kids.)  Women's dresses right at the beginning of The Terror began to be basically a chemise, or chiton, and were usually pretty revealing in the bust area.

Yes, they would wear a slip under the lower half of this. Don't panic.

Bonus points for the women who could afford to dress in sheer fine muslin because it was even more Greek goddess-like.  This style might also have become popular because it mimicked the chemise that aristocratic women were stripped down to when in prison waiting for their heads to be chopped off.  But, most probably, it represented the discarding of all the trappings and side baskets and florid details of the old style and demonstrated how enlightened people dressed and thought and moved.

New style mocking Old Style

  The Wikipedia page about this era in fashion waxes eloquent over the social ramifications of this change:

Fashion in the period 1795–1820 in European and European-influenced countries saw the final triumph of undress or informal styles over thebrocades, lace, periwig, and powder of the earlier 18th century. In the aftermath of the French Revolution, no one wanted to appear to be a member of the French aristocracy, and people began using clothing more as a form of individual expression of the true-self than as a pure indication of social status.^[1] As a result, the shifts that occurred in fashion at the turn of the 19th century granted people the opportunity to present new public exterior identities that provided insights into their individual private selves. Katherine Aaslestad indicates how "...fashion, embodying new social values, emerged as a key site of confrontation between tradition and change."^[2] For women's dress, the day to day outfit of the skirt and jacket style were practical and tactful, recalling the working class woman.^[3] Women's fashions followed classical ideals, and tightly laced corsets were temporarily abandoned in favor of a high-waisted, natural figure.^[4] This natural figure was emphasized by being able to see the body beneath the clothing. Visible breasts were part of this classical look, and some characterized the breasts in fashion as solely aesthetic and sexual.^[5] In Britain, Beau Brummell introduced trousers, perfect tailoring, and unadorned, immaculate linen as the ideals of men's fashion. In Germany, republican city-states relinquished their traditional, modest, and practical garments and started to embrace the French and English fashion trends of short-sleeved chemise dresses and Spencer jackets.^[6] American fashion trends emulated French dress, but in a toned down manner with shawls and tunics to cope with the sheerness of the chemise.^[7] However, in Spain, members of the Aristocracy, as well as citizens of the lower class, united and rebelled against French enlightenment ideals and fashion by dressing as majas and majos to contain their Spanish pride.^[8]

So what did this look like?

Mom and servant girl are both draped in pashminas/shawls.
All of them are trying to not get their feet muddy by walking on the Paris streets

Well, women wore a lot of white.  Younger women in particular were encouraged to wear white or very light pastels.  Older women would wear darker colors but generally only as accessories or jackets.  The long-sleeved, high collar jackets worn over chemise after the initial explosion of the style in the early 1800's were called Spencer jackets, or just Spencers, and they were definately part of the daytime/outside look of every woman.

I have no idea why this mannequin was posed in a "I will cut you" style

High heel shoes became impossibly out-dated and made you look like an aristocrat, i.e. someone who wanted her head cut off.   Flats were the more natural, Grecian, not murder-inducing choice.

Also hugely popular at the time are shawls, or pashminas.  A finely woven woolen shawl with paisley or floral designs from India or the Near East could cost some serious money and were the pride and joy of the women who owned them.  They were used every day, all day, because they were basically wearing nightgowns and it was COLD, and it was not uncommon for a woman to pass down her shawl to her daughters.

Though I suppose she MIGHT give it to her son if he behaves..

The basic shape was a straight dress with a ribbon tied right under the bust.  This is called the Empire silhouette (pronounced "ahm-peer sil-lou-et") and is very distinctive.  It is called Empire because of Napoleon becoming Emperor of France and is associated with this time.  Meanwhile, in England, the king was old but his son was considered too young to become king, so the era became known as the Regency era.  But, let's go back to the French Revolution because I found this awesome video:

Seriously, I love those things.

Anyway, right at the beginning of this style women in France may also have worn a baby-bump pillow on their stomachs to make them look sort of pregnant, or like they were NOT starving like everyone else in France was.  You may remember this wanting-to-look-pregnant idea before, from the time right after the Black Death, as something that happens after a horrific number of people die.  It sort of makes sense  when you think about how the French killed 40,000 people via guillotine.   But, that was in France, poor dears, everyone else just wanted to look natural and lovely, connected to the working classes, intellectually connected to science and rights of man, and maybe to show off their chests a bit.

"Sounds good to me!"

What were men wearing?  Well!  Trousers to start with.  Breeches as a style start to fade, as does frivolous ornamentation, silks, giant waistcoats, coats that don't button, powdered hair, and not taking baths.  The tricorn and bicorn hats became less popular and the conical hat, which soon evolved into the top hat, was THE hat for the next century.

Men's coat also became either long great coats, or cut away tail coats, all with tall collars, and the waistcoats were usually double-breasted and had tall collars as well.

Cut-away tailcoat with long trousers

Grey greatcoat with brown velvet collar.

The most important thing about men's fashion in this time was an Englishman named Beau Brummell.  He pioneered the personal cleanliness and the ideals of fashion of the era and is the reason people take baths all the time.  So, basically,

And I'm bored.   Here's your test:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1dup2qZ0awfmUWV1HjLoV_JxQUHs-mVTn2VZiv2530Z4/viewform