From: "Philip Edward Cutone, III" Date: Wed, 10 May 1995 13:09:56 -0400 (EDT) Subject: H-Costume Digest, Volume 297, 5/10/95 The Historic Costume List Digest, Volume 297, May 10, 1995 Send items for the list to h-costume@andrew.cmu.edu (or reply to this message). Send subscription/deletion requests and inquiries to h-costume-request@andrew.cmu.edu Please note that I am not the usual maintainer. If there is a problem with the digest please let me know (and forgive a few blunders.... :) this digest covers all messages pre noon May 5, not appearing in previous digests. Enjoy! Filip Topics: ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 May 1995 02:18:44 -0400 From: NeenH@aol.com Subject: Re:making corsets Using both "Corsets and Crinolines" (for the style and pattern for your exact date) and Beth Gilgun's "Tidings from the 18th Century" (for construction, fit, and wearing ease) is a good compromise. Gilgun is down to earth and you can see from her one of the (many) ways things must have been done. She actually gives directions and sewing/construction tips, while C&C only show gridded sketches. On Bras: I HATE wearing bras (as do most of my friends). I will only wear on in the house if it meets very strict specs. Luckily I've found a nursing/sport bra that does. But even though it is comfortable, free is better (even with the jiggling). NeenH ------------------------------ Date: 05 May 95 07:16:00 BST From: Mrs C S Yeldham Subject: Holiday This is just to let people know I am going to be away 8 - 24 May. I know I owe people some shoe notes and some personal communications, but I'm afraid I shall have to do that when I get back. Apologies but I've been making two sets of mid 17th century clothes (man and woman) and work has been hectic! Caroline ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 MAY 95 09:01:53 BST From: JREYNOLDS@VAX2.LUTON.AC.UK Subject: Hair Dye A friend of mine who was a punk used to have really long hair which she would wear in the most amazing styles. She normally used egg white to stiffen it sufficiently to allow her to 'sculpt' it!! I don't know that I would reccomend it as I am not sure how easy it is to remove or what damage it would do - but she did seem to get her hair free enough of it to wear it down for school!! One comment about using food dyes for hair - most seem to be okay, but steer clear of red - especially if it's made out of cochineal which can end up lasting far longer than you wanted it to!! Jo ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 May 95 09:04:21 BST From: jennyb@pdd.3com.com Subject: Re: Hair dye, punk hair styles. > I seem to remember reading an article in the early 80's, height >of the punk phase, in which one of the interviewee's said she stiffened >& coloured her hair with Kool-Aid. She claimed the sugar stiffened the >hair while the food colouring tinted it. I haven't tried this myself, I >don't think waist-length hair could get dtiff enough to stand up without >major damage. I suppose punk has gone out of style now so it qualifies as historical? Seems an odd topic to find alongside the usual posts. >From what I know the punk rock craze hit Britain more than other countries, I remember going to a big open air concert in London & the streets thronging with punks for miles around, with all the extravegantly coloured hair it was like a crowd of tropical birds. I wasn't a punk myself, but a friend who was did my hair for me occasionally. My hair is waist length & she got it to stand on end by first crimping it. then back-combing it, then spraying with loads of hairl laquer, pushing it into the style & spraying again with more laquer, I didn't let her colour my hair because I wasn't convinced that the colouring would wash out, though she swore that it would. The most commonly used temporary colourant was "crazy-colour" which comes in spray cans. At a different time during holidays when I didn't have to look respectable the following day I got sprayed with crazy colour in a dozen differnt shades (we were on Carnaby street in London & they were offering free trial squirts, so we both got rainbow heads!) It washed out of my hair on the first try, but my punk friends severely bleached hair hung onto the blue & green for a couple of washes, she looked like a mottled version of an old ladies blue rinse. In case anyone hasn't come across it back combing is done by holding hair away from the head & combing backwards towards the roots, this seperates the crimped locks of hair & gives them phenomenal body. Usually my hair is dead straight & lies absolutely flat, after crimping and back combing I had a halo of hair standing straight out from my head like a blonde version of an affro hairdo. At one point my punk friend did this to my hair an hour before the principals dinner at college, I hadn't realised the dinner was on, & suddenly had about five minutes to bring my hair back to something presentable. I stuck my head under a tap & tried brushing it flat, the best I could manage without saturating my hair to the point where it wouldn't dry in time was hair that stuck out as far as horizontal, but was no longer going anywhere above the horizontal. You know how at crowded dinner tables