HatHistorian
Published Jul 1, 2022Emblematic of Napoleon Bonaparte and his age of conquest, the bicorn is a distinctive military hat that became part of the most formal of dress uniforms and remains to this day in certain ceremonial outfits
The bicorn I wear in this video comes from Theatr’Hall in Paris https://www.theatrhall.com. The uniform comes from thejacketshop.co.uk
Title sequence designed by Alexandre Mahler
am.design@live.comThis video was done for entertainment and educational purposes. No copyright infringement of any sort was intended.
October 22, 2024
A Conquering Hat: a History of the Bicorn
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August 3, 2024
The Rise, Fall, And Revival Of Art Deco | A Style Is Born W/ @KazRowe
Wayfair
Published Jun 15, 2023Welcome to A Style is Born, hosted by YouTuber, cartoonist, and champion of under-represented history, Kaz Rowe!
Join us as we go down the rabbit hole and uncover the unique histories and origin stories behind your favorite design styles. In this first episode of Season 2, we delve into the history-rich Art Deco movement.
Chapters
Intro – 00:00
History – 00:45
Influences, Elements, & Materials – 04:58
1980s Art Deco Revival Via Memphis Group – 07:46
Conclusion – 09:13
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June 23, 2024
QotD: Shoes
Mismatched shoes are also nicely subversive. There is somewhere in the clothing code a notion that holds over from the Elizabethan era that says a person’s shoes must show that they are in the Elizabethan lingo, unconcussable. Shoes, especially the shoes of the male and the young, are meant to show that the wearer is, all apologies, grounded. (High heel shoes take their semotic precisely from the way they break this rule. The wearer, a female, demonstrates her vulnerability, her fragility, her elegance, her powers of evocation by showing herself not at all grounded.)
Grant McCracken, “Cotton, Converse and co-creation”, This Blog Sits at the, 2005-07-27.
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December 30, 2023
In defence of … cufflinks?
In The Critic, Peter Caddick-Adams makes the case for sartorial splendour over modern-day slovenly dress, and particularly for the cufflink:
“Great British coin cufflinks” by wowcoin is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0 
.
… these traditional baubles are fast becoming the clothing language of the old guard. Although fashion is always on the move, we are less stylish than we once were. Perhaps propelled by Mrs Thatcher’s homely handbags, refinement in dress is receding from everyday life. The fact that our current Prime Minister, like his predecessor-but-one, rarely sports cufflinks is a symptom of a greater sartorial malaise.
Links evolved in the 19th century as a means of displaying wealth and class, following the ruffled nonsense of the Elizabethan and Baroque eras and floppy sleeves sported by Beau Brummell and his Regency dandies. After Prince Albert had popularised the watch chain named after him, masculine fashion was bowled over by his son, the frock-coated Prince of Wales, later Edward VII. “Gentlemen, you may smoke,” he proclaimed on ascending the throne in 1901, instantly removing Queen Victoria’s ban on puffing away on the royal estates.
Apart from making a profession out of cigar-smoking, the new king influenced many clothing innovations, including trouser turn-ups (a last-minute tailor’s resort), those monstrous “Windsor” tie-knots, and leaving the bottom button of a waistcoat undone (due to the imperial stomach). The most colourful were His Majesty’s shirt embellishments designed by Fabergé. They immediately prompted Europe’s middle classes to weigh-in with gold, enamelled or monogrammed cuff jewellery, without which the aspiring Edwardian-era male was, frankly, naked.
Not compatible with the rigours of combatting the Bosche in the trenches of the Great War (when the affectation of tucking a muddied or bloodied handkerchief into one’s coat sleeve re-emerged), cuff-links returned with vigour during the Jazz Age. Their reappearance, along with spats (worn around the ankle) was due to the lack of central heating in His Majesty’s realm. All those draughty corridors in smart houses (and lack of instant remedies for colds and flu) necessitated warm ankles, with silk-wrapped necks and wrists protected by elaborate studs and links.
Resurgence was brief, for the aforesaid gentleman’s accessories almost vanished in 1939–45 with the advent of austerity imposed by adversity. Skullduggery by German submarine captains created shortages of fine shirting. The resultant famine of silk and cotton in turn destroyed the double cuff, which hitherto had been bound together so effectively by links. As it was deemed unpatriotic in the many countries at war to advertise luxury, these flourishes fell out of fashion completely.
