My Grown-Up Christmas List

I've been in hospital and subsequent recovery for the past two weeks, so please excuse my absence!  I'm quite all right now, but I didn't have any time to post, so here's a quick little tidbit about some Victorian material culture.

First of all, I love Christmas.  We're talking, put up the tree for a weekend in August for fun, play "It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas once the door has shut on the last trick-or-treater, host full-on holiday baking days, drive around to give out awards to the best-decorated houses while charting annual lighting trends, love Christmas.  (While I have that particular soap box, by the way, may I take this opportunity to discourage you all from this year's holiday lighting trend- the projected lights.  Don't be that lazy.  Hire someone to put them up if you physically cannot.  Ask the cute neighbor to do it.  Bribe your grandkids with copious amounts of sugar to do it.  I don't care.  I say, but this is Christmas, not the disco.  Ahem.  Off soap box.)

As a teacher, I always ask the kids in my classes (I substitute at the moment) what they want for Christmas.  Naturally, the top answer is "the new iPhone", whatever its incarnation may be.  

Well, I have a confession- so do I.

I know what you're thinking.  "She's betrayed us.  She's from the 21st century after all!"

No, friends- I'm here to talk to you about Ye Olde iPhone; the chatelaine.  

The chatelaine (which is a post-1828 term- previously it seems to have been referred to as a few things, most commonly an "equipage") started out as literally "the keys to the castle" in the Middle Ages and enjoyed a few incarnations (including a surge in the 18th century as the ladies' equivalent of a watch fob) before settling on the Victorian manifestation of domestic charm bracelet.  

It clips onto the waistband of the lady of the house (the "chatelaine" in French) and a number of chains (usually from two to five, though you can get dividers that clip to one and split into more) hang from the clip.  To these you can hang all sorts of things depending on your activities- pens, pencils, scissors, thimbles, needle cases, button hooks, pocket knives, nail files, tiny (usually chain link) coin purses, little notebook "aide memoires" with pencils attached so you can write things down the second you think of them (ahem the grocery list), stamp holders, vestas (match holders with strikers on the bottom), and, most importantly, the keys to the house.  Obviously a lady wouldn't be wearing all these at once, but it solved a problem the solution to which we've forgotten about today- the problem of the Perpetually Lost Keys (or, the seamstress version, "Damn It, Didn't I Just Have The Scissors In My Hand").  Ladies could also get chatelaine purses for outdoor wear, which are just the purse with a chatelaine waistband clip.  

This 1880s portrait shows a woman with a chatelaine sporting a container of some kind, a coin purse, a scissors, a watch, and a needle case.  She appears to have abandoned convention by wearing the one thing the chatelaine was designed for- keys- around her neck.  She's also wearing a fur stole and holding binoculars- she looks like a lady worth knowing!

Collecting items for a chatelaine is exactly akin to collecting charms, except it has the added bonus of being useful.  Over the past few years, I've collected an aide memoire, a pocket knife, a fountain pen (a testament to how everyone likes different things on her chatelaine depending on her chief occupations- I'm always losing pens in class), a scissors, a separate chatelaine purse, and my personal favorite, my vesta (I keep waiting for the period horror movie that utilizes fumbling for one's vesta in the night and striking a match to see some awful creature like a combination of Crimson Peak and The Conjuring).  

I have yet, however, to find an actual chatelaine I like- until this year, when I found a specimen finally worth writing to Santa about.  I'll be sure to post pictures of all my trinkets attached to it come Christmas!  True to Victorian form, chatelaines and their "apps" are things both of utility and extreme beauty.  I'll take that over an iPhone any day!  In the words of Sarah Chrisman (Victorian Secrets, This Victorian Life), I may not be able to make a phone call with my chatelaine, but can you light a fire with your iPhone? 

My Victorian iPhone isn't the only reason for the season, though.  The weather in sunny Southern California has been ever so slightly acquiescing to my demands for more seasonal behavior, and I was actually confronted with cold hands in the morning last week.  This reminded me that I needed to go ice skating, which reminded me that I was a lady without appropriate accoutrements for such an outing.  I had been procrastinating on making a fur muff, and, accepting that it would never happen, I bought one.  I had wanted a huge one like in the Christmas greeting card above, but I fell in love with one that looked exactly like it, but that looked just big enough to fit both my hands into.  It arrived yesterday and surprised my by being quite every bit as big as the one in the card!  Such simple pleasures.  I'll post pictures of it after my skating day!