your elbows constantly knock into your neighbours? Well the problem wasn't so much the elbows as the hair which took up three peoples worth of head space! Fortunately my dinner companions thought it quite hilarious & didn't take offense at their lack of space. Speaking from personal experience I can assure you that the problem is not so much getting long hair to stand up as getting it to lie down again afterwards! I just had far too much hair on my head for most of the styles, but it wasn't a problem with length it was the coverage of my skull: to get the standard punk mohican most of the head is shaved, only the strip in the middle is left to stand up. When sufficiently laquered, crimped & back combed very long hair will stand up even in a thin strip. Without the shaving the only styles we managed were a sort of cross mohican where the hair is swept back & up into a circle that frames the face, or a set of spikes sticking out all over the place that made me feel like a christmas tree ornament! The most stunning punk style I saw was a man with what must have been at LEAST two feet of hair in a half inch wide strip in a mohican that was a deep metallic copper colour. I have no idea how he got the copper effect, though I've known punks use metallic powders & glitters brushed through damp laquered hair, so perhaps it was something like that? Punk hair styles do take a lot of time to do, my friends who were punks would spend hours messing around with one another's hair, shaving the bald bits dyeing, styling & so forth. I think most people looked at the torn clothes & had no idea of the amount of effort that went into attaining the punk look. Jennifer ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 May 95 09:19:24 BST From: jennyb@pdd.3com.com Subject: Re: Help with documentation > The goal of the project is to find examples world >wide of maiming females for "beauty". How about high heel shoes? They're still deforming women's feet, I've never seen any men's fashions approach the level of deformity & discomfort offered by women's styles which are still on offer today. Ask a chiropodist what he thinks of them and you'll likely here words like maiming used. Another contemporary example is plastic surgery. Breast implants are giving many women severe medical problems. & whatever you think of plastic surgery on faces lets face it, it's not done for your health & any un-necessary surgery carries some degree of risk with it however minor. If you want stuff from all cultures there were (are?) African tribes that went in for loading women with neck rings to the point where they formed a neck brace that extended the vertebra of the neck & could not be removed as the neck was permanently damaged. The rings were worn for life & gave women the long necks which were their tribes ideal of feminine beauty. I have an old atlas with pictures of women wearing the neck rings, so I could name the tribe for you, but I can't put my finger on the documentation of the effects of the rings, anyone else come across this? It depends on how far you want to extend the project, I'm not sure it counts as maiming, but recently there have been reports in the British press that excessive dieting is causing many helth problems & even leading to premature death in women, and of course there's anorexics as an example of disease in the pursuit of beauty. Does it count as maimng when someone starves themselves to death in the pursuit of beauty? Jennifer ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 May 1995 02:54:23 -0700 From: cjsmith@fantasy.Stanford.EDU (CJ Smith) Subject: Re: Help with documentation > The goal of the project is to find examples world >wide of maiming females for "beauty". In the Western world, there's the obvious ear piercing. No matter how painless those holes are once they've healed, they're still body modification, the negative word for which is maiming. Also piercing of the nostril, common in India (other places?). Some folks pierce other stuff too, but I'm not sure it counts if it isn't very "mainstream" in the culture you're looking at. (Navel piercing seems to be done [almost?] exclusively by women; if it's in pursuit of beauty, it'd be what you're looking for too.) Corsets can also modify the body severely if the wearer has laced down tightly for a long period of time. I've seen some X rays. The spine was _markedly_ changed, with or without the corset on. I might be able to find those photographs again - definitely a reference to them - if you're interested. Have no idea whether this extreme was ever common. Some cultures maim the guys, too. Scarification on the face/back of men in some African tribes; the Ibitoe wasp waist training belt worn by boys from puberty onward... I could dig up references on those if you like. I'm also sure I remember an account of a people who would put some kind of jewelry through men's, ahem, most sensitive area, some time before marriage - quote from a woman about this modification, "I would never marry a man without one". But I don't know if I could ever find the reference to this again. Another thing I couldn't ever find reference to again, but know I've heard of: complex gold inlay decorations on upper incisor teeth, to show when the wearer smiles. Is tattooing done very very commonly anywhere? (sort of like ear piercing here?) 