The Finer Points of an 18th c. Man's Shirt

Susan reporting:

There are few historical garments more misrepresented than an 18th c. man's shirt. For European men from the middle ages into the mid-19th c., the shirt was not only an indispensible piece of clothing; it was a democratic one, too. The shirts worn by George III would have been cut exactly the same as the ones worn by his grooms, as well as by Thomas Jefferson, Beau Brummel, Tom Jones, and Mr. Darcy. You know what they looked like: silky, lace-trimmed shirts cut to open like a modern tux shirt, on everyone from those Founding Fathers in the bank commercials to Fabio.

Uh, no. Eighteenth century men's shirts didn't button down the front, and they never were made of silk. They pulled over the head with an opening slit to about mid-chest, and were fastened with two or three buttons at the throat. Shirts were geometric jigsaw puzzles, an elaborate series of rectangles cut without curved seams and designed not to waste even a scrap of a length of fabric. The sleeves were luxuriously full, 20" wide or more, pleated into dropped shoulders and wrist cuffs. Additional gussets for ease were placed under the arms, on the shoulders, and at the hem-slits. The collar, upper right, was another rectangle, soft and without interlining, whose final shape was determined by the neckcloth, cravat, or stock tied around it. Ruffles could be sewn into the neck slit and on the cuffs.

These shirts were wide, full, and long, reaching to the middle of the thighs. An average 18th c. shirt could be 60'" around the chest and 40" long. While some gentlemen wore under drawers, for most men a shirt was an all-purpose garment, with the long tales drawn between the legs to form underwear. Shirts were also worn for sleeping. As a result, shirts were frequently changed, and a man was judged by the cleanliness of his linen.

Linen was in fact the standard fabric for men's shirts, ranging from a laborer's shirt of rough Osnaburg to a gentleman's fine bleached Holland (and never, ever silk.) Linen is a fiber both practical and surprisingly sensual. It's springy and long-wearing, easy to launder, and grows softer with wear. It holds the warmth of the skin gently, without becoming sticky or clammy, yet remains cool in the summer. Not only was linen cloth used for the shirt, but linen thread was used to sew it, and the shirt's buttons, lower right, were needle-woven of linen thread, the only kind of button able to withstand 18th c. laundry practices.

Social distinctions showed in a shirt's details. The fine twist of the linen, the purity of the whiteness, the evenness of the stitching and seaming, with a discreet monogram, lower left. embroidered at the hem were all marks of an expensive shirt. How that shirt was washed and pressed denoted a gentleman's rank as well; the dozens of tiny vertical pleats pressed into the wide sleeves required the most accomplished laundresses using specialized irons and a chemist's knowledge of starch for the perfect degree of crispness. Careful pressing was also required to be able to fit all that fabric neatly inside the much narrower sleeves of a coat.

Perhaps there's so much confusion about 18th century shirts because so few of them still exist. While a richly embroidered waistcoat might be worn only for special occasions before being set aside for posterity, utilitarian shirts were worn and mended and refashioned until they were finally worn out, and then sold for scrap to paper makers or used for bandages. This site has links to several 18th-19th c.  shirts that have survived in various collections.

The one shown here is a replica made by tailor Mark Hutter of Colonial Williamsburg. It's truly a beautiful garment, deceptively simple in its style but elegant in its flawless hand-sewing. Fabio, eat your heart out.
Many thanks to Mark Hutter, Neal Hurst, & Karin Larsdatter for assistance with this post.

Breakfast Links: Week of April 4, 2011

Happy Sunday! Here's a fresh serving of Breakfast Links to begin the week – our selection of noteworthy tidbits gathered from blogs, web sites, news stories, and other curiosities that we've discovered around the Twittervierse:

• One of the most beautiful rooms in America: J. M. Whistler's Peacock Room c 1908 in the Freer Gallery: http://ow.ly/4qtpn

• In April, 1804 a meteor hit High Possil, Scotland. Here is an account of the event. http://ow.ly/4toJ

• 'If a man cannot get his dinner well dressed, he should be suspect of inaccuracy in other things’: Georgian flatware http://post.ly/1r2D2

• Gold mourning ring made by Paul Revere in 1783 up for auction, and stories of man it honors, Rev Samuel Dunbar: http://bit.ly/dSLxT7

• DIY a classic pleated Fortuny Delphos gown, plus tons of links to more pix: http://tinyurl.com/5vcar

• Amazing detail in early portrait of a Victorian lady - glass wet plate collodion negative: http://flic.kr/p/8H9R1X

• Rock-star rhino! There were many 18th c celebrity animals but none so great as Clara the Rhino http://ow.ly/4ubP2

• A more peaceful train journey - ah, if only the commute could be more like this! http://bit.ly/c4CULE “The Travelling Companions”

• Excellent true ghost story: the Lightening Girl of Sexton House http://ht.ly/4uqn5

• Brooch that Belonged to Queen Victoria Reigns Over Bonhams Jewellery Sale http://t.co/Dd7vbom

• 18th century smuggler’s tunnel unearthed in Hastings http://goo.gl/fb/7YeHX

• The Fashionable Sailor of 1785 http://wp.me/p9rmH-vw

• Great photos of famous writers & their dogs: http://ow.ly/4v63g

• Designer Paul Poiret promoted his fashions as unique works of art in and of themselves. Gorgeous velvet coat: http://met.org/g6j8dm

• How to murder your wife: Dr. Pritchard of Victorian Glasglow: http://wp.me/p1ne2h-2W

• We love maps for research for our books; here are some excellent research suggestions new to us: http://bit.ly/hWHxst

• This cheeky fashion plate escaped the Titanic in a hobble skirt: http://bit.ly/eZOGoo

Update: Happy Ending for John Keats' Letter

Susan reporting:

Recently I wrote here about a beautiful and poignant love letter from 19th c. poet John Keats to his sweetheart Fanny Brawne. The letter had been sold at auction for an astonishing £96,000, and many of you wondered both the identity of the buyer and the future of the letter, concerned that it would disappear into the library of a private collector.

