HOT ENOUGH FOR YOU?
Sure, it’s been a nasty, steamy week in the Northeast. My grandfather, a self-educated gent with a colorful turn of phrase, would have called it “Hotter than the hinges of Hell,” with an apology for the profanity around ladies.
Now imagine living it with corsets…and without air conditioning.
That’s exactly what women had to face in the late 19th century, and really, for hundreds of years before. But it wasn’t really until the 1800s that ridiculous standards of layering up really took hold.
If (like me) you grew up on a steady diet of L.M. Montgomery, Laura Ingalls Wilder and the like, you probably remember older ladies saying “A nice woman never wears less than three petticoats, at least one flannel.” Also if you’re like me, you probably didn’t believe people actually wore that much clothing.
Wrong. A look at fashion plates and popular advice will tell you that they sure did. In the lists for a middle-to-upper class bride’s trousseau, the sheer quantity of chemises, petticoats and suggests women were swathed in layer upon layer of thin cotton. That was the good part: it was thin and it was cotton. But there sure was a lot of it.
By 1899, when Ella Shane and her friends would be dressing for a hot day, they’d start with pantalets and a camisole, or “combinations” – one-piece long johns to you -- if they were especially forward-thinking. Then came the stays (even singers like Ella wore them, though she wouldn’t lace tight: a nice woman NEVER left the house without a corset). Next a corset-cover, essentially another camisole. Plus those petticoats, though hopefully not heavy flannel in the summer heat. Stockings too.
Which finally brings us to the dress. Those sheer white or pastel lawn frocks you see in the vintage photos are very pretty, but they’re really just practical. If you’ve already got four or five layers on, you want to top it off with the least clothing you can decently wear. So the dress has to be as thin and breathable as the rest of the outfit.
People who’ve tried it (I’m not one of them, being about a foot too tall to wear anything dating from the time) say that it’s not as tortuous as it seems, as long as you don’t lace the stays very tight. The thin natural fibers do help wick sweat, and all the light loose petticoats and skirts let air move. Which is all well and good, but remember, you’re still out there in many, many layers of clothing in a world without air conditioning.
So it’s not surprising that most old summer pictures of women in street clothes – as opposed to bathing suits, which is another post for another day – show them sitting on chaises in the shade or slowly walking in the sea breeze. That’s about all most of us could reasonably manage in a getup like that.
You might want to spare a thought here for the maids, laundresses and other working women of the time, who were expected to dress “decently” by their employers’ standards, but did not have the luxury of relaxing in the shade. Never mind the women helping their men in the gardens and fields. Not just backbreaking work – but backbreaking work in clothes that only added to the burden.
So, as uncomfortable as she might have been, Ella would know it could have been a lot worse, and she’d be grateful. I know I'm grateful in my sweater for the AC, at least most of the time!
Now imagine living it with corsets…and without air conditioning.
That’s exactly what women had to face in the late 19th century, and really, for hundreds of years before. But it wasn’t really until the 1800s that ridiculous standards of layering up really took hold.
If (like me) you grew up on a steady diet of L.M. Montgomery, Laura Ingalls Wilder and the like, you probably remember older ladies saying “A nice woman never wears less than three petticoats, at least one flannel.” Also if you’re like me, you probably didn’t believe people actually wore that much clothing.
Wrong. A look at fashion plates and popular advice will tell you that they sure did. In the lists for a middle-to-upper class bride’s trousseau, the sheer quantity of chemises, petticoats and suggests women were swathed in layer upon layer of thin cotton. That was the good part: it was thin and it was cotton. But there sure was a lot of it.
By 1899, when Ella Shane and her friends would be dressing for a hot day, they’d start with pantalets and a camisole, or “combinations” – one-piece long johns to you -- if they were especially forward-thinking. Then came the stays (even singers like Ella wore them, though she wouldn’t lace tight: a nice woman NEVER left the house without a corset). Next a corset-cover, essentially another camisole. Plus those petticoats, though hopefully not heavy flannel in the summer heat. Stockings too.
Which finally brings us to the dress. Those sheer white or pastel lawn frocks you see in the vintage photos are very pretty, but they’re really just practical. If you’ve already got four or five layers on, you want to top it off with the least clothing you can decently wear. So the dress has to be as thin and breathable as the rest of the outfit.
People who’ve tried it (I’m not one of them, being about a foot too tall to wear anything dating from the time) say that it’s not as tortuous as it seems, as long as you don’t lace the stays very tight. The thin natural fibers do help wick sweat, and all the light loose petticoats and skirts let air move. Which is all well and good, but remember, you’re still out there in many, many layers of clothing in a world without air conditioning.
So it’s not surprising that most old summer pictures of women in street clothes – as opposed to bathing suits, which is another post for another day – show them sitting on chaises in the shade or slowly walking in the sea breeze. That’s about all most of us could reasonably manage in a getup like that.
You might want to spare a thought here for the maids, laundresses and other working women of the time, who were expected to dress “decently” by their employers’ standards, but did not have the luxury of relaxing in the shade. Never mind the women helping their men in the gardens and fields. Not just backbreaking work – but backbreaking work in clothes that only added to the burden.
So, as uncomfortable as she might have been, Ella would know it could have been a lot worse, and she’d be grateful. I know I'm grateful in my sweater for the AC, at least most of the time!
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