'S all I can think of for now. My, I'm wordy when I'm short on sleep. --CJ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 May 1995 08:41:11 -0400 (EDT) From: "Hope A. Greenberg" Subject: Re: Help with documentation > If you want stuff from all cultures there were (are?) African tribes that went > in for loading women with neck rings to the point where they formed a neck brace > that extended the vertebra of the neck & could not be removed as the neck was > permanently damaged. The rings were worn for life & gave women the long necks > which were their tribes ideal of feminine beauty. > I have an old atlas with pictures of women wearing the neck rings, so I could name > the tribe for you, but I can't put my finger on the documentation of the effects of > the rings, anyone else come across this? Yes, but of course I can't come up with the article at the moment. It may have been a follow-up in National Geographic. At any rate the study did x-rays of the women and found that their necks did not stretch. Instead, their collar bones and shoulders were pushed down, a permanent deformity resulting in what appeared to be a longer neck. On the question of corsets, I wonder if anyone can answer the following: looking at actual dresses from the 1850-70s it's quite evident that the sloping shoulders so prized by fashion were actually designed into the dresses. Now, were women actually shaped that way or were there a lot of ill-fitting dresses? And if so was this a result of corsetting? I'm particularly curious because I had always assumed that the earlier part of that period did not have technologically "advanced" corsets, or rather, corsets that could really be tight laced to the point of causing deformity. - Hope ----------------- Hope Greenberg Hope.Greenberg@uvm.edu Academic Computing http://moose.uvm.edu/~hag Univ. of Vermont Come visit The Hall's latest addition: Burlington, VT 05405 The Ovid Project ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 May 95 08:10 CDT From: tallison@mcs.com (Tim Allison) Subject: Re: H-Costume Digest, Volume 294, 5/4/95 What is the mailing address for Peterman, please? Carol Carol Mitchell Caroline Richenda of the White Rose ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 May 95 09:50:03 PDT From: Gregory Stapleton Subject: Re: Help with documentation Coming from an anthropology/archaeology background, I once did a paper on statiopagia (it's been a while, so my spelling might be a bit off on this) and Venus figures from the neolithic period. While doing research on this, I came across a wonderful book which has a tremendous amount of information on the subject you are looking into on women from around the world. It is entitled, _Femalia Libidia Sexualis_. If you can't find it locally, try to interlibrary loan it from Oakland Univeristy, Rochester Hills, MI. Hope this helps, Gregory ---------- From: CJ Smith To: Subject: Re: Help with documentation Date: Friday, May 05, 1995 2:54AM > The goal of the project is to find examples world >wide of maiming females for "beauty". In the Western world, there's the obvious ear piercing. No matter how painless those holes are once they've healed, they're still body modification, the negative word for which is maiming. Also piercing of the nostril, common in India (other places?). Some folks pierce other stuff too, but I'm not sure it counts if it isn't very "mainstream" in the culture you're looking at. (Navel piercing seems to be done [almost?] exclusively by women; if it's in pursuit of beauty, it'd be what you're looking for too.) Corsets can also modify the body severely if the wearer has laced down tightly for a long period of time. I've seen some X rays. The spine was _markedly_ changed, with or without the corset on. I might be able to find those photographs again - definitely a reference to them - if you're interested. Have no idea whether this extreme was ever common. Some cultures maim the guys, too. Scarification on the face/back of men in some African tribes; the Ibitoe wasp waist training belt worn by boys from puberty onward... I could dig up references on those if you like. I'm also sure I remember an account of a people who would put some kind of jewelry through men's, ahem, most sensitive area, some time before marriage - quote from a woman about this modification, "I would never marry a man without one". But I don't know if I could ever find the reference to this again. Another thing I couldn't ever find reference to again, but know I've heard of: complex gold inlay decorations on upper incisor teeth, to show when the wearer smiles. Is tattooing done very very commonly anywhere? (sort of like ear piercing here?) 