Fear not! The letter was purchased by the City of London corporation, which manages Keats' home in north London as a museum. The letter will go on display there as part of their permanent display - a most fitting destination. Read here for more.

Weddings in Old Albania

Loretta reports:

In my story in Royal Weddings I refer to Queen Victoria’s marrying a man she loved.  This, as we've mentioned before, was not at all common in royal families.  In fact, marrying for love wasn’t common in general, in many cultures, until relatively recently.  Consider my Albanian ancestors.

Following are a few excerpts from the lengthy Code (or Kanun) of Lekë Dukagjini, an extremely detailed compilation of the Albanians' customary law, which dates to medieval times, possibly earlier.

The Kanun requires marriage (a) be arranged by male heads of family and (b) involve a matchmaker.

“A young woman who has been abducted or who has run away to find a husband cannot be adorned as a bride; she must go as a girl—in a girl’s clothes—because she has been taken or has left home outside the laws of the Kanun and without a matchmaker.”

Once the couple is betrothed, the young man has the right to reject the girl. Following certain formalities, he and she are free to marry someone else.  However,

“The girl who is betrothed may not reject the young man, even if she does not like him.”

Some girls must have put up a fight, making the following rules necessary:

“If the girl refuses to submit to her fate, under any circumstances, and her parents support her, she may never marry another man.”

Without her fiancé’s permission, she can’t marry anybody else and nobody’s supposed to ask her.  It doesn’t matter if the rejected fiancé marries someone else.  The only way she gets out of this deal is if he dies.

“With the death of the fiancé, the Kanun frees the girl and, if she so desires, she may marry.”

However, in the case where the parents don’t support her—
“If the girl does not submit and marry her fiancé, she should be handed over to him by force, 'together with a cartridge,’ and if the girl tries to flee, her husband may kill her with her parents’ cartridge, and the girl’s blood is lost [remains unavenged*], because it was with their cartridge that she was killed.”

*Blood feud was common, and the code involving it is extensive & minutely detailed in the Kanun.

Kanuni I Lekë Dukagjinit: The Code of Lekë Dukagjini
Illustrations:  "Rok, tribesman of the Skreli," by William Le Queux, 1906, and Albanian Woman's Portrait, both courtesy Wikimedia Commons.

A Gold & White Wedding: the Duke & Duchess of Devonshire, 1774

Susan reporting:

Loretta's blog yesterday about Queen Victoria and white wedding dresses made me think of the wedding of an earlier fashion trendsetter, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire (1757-1806.)

While Georgiana was only seventeen when she wed on June 7, 1774, her twenty-six-year-old groom was considered one of the wealthiest and most desirable bachelors of the time, and no expense was spared on her wedding clothes. Alas, no pictures of her gown exist, but it was described at the time as being gold and white, rather than the snow-white of the 19th c. brides. (I have to admit I thought of this gold-and-white gown, too.) She wore silver slippers on her feet and pearl drops in her hair. It's also likely she wore the diamonds that were a gift from her new husband, jewels that were breathlessly estimated by newspapers at the time as being valued at £10,000 - a stupendous sum.

A lady of Georgiana's wealth and rank certainly had the means to own a specialized wedding dress, to be worn only once. But contemporary accounts report that she wore it at least once more, to be presented as a newlywed duchess to the King and Queen at St. James's Palace. Apparently even the wedding gown of a duchess became her "best" gown after the marriage, as was the 18th c. practice for less lofty brides as well.

When Hollywood filmed Georgiana's wedding for The Duchess, a 2008 movie inspired by her life (and based on the much-better biography Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire by Amanda Foreman), however, the dress offered special challenges. Michael O'Connor's costumes justly won an Oscar, and are an elegant reflection of late 18th c. dress. The wedding gown costume worn by actress Keira Knightly, above, is technically gold and white, but the silk "reads" more as a candlelit cream that modern viewers accepted as a suitable wedding-white: a happy union of expectations and design.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said of Georgiana and her duke, who were one of the 18th century's most infamously unhappy couples. This contemporary description (from The autobiography and correspondence of Mrs. Mary Granville) of their wedding certainly hints at the conflict to come:

It was as great a secret to Lady Georgiana as to the world. Sunday morning she was told was her doom; she went to Wimbledon early, and they were married at Wimbledon Church, between church and church, as quiet and uncrowded as if John and Joan had tied the Gordian knot. Don't think that because I have made use of the word "doom" that it was a melancholy sentence to the young lady, for she is so peculiarly happy as to think his Grace very agreeable. The duke's intimate friends say he has sense and does not want merit. To be sure the jewel has not been well polished. Had he fallen under the tuition of the late Lord Chesterfield he might have possessed les graces; but at present only that of his dukedom belongs to him. Nobody was at the wedding but the Duchess of Portland and Lady Cowper [the bride's grandmother] as fine and gay as the bride herself.