Interpreting the Silhouette

Historical costumers are constantly trying for it.  The "100 Years of Fashion" videos are constantly getting it wrong. So how do you get "the right silhouette"?

Something I frequently find myself swearing up and down in defence of historical fashion is that "it looks really nice on people, I swear!"  This is usually said in rebuttal to some attack on a more creative period in fashion history- almost always as portrayed in a painting or drawing.

Fashion plate, c. 1690.

Fashion plate, c. 1835.

The 1690s and 1830s are among some of the more... misunderstood decades of fashion.

Of course, we still have fashion plates after the invention of photography, but we also have photographic evidence to explain what the elongated bodice of the 1840s should look like, and photographs to explain what the fashionable silhouette of the bustle is this season.  With earlier fashions, a little more of a discerning eye is necessary.

Fashion plates (above) are a fantastic way to look for images of a proper silhouette, and we have them fairly early on.  Very early fashion reports are mainly of what specific people are wearing to specific events, not really general ideas for everyday people to reproduce.  In 1562 we get a book on the "fashions of all nations"- again, not really a treasure trove of examples for lots of different variations on a style.  By the mid 17th century, however, we are getting generic examples of what a "courtier" or "a lady of fashion" might wear instead of just reports on a specific ensemble.

Another way is to look at contemporary art.  You can look at artwork, but you have to remember that certain eras of art history have different aesthetic values than others.  Baroque and Rococo fashion, for example, has similar boning in the feel of the stays/bodice, but one aesthetic emphasizes fluidity of motion and relaxation much more than the other.  That said, when wearing clothing, we also have to keep in mind the cultural influences affecting things like art which also would have undoubtedly affected fashion in ways to do with posture, etc.

The Swing by Jean-Honoré Fragonard, 1767.

Mrs. Elizabeth Freake and Baby Mary,
Anonymous, c. 1671. 

So what about earlier periods?  Before the 16th century, we do have portraits of individuals, but they aren't terribly distinctive.

In this post, I want to focus on the 14th century, but I'll be dragging a few other eras in for reference, as well.

When we look at the silhouette of 14th c. clothing, we have to remember a few things:
-Resist imposing 21st century beauty standards onto this period of fashion.
-Emphasize and enhance the natural curves of the body.
-Trust the texts/artists.

The first one may seem obvious.  We get it in lots of different eras- we know that the 1880s spoon busk creates a fashionable "belly" that modern fashions avoid at all costs.  But we tend to fall into this trap with 14th century clothing just for that reason- the undergarments don't (seem to) be as drastic in shaping, so we have this image of 14th c. clothing as the "natural" shape.  That is, at least, the 21st century natural shape- fitted all the way down past the hips, creating a flat abdomen and a long waist.

In part, we owe this folly to the pre-Raphaelite painters who also imposed their contemporary long-waisted fashion onto their idealized period:

"Miranda- The Tempest" by John William Waterhouse, 1916.

In the painting, Miranda's cotehardie is fitted right down past her hips, where it flairs.

Which is where we get to the second point- medieval fashion accentuates and emphasizes the natural shape of a woman.  Now, the "natural" condition of woman is one that is praised for that most miraculous of functions that she alone can perform- making new people.  I really can't emphasize how much this isn't insulting to women- the theology and even the daily paradigm of the medieval period is very good at lauding everyone for what they do well, and it isn't even just necessarily to "keep everyone in their place," though the Great Chain of Being is absolutely a Thing.  We have accounts of sons writing to their fathers telling them they want to become merchants (not a popular trade at the time), and their fathers writing back essentially saying, "well, as long as you make sure you're being the best merchant you can be as a credit to your family and God!"  

But back to fashion!  Now, I want to be very clear- fashion in this period isn't necessarily all "oh my god, let's show off women's fertility" any more than today's fashion would admit to be playing to the biological tendency of human beings to rate their partners based on breast to waist ratios.  It's just that what is "sexy" then is an emphasis on the breasts and hips.  This comes from a great deal of things- the phrase "fine child-bearing hips" is one that can be found as late as today, with an aunt of mine having the pleasure of hearing it as the first thing she heard from her (ex) boyfriend's mother's lips in the 1980s (she was a farmer, and it was the Irish countryside, if we're being fair).  This isn't even so much to do with actual childbearing (again, just as time has distanced us from large breasts actually being associated with good nursing) as it is just to do with the fashionable silhouette.  A woman of the 14th century who had had the 21st century's desired flat abs might have been looked at, if not necessarily disparagingly, as we might look at someone who "could use a cheeseburger".  