Winston Churchill compounded this utilitarian mood with his man-of-the-people “siren suits” (predecessor of today’s onesies). They reflected the epoch of clothing short-cuts, such as collar-attached shirts, zip fasteners and trouser belts, replacing collar studs, fly buttons and braces — all, you will note, gifts from our Transatlantic cousins. Although men’s hats were retained for warmth, mainly disappearing in the 1960s because of our extended lives in automobiles, these moves to simpler clothing (even if, in Churchill’s case, adorned with a spotted bow tie) also threatened the permanent demise of the cuff-link. More correctly, they threatened cufflinks, for these are only of value in the plural.
Indeed, “what is the point of cufflinks?”, I hear you ponder. Anthropologists will tell you that man is a curious creature. From the dawn of time, he has had a weakness for asserting individuality, to signify class or leadership, or oft-times as part of a mating ritual. Archaeologists will reference troves of treasured jewellery in excavated graves. Historians cite portraits, engravings, photographs and uniforms, monocles and cravats as proof of this down to modern times. Staying with a barrister friend recently, I was shown his collection of about fifty pairs of cufflinks. Their designs reflected his three lives as a reserve officer, lawyer and freemason.
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October 11, 2023
Art Deco in 9 Minutes: Why Is It The Most Popular Architectural Style? 🗽
Curious Muse
Published 3 Sept 2021What comes to your mind when you think of the 1920s? For most people, the 1920s conjures up images of jazz, flappers, Old Hollywood, the Great Gatsby, and the Chrysler Building in New York City. It was a time of prosperity, exorbitant spending, and entertainment that gave rise to one of the most popular decorative arts and architecture movements — known as Art Deco.
Characterized by exquisite craftsmanship, lavish decoration, and rich materials, the style has become synonymous with the Roaring Twenties. So, what was the Art Deco movement all about and what differentiates it from other major movements? Finally, despite its popularity today, what makes Art Deco so closely associated with the 1920s?
In this week’s video, we’ll dive into the history of the era and learn about Art Déco, the style that continues to inspire designers and architects around the world!
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August 30, 2023
QotD: Hairstyles of the late Ancien Régime
As the industrial revolution and various other shifts (including truly disastrous harvests) robbed those whose income came from hereditary landholding of their ancient riches and prominence, even while the court demanded a complex set of “dancing attendance” for royal favor (A policy started and encouraged by Louis XIV in part to rob the nobility of wealth and prominence, not to mention keeping their minds off rebellion) the nobility felt insecure. The fact that its ranks were being penetrated by people from the bourgeoisie, who married their children or “simply” franked the nobility’s lavish lifestyles, made the nobles feel they were losing control. Even though rank remained a thing of birth, they were in fact, in the real world, losing rank.
The response were fashions so extravagant that they make us go “Wait, what?” and must have given people headaches.
You can see where wigs came from and were fashionable, in a society without running water and/or decent shampoos. It was easier to keep your hair ridiculously short and wear wigs, which is why they’ve been part of human fashion since ever.
But it took the French revolution to come up with wigs on armatures (or hair extensions, ditto) and hairstyles that incorporated ships and, at one point, bird cages with live, singing birds.
To look at drawings or read descriptions is to go “uh, what? who ever thought that was attractive?” and also “Boy their heads must have hurt”.
Yet the competition for the most elaborate and showy hairstyle, no matter how insane, did not stop until those heads fell to Madame Guillotine thereby stilling forever their status anxiety.
Sarah Hoyt, “Is That A Ship On Your Head?”, Libertarian Enterprise, 2019-09-01.
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August 25, 2023
QotD: Passive-aggressive “fashion”
This is why the doctrine of multiculturalism, far from making people behave better and more sensitively to the feelings of others, allows them to behave worse and less sensitively to the feelings of others. It is almost normal or instinctive human behaviour when in unfamiliar social surroundings to look around and see how other people are behaving, estimate what might offend them, and adjust one’s own conduct accordingly. Of course, one sometimes gets it wrong, but at least one tries. However, if multiculturalism is the demand that we accept the conduct of others, it is at least as much the demand that they accept our conduct, whatever it might be. And therefore there is no need for us to adjust it merely for their comfort.
Theodore Dalrymple, “Suit Yourselfie”, Taki’s Magazine, 2017-09-16.
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June 7, 2022
QotD: Mens’ fashion in Europe versus the USA
The Z Man, “Travelogue: Talinn”, The Z Blog, 2019-04-03.