'S all I can think of for now. My, I'm wordy when I'm short on sleep. --CJ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 05 May 95 10:09:22 -0500 From: ejp@watson.ibm.com Subject: Re: Help with documentation "Hope A. Greenberg" writes: > On the question of corsets, I wonder if anyone can answer the following: > looking at actual dresses from the 1850-70s it's quite evident that the > sloping shoulders so prized by fashion were actually designed into the > dresses. Now, were women actually shaped that way or were there a lot of > ill-fitting dresses? And if so was this a result of corsetting? I'm Women WERE shaped that way, and it WAS as a result of corsetting. The ideal was for women to have shoulders and neck that resembled a champagne bottle. They hustled kids into corsets as early as 4 or 5. For the real scoop on maiming, try _The Beauty Myth_, and many of the books in its bibliography. Try anything on clothing by Alison Lurie, and have a look at the rest of the books on that shelf at the library. You'll find some real lulus if the library is a decent one. cheers, ejp -------- Elizabeth Poole Yorktown Heights, NY ejp@watson.ibm.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 May 1995 07:52:58 -0700 (PDT) From: Lori Kishimoto Subject: Re: bras On Fri, 5 May 1995 NeenH@aol.com wrote: > On Bras: I HATE wearing bras (as do most of my friends). I will only wear > on in the house if it meets very strict specs. Luckily I've found a > nursing/sport bra that does. But even though it is comfortable, free is > better (even with the jiggling). I am a rather flat-chest belly dancer. After my reconstruction surgery during a bout with breast cancer, my plastic surgeon recommended that I wear a comfortable bra for "support and shaping". I replied that I didn't own a bra, unless he counted my cabaret-style costumes. I didn't think that was what he had in mind! (Come to think if it, it would have been rather delightful... !!!) Lori K. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 May 1995 09:55:58 -0500 (CDT) From: Gwyndlyn J Ferguson Subject: Re: Hair Dye About temporary hair dye/spray: The last time I did community theater costuming (admittedly, about five years ago), we had small cans of colored hair spray, which came in all the mettalics, and several"real" and "wild" colors. It held the hair pretty well, although it was heavy. And it easily washed out in one wash (you might want to condition it tho). When I was a Macbeth witch, we did it slightly punky, and I had my long (mid-back) hair sprayed straight back from my face in three different colors. It even washed out of *my* hair, which held onto the commercial "washes out in six shampoos" stuff for six months (good thing I used auburn and not orange:)). gf *Gwyn Ferguson***Western Illinois University *SCA: Lady Gwyndlyn Caer Vyrddin***Lochmorrow-Midrealm *Internet: mugjf@bgu.edu ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 May 95 01:49:58 -0700 From: Catherine Decker Subject: 18th masquerade Dear Diane Barlow Close and Gretchen Miller, The Aphra Behn Society will be having a masquerade as part of its 1996 meeting. Members of your historical costume group might be interested in speaking on gender and costume in the 1660-1800 period or attending and enjoying the opportunity to wear 18th c. masquerade dress and attend a dance workshop. Sincerely yours, Catherine Decker The Aphra Behn Society cathy@cassandra.ucr.edu CALL FOR PAPERS The Aphra Behn Society will meet Oct. 25-27, 1996, at the University of Georgia, Athens, Georgia. The conference will feature a Masquerade, an 18th-century dance workshop, a dramatic reading and an open coffeehouse poetry reading of favorite eighteenth-century poems, in addition, to papers read by conference participants. The conference is centered on women's writing or writing about women from 1660-1800. We are interested in all papers dealing with the gender issues of this period. Please send one-page abstracts by APRIL 15, 1996 to the address below. Elizabeth Kraft / Department of English / University of Georgia /Athens, GA 30602 For those interesting in joining the Behn Society, please contact the Communication Committee Chair, Catherine Decker, at cathy@cassandra.ucr.edu. We have a newsletter that is available on the net for free. For snail mail mailings and to participate in the conference, the yearly dues are $15, payable to Ellen Gardiner, the Behn Society Treasurer. Ellen Gardiner is at the University of Mississippi, egardine@sunset.backbone.olemiss.edu ------------------------------ Date: 05 May 95 16:06:00 BST From: Mrs C S Yeldham Subject: David and History By and large I agree with David, and I don't think we would have a lot to argue about, but (there is always a but!) I would like to make a few points. 'Linen' in England as applied to household linen, is not an obsolete term - they are still referred to as such, eg bed linen. Even though the most common fabric is polyester, and most people are surprised if you point out the source of the name. I'm not a lawyer, but I don't think the Code Napoleon assumes guilt as a point of law. It does have a very different court set-up, as does Scotland. The 'magistrate' or procurator fiscal in Scotland, is a state-appointed, legally-trained investigator, separate from the police, who directs the investigation and then leads the prosecution. I suppose you could say this puts the defendant in a poorer position than the confrontational English style, where the prosecuting lawyer comes into the case only when it is ready to go to course. To get back to history, David's points are valid for