If Walls Could Talk: An Intimate History of the Home by Lucy Worsley Page A
Authors: Lucy Worsley
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drawers and layers of petticoats. Amelia Jenks Bloomer, for one, has a worthy place in the women’s movement. It was actually her friend Libby Miller who designed the ‘bloomers’ which Amelia championed (really voluminous Turkish pants combined with an overskirt). They were said to be especially ‘fit for any sort of locomotion’, including the new bicycle. ‘Bicycling has done more to emancipate women than anything else in the world,’ said the suffragette Susan B. Anthony in 1896. ‘I stand and rejoice every time I see a woman ride on a wheel. It gives women a feeling of freedom and self-reliance.’
Despite its reputation, the voluminous bloomer was far from risqué, and so was its promoter, Mrs Bloomer herself. A dedicated campaigner for lost causes, married to a Quaker, she was also a stalwart of the Ladies’ Temperance Society. She spoke against drink and in favour of bloomers at rallies all over the US (with limited success).
In Britain, the Rational Dress Society brought about similar change. It was formed in 1881 by Viscountess Harberton, and the following year a ‘Hygienic Wearing Apparel’ exhibition was held at Kensington Town Hall. As Lady Harberton wrote, ‘no growing girl or woman of child-bearing age should wear underclothes that exceed 7 lbs in weight’. One result was the liberty bodice, a kind of sleeveless vest intended to replace the corset; another was the 1920s passion for all kinds of frivolous, light and airy knickers, often made out of the new man-made fibres. (Robert Hooke in 1664 had the idea of spinning thread from ‘a glutinous substance’, like a silkworm did, but ‘artificial silk’ or ‘rayon’ was not made until 1905.)
Yet ultra-respectable women wore long drawers right into the twentieth century. Rosina Harrison, maid to the first female Member of Parliament, Lady Astor, remembers how ‘she wasparticularly fastidious about her underwear. It was kept in sets in silk pouches which I had to make and decorate in his lordship’s racing colours, blue and pink … knickers fitting above the knee.’ Sobriety returned to underwear with the Second World War and the rise of the hated ‘black-outs’ (also known as ‘passion-killers’ or ‘boy-bafflers’), official-issue pants in khaki, navy or black that came with the knee-length skirts of women’s military uniforms. Many pairs remained unworn, and were only brought out, ironed, for kit inspections.
Once the knickers or drawers are on, the bizarre and intimate business of body-shaping demands attention. The part of the body most admired, or considered to be the most erogenous, has changed enormously over time. The male calf was much admired by the Tudors. ‘Look here! I have also a good calf to my leg,’ boasted Henry VIII, slapping his muscles. Naked female breasts made frequent appearances at the Stuart court, just as they had at the Minoan court of Crete. Yet two centuries later, poor Caroline of Brunswick, the mail-order wife of George IV, may have been acceptably dressed according to her native German fashion, but offended her new compatriots beyond measure with her décolletage. (‘Such an over-dressed, bare-bosomed, painted eye-browed figure one never saw!’)
In their bedroom mirrors ladies either cursed or blessed the biological background that gave them figures that either met or failed the approved fashion of their times. Sometimes the breasts were valued; sometimes not: the pendulum swung regularly from side to side. A seventeenth-century book of cosmetics contains a prescription to ‘keep the Breasts small’ and ‘hinder their growth’, and to ‘harden soft and loose Breasts’. The stomach was in vogue in the late 1200s: perhaps it was a fondness for fertile women that led artists to depict so many of them with their hips thrust forward and a bulging belly. In the early nineteenth century, William Wordsworth was dismayed by large breasts: one pair he encountered were like two ‘hay
Despite its reputation, the voluminous bloomer was far from risqué, and so was its promoter, Mrs Bloomer herself. A dedicated campaigner for lost causes, married to a Quaker, she was also a stalwart of the Ladies’ Temperance Society. She spoke against drink and in favour of bloomers at rallies all over the US (with limited success).
In Britain, the Rational Dress Society brought about similar change. It was formed in 1881 by Viscountess Harberton, and the following year a ‘Hygienic Wearing Apparel’ exhibition was held at Kensington Town Hall. As Lady Harberton wrote, ‘no growing girl or woman of child-bearing age should wear underclothes that exceed 7 lbs in weight’. One result was the liberty bodice, a kind of sleeveless vest intended to replace the corset; another was the 1920s passion for all kinds of frivolous, light and airy knickers, often made out of the new man-made fibres. (Robert Hooke in 1664 had the idea of spinning thread from ‘a glutinous substance’, like a silkworm did, but ‘artificial silk’ or ‘rayon’ was not made until 1905.)
Yet ultra-respectable women wore long drawers right into the twentieth century. Rosina Harrison, maid to the first female Member of Parliament, Lady Astor, remembers how ‘she wasparticularly fastidious about her underwear. It was kept in sets in silk pouches which I had to make and decorate in his lordship’s racing colours, blue and pink … knickers fitting above the knee.’ Sobriety returned to underwear with the Second World War and the rise of the hated ‘black-outs’ (also known as ‘passion-killers’ or ‘boy-bafflers’), official-issue pants in khaki, navy or black that came with the knee-length skirts of women’s military uniforms. Many pairs remained unworn, and were only brought out, ironed, for kit inspections.
Once the knickers or drawers are on, the bizarre and intimate business of body-shaping demands attention. The part of the body most admired, or considered to be the most erogenous, has changed enormously over time. The male calf was much admired by the Tudors. ‘Look here! I have also a good calf to my leg,’ boasted Henry VIII, slapping his muscles. Naked female breasts made frequent appearances at the Stuart court, just as they had at the Minoan court of Crete. Yet two centuries later, poor Caroline of Brunswick, the mail-order wife of George IV, may have been acceptably dressed according to her native German fashion, but offended her new compatriots beyond measure with her décolletage. (‘Such an over-dressed, bare-bosomed, painted eye-browed figure one never saw!’)
In their bedroom mirrors ladies either cursed or blessed the biological background that gave them figures that either met or failed the approved fashion of their times. Sometimes the breasts were valued; sometimes not: the pendulum swung regularly from side to side. A seventeenth-century book of cosmetics contains a prescription to ‘keep the Breasts small’ and ‘hinder their growth’, and to ‘harden soft and loose Breasts’. The stomach was in vogue in the late 1200s: perhaps it was a fondness for fertile women that led artists to depict so many of them with their hips thrust forward and a bulging belly. In the early nineteenth century, William Wordsworth was dismayed by large breasts: one pair he encountered were like two ‘hay
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