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March 31, 2022
How Did They Pee in Those Dresses? A Superficial History of Underwear
Bernadette Banner
Published 28 Nov 2020*[2:19] In the English-written sources I’ve found so far. Unfortunately I can’t presently speak for primary accounts written in other languages.
FURTHER READING:
Portraits of ladies not wearing underwear but that I couldn’t include in the video for Proprietary Reasons, lol
Mid-18th century: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Fi…
Mid-18th c, “La Jupe Relevée” Francois Boucher https://p6.storage.canalblog.com/68/0…
Full analysis of the 15th century Lengberg Castle finds: https://www.academia.edu/27335143/The…
Extra special thanks to Izabela at Prior Attire for permission to use her demonstration video! She has also just put out a video discussing how Victorians dealt with needing to pee: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ED-wK…
Abby Cox on 18th Century periods: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV2Tg…
Karolina Żebrowska on Victorian periods: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2d_QP…Footnotes and image credits can be found at: http://www.bernadettebanner.co.uk/how…
Want to get started with hand sewing?
🧵
🕯Check out my Skillshare original course, “Hand Sewing Basics: Working Wonders with Fabric, Needle & Thread”. To sign up for a free trial and take the class, visit https://skl.sh/bernadettebanner1This channel is made possible through the generous support of Patreon members. To become a patron, visit https://www.patreon.com/bernadettebanner (although videos will remain free for you here regardless).
Beyond YouTube:
IG @bernadettebanner http://www.instagram.com/bernadetteba…
Management contact for business enquiries:
bernadette@helmtalentgroup.com
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November 19, 2021
I Wore 18th-Century Clothing *Every Day for 5 YEARS & This Is What I Learned (Corsets Aren’t Bad!)
Abby Cox
Published 10 May 2020I wore 18th-century women’s clothing, all day, 5 days a week, for 5 years of my life. Over those 5 years, I learned *a lot* about my body, fashion in the 1700s — the good and the not so good, and how we can take these lessons and improve modern fashion.
***Trigger Warning: I do talk about body image in this video (as a reflection of my own, long, long journey with my own body & how wearing historical clothing has given me a different perspective on body image) which may or may not be upsetting for some. ***
*Ok, so not “every day” but you get the idea…😉
💌Business Inquiries *ONLY* abbycox@semaphorebrands.com
(This email goes directly to my management and not to me.)More Videos:
🎉🎉 Answering YOUR FAQs from THIS Video: https://youtu.be/SN3agbKZVP0
“Becoming an 18th-Century MEME LORD” https://youtu.be/a0pRE3uXWu8
“Historical Costumers and Their Hogwarts Houses” https://youtu.be/vxmRsc9Qj8M
Rachel Maksy – “Born in the Wrong Era” – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r5GAJ…A lot of these photos of me were taken by the lovely Fred Blystone. You can see more of his photography here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/13664…
Also, @Edwardian Tailor (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBSf…)
We like to assume that the people in the past are “stupid” (it’s normal human behavior), and one of the ways that we, as a modern society, do this is by judging the past for their fashion trends and practices. We’ve been taught to demonize corsetry (or in this case, stays) for being restrictive and a tool of oppression towards women, and take pride in our culture of diet and exercise, without considering the issues that can be found in our body-obsessed culture. We praise jeans and a t-shirt, as being “comfortable” but the insecurities that so many of us have about our bodies are put on display in our 21st-century uniforms. We take for granted our modern homes, and how that has made us lazy in dressing for the seasons, resulting (in part) the loss of various types of textiles and weaving technology. I learned a lot over those 5 years, including how to indulge in an Indian Buffet while wearing my 18th-century stays, and I’m excited to share my insights with you. Also, can we just discuss how stupid modern underwear is?? 😉
Images Used:
*Summer Dresses, 1783, Object Number – J,5.139, Asset Number – 79588001 © The Trustees of the British Museum. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collect…
*Sheer Cottton Mull Italian Gown, 1780s, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 17.107.6a, b, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collect…
*Kofta, 1760s-90s, Nordiska Museet, NM.0186311, https://digitaltmuseum.se/01102369100…
*Women 1790-1799, Plate 052, Fashion Plate from August 1796, The Metropolitan Museum of Art Library Costume Institute Fashion Plate Collection, https://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/dig…
*Robe a l’anglais c. 1780, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1982.291a, b, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collect…