recreation/re-enactment, which is what I am involved in. However, there is a weakness in the method, which I am sure he is coming up against all the time. What do you do when your evidence is weak, contradictary or non-existent? In a recreation in front of the public there are occasions when you have to do something and you are not confident you are right - or different people have different opinions. The solution at Kentwell is to try to agree the 'best possible' solution, out of the eyes of the public and then stick to that unless and until better evidence comes along - and then try to agree the new idea, again out of view of the public (I have known participants accept the (undocumented) criticism of a member of the public and then try to adopt it in the middle of a dance (which this particular criticism related to) Very annoying!). For example, Rosemary Muntus has been looking at shirts and smocks, and reckons draw-string necklines are not around in England in the 16th century - they come in in the 17th century. Accepting David's point about the difficulty of proving a negative, looking at the pictures, she seems to be right, so draw-string necklines are in the process of disappearing at Kentwell (or should be). With the best of intentions, and high principles, our evidence is not good enough for recreationists to be totally confident of large areas of ordinary everyday life in the past. Look at the debate we just had on when pantyhose/tights superseded stockings! Caroline ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 05 May 95 11:17:16 EST From: "KATHLEEN NORVELL" Subject: Re: medieval wear Neil -- Can you limit your query a bit? "Medieval" means a lot of centuries and locations. Do you have a time period and place in mind? If so, we can help you, otherwise we'd spend a year just discussing all aspects of medieval clothing. Kathleen kathleen@anstec.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 May 1995 11:24:18 -0400 (EDT) From: "Kathleen Jennifer Mcnulty" Subject: Hair Dye I have used and am using right now kool-aid to dye my hair. Its cheap and works really well. It generally washes out in a couple of washes, unless you have really blond hair. (Blond hair holds dye for a longer period of time because it is more porous.) I have to use this because my commander would kill me if I showed up in camp with pink and green hair. I hope this helps. Kate ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 May 1995 10:49:43 -0500 (CDT) From: Deb Subject: RE: Naturally Colored Cotton (was mutant cotton) There was an interesting article about these colored cottons in the National Geographic, about a year ago. If interested, check back issues as your library. Deb Baddorf ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 May 1995 09:00:41 -0700 From: Alexandra.Ohlson@Eng.Sun.COM (Alexandra Rankin Ohlson) Subject: Re: Help with documentation This is more along the lines of self-imposed scarring, but in Germany in the late 19th century a certain type of dueling was very popular in the university. In this type of dueling one might get a scar across the cheek and this became a sign of valor. The gentlemen might put wine into the wound to make sure it became a permanent scar. Mark Twain talks about this in one of his travel books, but I don't have any other specific documentation. Men only, of course. The african tribe where women wore rings around their necks was definitely documented in Nat'l Geographic. I remember reading it as a kid and being blown away. alexandra ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 May 1995 09:07:18 -0700 (PDT) From: Heather Rose Jones Subject: Re: Help with documentation On Fri, 5 May 1995, Gregory Stapleton wrote: > Coming from an anthropology/archaeology background, I once did a paper > on statiopagia (it's been a while, so my spelling might be a bit off on ^^^^^^^^^^^ "steatopygia" Heather Rose Jones ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 5 May 1995 23:11:48 +0800 From: writan@iinet.com.au (Writan Consulting) Subject: Re: Help with documentation At 02:54 AM 5/5/95 -0700, CJ Smith wrote: >> The goal of the project is to find examples world >>wide of maiming females for "beauty". A few thoughts - How about white lead powder, or belladonna eyedrops? I also remember reading that young girls during the Regency period would dampen their dresses before going to a ball so they would cling - damp muslin is *not* good for your health! Tatoos - Maoris (men and women) universally were tatooed. Scarification as a coming of age ritual by many groups including Australian aboriginals - mostly male. Actually, when you think about it, a lot of this stuff relates to male rituals. /anne... ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 05 May 1995 13:08:40 -0400 (EDT) From: Neil Tejano Subject: more medieval wear Okay, okay...according to everyone's wishes I'll be a bit more specific. I'd like information regarding clothes worn by European peasants around the nineth century. More specific? How about those worn by the Lombards? Occupation need not apply... Thanks once again everyone. Neil ------------------------------ ------------------------------ End of Volume 297 -----------------------