Category: History

The Myth of Perfection

On By kittycalashIn Art Rant, Clothing, History, Living History, Philosophy, Reenacting, Research4 Comments

Ain’t nothin’ perfect.

Jackie’s got good points, and although I think they are slightly tangential to where I thought I was going on Monday, let’s pick them up.

Completely 1819 to represent 1819? My standard reply to pretty much every question is: It depends. Who are you, where are you, what are you doing? Middle class or higher bride? You are so 1819 it’s scary, from your skin out, head to toe. Lower class? You’ve altered your best dress, if not made a new one, and refreshed your accessories.

The Kaunitz Sisters (Leopoldine, Caroline, and Ferdinandine), graphite on laid paper by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, 1818. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1998.21
Costume Parisien, 1818.

Look, folks: part of our problem is that we forget that the people in the past had the same covetous, jealous hearts that we have. They had wants and yearnings, for each other, for new bonnets, for velocipedes and overcoats. They were just as interested in impressing each other as we are, even if they sublimated desire into poetic images of greater obscurity than James Brown ever used.

I thought about this notion of mixed up times for clothing as I stood on a landing at work yesterday. Skin out, here’s what I wore on 1 September 2015:

  • Black Natori sports bra, purchased in Boston on January 10, 2014 (I saw my surgeon so I remember.)
  • White cotton tank top, label gone, acquired ca. 2013, possibly from Target
  • Blue and white striped cotton 3/4 sleeve J. Crew blouse, 2006
  • Black Nike undershorts, 2010
  • Lucky brand jeans, August, 2015
  • Red suede belt with brass buckle, ca. 2004
  • Red suede Naya oxfords, late winter, 2014

The oldest thing was the belt, followed by the blouse. The most stylistically determinate item is probably the jeans, since waistline height and cut of the legs fix trouser/jeans style. So, what could this mean for us, when we dress for the past?

Let’s start with dressing for the American Revolutionary War period, 1775-1783. What you wear depends of course on who and where you are; here I am in New England, wishing I was middling sorts.

Detail, Mrs Richard Skinner, oil on canvas by John Singleton Copley, 1772. MFA Boston, 06.2428
Detail, Mrs Richard Skinner, oil on canvas by John Singleton Copley, 1772. MFA Boston, 06.242

If I wear an open-front stomacher gown in 1775, will I still feel comfortable in that in 1783, when the ladies of means around me have switched to closed-front gowns? Or will I feel like I’m wearing bell bottoms and a macrame vest to high school, while the cool girls are wearing pegged Guess jeans and Fair Isle sweaters? (Not what happened to me, but you follow my point). Think how much American fashion changed between 1975 and 1983, and while you will surely see pieces carried over– watches, headbands, socks, Tretorn sneakers– they will be primarily small pieces, accessories, and not main garments.

Lady Williams and Child, oil on canvas by Ralph Earl, 1783. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 06.179
Lady Williams and Child, oil on canvas by Ralph Earl, 1783. Metropolitan Museum of Art, 06.17

That’s really want I think we want to get at: Yes, people mixed up clothes, wore favorite things, wore things out. But then as now, they wanted to be stylish. The more care you put into imagining yourself in the past, really being that person, the more convincing you’ll be. You won’t be perfect, and authenticity is as unachievable as objective truth, but you will be closer to real, and yes, even the public will know.

Afternoon in Cambridge

On By kittycalashIn Events, History, Living History1 Comment

Cambridge. We’ve been there before to cause some mild lawn-based havoc and this year was much the same. We were on our own on the lower level, with just the six-plus-me of some abbreviated form of Soper’s company. Longfellow House is a very lovely site, and the lawn is large enough for a wall tent, drilling, eating, and general mischief.

Longfellow House, Cambridge. Photo from @longnps on Instagram
Longfellow House, Cambridge. Photo from @longnps on Instagram

I packed our lunch in a series of linen bags in the wallet, and stuffed a gown skirt and sewing box in the other end, with a bowl and a mug. I brought the small pitcher and a glass, with the intent of selling ‘gin’ to the militia, but had only one taker. They got into enough trouble themselves with filthy faces, pilfering, and stealing the captain’s books.

unknown artist, 18th century, The Encampment in the Museum Garden, 1783, Aquatint, hand-colored, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
unknown artist, 18th century, The Encampment in the Museum Garden, 1783, Aquatint, hand-colored, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

It’s no immersion event, what with traffic on the street and tourists dressing in Mr Townsend’s best* but there are moments at any gathering when you become so engrossed in what you are doing that you forget where you are. This time was no different: I don’t recall how it started, but we took off down Brattle Street with Sergeant Cooke crossing the yard in hot pursuit– only to be stopped by the wall. He turned the stone barricade into a large and angry goose, neaatly solving solving the problem of not being able to scale the wall.

James Sowerby, 1756–1822, A Goose, undated, Watercolor and graphite on moderately thick, slightly textured, cream wove paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
James Sowerby, 1756–1822, A Goose, undated, Watercolor and graphite on moderately thick, slightly textured, cream wove paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

I don’t think I’ve ever bolted that fast in stays before, and it wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had, but who cares? It can be done, running in stays, at least for short bursts.