*Attributed to Isaac Cruikshank, Cestina Warehouse or Belly Piece Shop
April 16, 1793, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 59.533.475 https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collect…*Stays, The Metropolitan Museum of Art,
2009.300.3330a–d
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collect…*The Bum Shop, Attributed to R. Rushworth (British, active 1785–86), July 11 1785, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1970.541.12, https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collect…
*Chemise, 1780-1800s, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2005.368 https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collect…
*Corset, 1880s, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2009.300.3497a–c
https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collect…——-
Music from Epidemic Sound:
“Gold Among the Sand”- Trevor Kowalski
“To Clarity” – Airae
“The Path to Innovation” – Airae
“Caffeinated and Motivated” – Airae
“Alice is on her Way” – Airae
“Cafe Laurent” – Medite
“In a Jiffy” – Moins Le Quartet
“Moonlight Night” – Gabriel Lucas———
Instagrams: https://www.instagram.com/abbyelyn
From the comments:
Abby Cox
1 year ago (edited)Hey Everyone! 👋🏻
Thank you all so much for taking the time to watch this video about my experience! I’ve noticed a lot of the same questions in the comments, so I want to take a minute to answer them here –
🎉UPDATE (Sept 27, 2020) – I’ve answered your questions about menstruation here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV2TgwjjhOE
🎉UPDATE (June 7, 2020) – I’ve taken the most commonly asked questions from the comments and have done a video to answer them! You can watch it here: https://youtu.be/SN3agbKZVP0– My stays (18th-century term for a corset) are from https://redthreaded.com/ – they’re a fantastic historical corset company that I adore. (and for the couple of you trying to call me out – my 100% hand-sewn, me-made, reproduction stays are so worn out that they’re in retirement, and just because I can make stays by hand doesn’t mean I have the time. I’d also rather support a small business that I believe in.❤️Finally, the gown I’m wearing in this video was cut to go over those stays, but if you’d like to see my hand-sewn reproduction stays in action you can buy the book I co-wrote here: https://www.american-duchess.com/book/american-duchess-guide) ☺️
– While I haven’t gone down the menstruation research rabbit hole (cause it is its own subject of study) I am going to do my best with limited access to primary source documentation (which is what I really need to be able to answer this question) to produce a video about what 18th-century women would do. I don’t know when this will be, but I will do my absolute best to answer this question, and if I can do some experimental archeology in the process, I will. 😎 (ravenclaws gotta ravenclaw…)
– Thigh chafing – so I think that varies from person to person. I never really had a lot of issues with it (and my narrow hips mean that I will never have a thigh gap) because my linen shift would always kind of end up between my leg and absorb the sweat. However, I know a lot of costumers who will wear split-crotched drawers because they find it more comfortable, even though drawers weren’t a thing in the 18th-century.
Ok! I hope this helps answer some of your questions! Thank you all so much for watching and engaging in this video. I really can’t tell you all how much I appreciate it! ❤️
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August 10, 2021
Art Deco in the 1920s
The1920sChannel
Published 1 Nov 2019The aesthetic of the 1920s was certainly unique and instantly recognizable. For those of us (me included) who don’t know much about art, it’s difficult to pinpoint the characteristics. The most important art movement of the ’20 was Art Deco. So here’s a closer, though unprofessional, look at 1920s aesthetic.
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May 19, 2021
Why Did We Stop Wearing Hats?
Karolina Żebrowska
Published 28 Apr 2020should we bring hats back? what do you think?
_____________
My Instagram: https://bit.ly/2Qo9rrI
My nudes: https://bit.ly/2UHHY6N
My merch: bit.ly/2CCq5jE
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November 24, 2020
The History of Fabric Is the History of Civilization
ReasonTV
Published 23 Nov 2020Virginia Postrel’s new book explores economics, politics, and technology through textiles.
——————
Full text and links: https://reason.com/video/2020/11/23/t…Follow us on Twitter: https://twitter.com/reason
Reason is the planet’s leading source of news, politics, and culture from a libertarian perspective. Go to reason.com for a point of view you won’t get from legacy media and old left-right opinion magazines.
—————-The Fabric of Civilization: How Textiles Made the World, a new book by former Reason editor in chief Virginia Postrel, is a rich, endlessly fascinating history of the remarkable luck, invention, and innovation that made our fabric-rich world possible.
