Thursday, November 19, 2015

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!





1 comment:

  1. In the hospital for 2 weeks and I didn't hear anything about it??!!
    *friendly grumble*
    I'm going to have to start bribing your mom for info about you, aren't I? :P

    Glad you're feeling better. May all your Victorian Christmas Dreams come true. :D

    ReplyDelete