tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5022318990784415929.post9066477104474461906..comments2023-10-20T11:17:47.246-04:00Comments on Two Nerdy History Girls: Fashions for May 1843, SupposedlyUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5022318990784415929.post-25424730415992220872018-05-01T10:19:34.991-04:002018-05-01T10:19:34.991-04:00The clothes are for women as objects and not cloth...<i>The clothes are for women as objects and not clothes for women who did anything.</i><br /><br />I strongly disagree. First of all, the idea of women wearing fine clothing in order to be "objects" is pretty dated - current scholarship generally frames the issue as the women themselves using their clothing to construct a persona that showed their wealth and taste. They were active consumers in the fashion trade.<br /><br />Second, while yes, the fabric and amount of trim used in the high-end garments depicted in fashion plates would have been out of the range of working women, there wasn't a strong line delineating working from non-working women, or their clothing. Traveling down the social scale from pure women of leisure, there would be more and more women who had to take on more and more of the household duties - the middle-class housewife who had a maid-of-all-work to manage the cleaning and laundry but did the cooking and mending herself existed, for instance. Then, getting rid of most of the trim and making these dresses out of a cotton print or wool would pretty well adapt them to the needs of many women; the hemline could be raised a few inches and the armscye moved up to the shoulder to facilitate more movement. Women of all periods, not just the Regency, were able to perform activities in their clothing.Cassidyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03596345781746342408noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5022318990784415929.post-36206055005405629622018-05-01T08:06:30.472-04:002018-05-01T08:06:30.472-04:00The clothes are always those of the wealthy who d...The clothes are always those of the wealthy who didn't have to work or even wash their own dishes. It is hard to see a woman dressed in some of the outfits of the 18thc or post 1820's doing something a normal as changing a diaper or holding a teething baby. The clothes are for women as objects and not clothes for women who did anything. Regencyresearcherhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/10828749339318882968noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5022318990784415929.post-30811173436095997682018-05-01T07:34:23.398-04:002018-05-01T07:34:23.398-04:00Delicious post - and I especially like the new wor...Delicious post - and I especially like the new word I learned: animadvert.History Underfoothttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17015836735555618335noreply@blogger.com