The 14th century had the added bonus of experiencing almost consistent back luck.  The Medieval Warm Period turned on its heel and swung the century into the Little Ice Age promptly in the spring of 1315, along with floods and crop failures that led to almost unprecedented rises in pulmonary diseases, crime, infanticide (it is from this period that we begin to see stories akin to 'Hansel and Gretel'), and even in some sources, cannibalism.  Just as the crops have recovered in 1320, a bovine plague sweeps western Europe, causing starvation not only by the lack of beef, but also the lack of work animals for harvest, and an almost 80% drop in milk production.  New studies have shown that Plague may have killed so many because many children grew up in the first quarter of the century without milk or much food during their childhoods to build up any kind of innate protection to disease.  Close on the heels of the bovine crisis came the beginning of the Hundred Years War, closely followed by the Plague, a couple more famines, and a few Peasant Revolts just to mix things up.  During this period in art (and noticeably more so beginning in the 1350s), we get what has been called the "Gothic slouch", whereby the posture of ladies emphasizes their bellies.  I really think this has less to do with the whole "look at me I can reproduce" and more to do with the "look how healthy I am" fashion which really hadn't been any different in earlier decades, it was just more pronounced now that it was exceptionally rarer not to be dying of something.  Today we do the same thing, only we walk around Whole Foods in booty gym shorts and sports bras holding kale smoothies.
   

The Gothic slouch does undeniably give a "pregnant" vibe on paper, but in real life it is actually quite regal and graceful looking to lead your posture with your hips instead of your shoulders.  This kind of posture has come and gone- it was, for example, briefly popular in the 1840s and early 1850s in emphasis with the period's long bodices, though the bell-shaped skirts make it a little harder to tell than do heavier draped skirts.  As you might be able to tell, it isn't actually that dramatic, and it isn't really a "slouch"- your shoulders and spine remain straight, you just lead with your hips forward.  

c. 1350

c. 1850

1840s "slouch" in practice.

Before roughly the middle of the 14th century, as far as we can tell, clothing was loose enough to drape or pull over the head.  After that, with the influx of "High Fashion" widespread enough that those who were not nobility could emulate it, we begin to see more lacing and buttoning on garments.  Even so, the tight-fitted-ness is generally still in the same places.  To emphasize the posture and hips of ladies, fashion (contrary to the pre-Raphaelites) generally dictated that skirts let out from the top of the belly, not the bottom of the hip.

Which is where we get to our third point: trusting the artist.

Medievals on the whole are often not seen as the most reliable narrators- especially in records of battles, they are known for their hyperbole- "there were A MILLION of them and TEN of us but then ANGELS came down and helped us slaughter them ALL!!!"  Historians regularly pull our hair out trying to determine how many people were actually at a certain battle.

The medievals were, however, actually quite ardent sticklers for detail, so long as that detail was mundane.  God pervaded every aspect of life, so when you were talking about battles and victories, you could emphasize God's power- but when you were talking about everyday affairs, you were usually talking about God's justice or creation.  As a result, we have painstaking detail recorded about court cases, populations, land divisions, the mortality rate of plagues or famines, etc.- and we have a ton of art depicting every walk of life.  There is a myth that has managed to wedge itself into the popular consciousness that if you weren't someone "important", it's nigh on impossible to tell who you were or how you lived.  This simply isn't true- the medievals loved chronicling life almost as much as they loved living it, so there's a whole world of documentation for historians if we just know what we're looking for.

And you know, sometimes documentation for when we have no idea what the hell we were looking for...

Of course, you do have to be careful about the details sometimes- we have artists portraying lots of detail about things they don't necessarily know anything about.  Trades (masonry, carpentry, etc.) are a great example of this.  But, thankfully, we're studying clothing, and since pretty much everyone wore clothing, we can be fairly sure the artists knew what they were talking about.  Details abound!

Once you get to the silhouette itself, then, you notice that the shape cuts away not at the hips, but at the natural waist- almost right below the bust:

Even later with more heavily supported, flatter bodices, we see no shy-away from accentuation of the belly and hips:

So, when working with the Middle Ages, much like with the spoon busks of the Victorian era, we need to remember not to shy away from (literally) "the full silhouette"!