There was much discussion of the filth of the troops, and their need to bathe; despite our best efforts, we could not quite get a satisfactory rise out of the officers, though some soldiers had clearly rolled in dirt. (It’s of a much better quality in Cambridge, you know, where you can wear the Harvard Yard.) There was an attempt at bathing at the Great Bridge, but in the end, one private’s face was washed with an apron corner dipped in ‘gin.’

Benjamin West, 1738–1820, American, active in Britain (from 1763), The Bathing Place at Ramsgate, ca. 1788, Oil on canvas, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Benjamin West, 1738–1820, American, active in Britain (from 1763), The Bathing Place at Ramsgate, ca. 1788, Oil on canvas, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

Satisfying all around, really, from the recitation of Mr Pickering’s manual with its endless repetition of ‘butt,’ meaning musket, entertaining the simpler, uncivil soldiers, to the meal of bread, cheese and cherries, to the chasing. The audience was small, but well entertained if they were paying any attention.

*Oh, NPS, what were you thinking?

Mind the Gap, or, The Basket Case

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Events, History, Living History, Philosophy, Reenacting, Research5 Comments

I was in the midst of planning yet another maid’s dress (some of us have all the luck) when a friend alerted me to an online discussion that drew from my recent post on baskets. The comments — which I skimmed but twice– made me think about philosophy and intent.

Engraved by John Raphael Smith, 1752–1812, British, A Lady and Her Children Relieving a Cottager, 1784, Mezzotint and line engraving on medium, slightly textured, cream laid paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Engraved by John Raphael Smith, 1752–1812, British, A Lady and Her Children Relieving a Cottager, 1784, Mezzotint and line engraving on medium, slightly textured, cream laid paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

There are two approaches to developing a living history persona and appearance I’ll consider here: one prescriptive, and one not. The prescriptive, didactic approach tells you what to wear and carry. Some folks like that. It is completely correct in some cases: soldiers, for example. You want to fall in with a unit of Light Infantry in 1777, it’s generally more convincing if you don’t wear the 1781 coat. Not everyone cares: some people will keep on wearing the Brighty Whitey Hunting Frocks and 1780 coats at reenactments commemorating events of 1776. Those folks can no longer be reached by prescriptive standards, and my preferred approach probably won’t reach them either.

Joshua Cristall, 1768–1847, British, Young Woodcutter, 1818, Watercolor with scraping over graphite on moderately thick, slightly textured, beige wove paper, laid on thick, slightly textured, beige card, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Joshua Cristall, 1768–1847, British, Young Woodcutter, 1818, Watercolor with scraping over graphite on moderately thick, slightly textured, beige wove paper, laid on thick, slightly textured, beige card, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

Mindful reenacting or living history sounds pretty nutty, but that’s what I would encourage. Thoughtfulness. Consideration. Not just the what, but the why. Why you wear or carry something can be as important and interesting as what you’re wearing and you’ll be all the more convincing for thinking it through. Thinking, not rationalizing. How appropriate is it to be in your best clothes carrying a basket also used to carry fire wood? You have to answer that for yourself, and if you’re doing it right, the answer will not always be the same– nor will the question!

Print made by James Bretherton, ca. 1730–1806, British, A Maid, 1774, Etching on moderately thick, rough, blued white laid paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection
Print made by James Bretherton, ca. 1730–1806, British, A Maid, 1774, Etching on moderately thick, rough, blued white laid paper, Yale Center for British Art, Paul Mellon Collection

This isn’t the easiest way to go about anything, asking all these questions, but for some of us, the experiences make it worthwhile. You won’t always be able to do, carry, or wear what you want.* But the picture you create of the past will be more accurate and more engaging if you think more and justify less.

Look, I threw down about that floppy bird basket, but I have to provide food to troops this Saturday in Cambridge. What the heck will I carry it in? What will I take my sewing in?**

Probably a wallet and a bag, unless I can pack that floppy basket convincingly– it is entirely suitable to my lower sorts-stained gown impression– but if I can’t, I won’t take it. And that’s just one less thing to carry.

*I’m pretty much always the maid to make scenarios work, and while it doesn’t come naturally, art imitates life.

**Prays no one gets the bright idea to bring (shhh) tents to work on.

Frivolous Friday: Foot Guard Officer

On By kittycalashIn History, Museums2 Comments
Officer of the Third Regiment of Foot Guards, 1792 British Museum 1890, 0806.2

Every now and then, my interests collide in unexpected ways. While searching the Tate Collection for something completely different, I came upon this image of a fine-figured officer. I love a man in a uniform, and this one comes with a bonus: the curator’s comments.  “According to Binyon the outline etchings are by Thomas Kirk, after a drawing by Edward Dayes, coloured by Turner as a boy.”

You can see Turner’s  style latent in those trees and in the dramatic sky, and even in the shadow that lies at the officer’s feet. 

18th century coloring book, or image defaced by inchoate genius: you be the judge.