The book aims to make the mundane miraculous. Consider cotton. Most of the cotton we grow today is descended in part from a plant species that evolved in Africa and somehow got over to what is now Peru, where it mixed with New World strains.
“The fact that we have cotton at all, that it exists anywhere, is amazing,” says Postrel. “It happened long before there were human beings, but much more recently than when the continents were together. So we don’t know. It could have gotten caught up in a hurricane. It could have floated on a piece of pumice. So it’s this random, very unlikely happening that had tremendous world-changing consequences.”
The story of textiles is rife with attempts at protectionism and prohibition. In 17th and 18th century Europe, countries banned the importation of super-soft, super-colorful cotton prints from India known as calicos because they threatened domestic producers of everything from lower-quality cotton fabric to luxury silks. “For 73 years, France treated calico the way the U.S. treats cocaine,” Postrel says. “There was this huge amount of smuggling, and they were constantly ratcheting up the penalties [so] that they got quite grotesque, at least for the major traffic.” Some of “the earliest writings of classical liberalism are in this context, people saying not only is this not working, but … it is unjust to be sentencing people to the galleys in order to protect silk makers’ profits.”
Postrel also documents how the Luddites, the 19th century English textile workers famous for smashing the power looms threatening to put them out of work, owed their jobs to an earlier technological breakthrough: the spinning machines that emerged in the late 1700s.
“If you go back to that earlier period, when spinning machines were introduced, the same thing happened,” she says. “They had their own period of rebelling against the new technologies and saying they’re putting people out of work.”
The book also upends some contemporary myths, such as the claim that commercial production of hemp for clothing was a casualty of the war on drugs. “Hemp historically was a very coarse kind of fabric for poor people who didn’t have an alternative,” says Postrel. “It was replaced by cotton for good reasons. Cotton was also affordable, but it was soft and washable and just a much better fabric.”
“Human beings live in history and we inherit the legacies, positive and negative, of that history,” says Postrel, whose previous books include The Power of Glamour, The Substance of Style, and The Future and Its Enemies. Discussing the large themes of her work she says, “All you can do is start from where you are and try to do better from where you are.”
Narrated by Nick Gillespie. Edited by Isaac Reese.
Music: “Thoughts,” by ANBR
Photos: World History Archive/Newscom; The Print Collector Heritage Images/Newsroom; The “Réale” returning to port, Med/CC BY-SA 3.0; Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture/CC0; Battle of Grand Port, Rama/Wikimedia Commons/CC BY-SA 2.0 FR; Fine Art Images Heritage Images/Newscom; Seton, M., Müller, R., Zahirovic, S., Gaina, C., Torsvik, T., Shephard, G., Talsma, A., Gurnis, M., Turner, M., Maus, S., and Chandler, M., 2012, Global continental and ocean basin reconstructions since 200 Ma: Earth-Science Reviews, v. 113, no. 3-4, p. 212-270
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October 14, 2020
“For Generation Z — roughly speaking, those born between 1995 and 2010 — ‘flattering’ is becoming a new F-word”
Hannah Betts explains why it’s now somewhere between awkward and mortally offensive to use the word “flattering” to or about a member of Gen Z:
Why do we wear clothes? The mundane answer runs “for protection against the elements”, pointing to the succession of Ice Ages to which homo sapiens was subjected, forced to borrow fur from more hirsute species.
Well, up to a point, Lord Copper. The ancient civilisations that grew up in the fertile valleys of the Euphrates, the Nile and the Indus, were more tropical than a Wham! video, and clearly using their outfits to signify status, occupational, sex and gender differentiation.
Some may even have wanted to be regarded as individuals — despite we modern types imagining we invented all that — cutting a dash with a tufted Mesopotamian fringe here, or supple Egyptian weave there.
I raise the question because the issue of why we dress is feeling modish again, and not merely because the great grounding brought about by Covid has made comfort king.
The costumes of both genders had been heading in this direction already — what with normcore, athleezure, and the lemming-like “casualisation”. But, I’m talking about something else here, a resistance to the at-one-time uncontroversial notion of what is “flattering”, a term now considered oppressive by the young.
To quote the Guardian‘s Jess Cartner-Morley, never backward about coming forward in identifying a zeitgeist moment: “For Generation Z — roughly speaking, those born between 1995 and 2010 — ‘flattering’ is becoming a new F-word.
“To compliment a woman on her ‘flattering’ dress is passive-aggressive body-policing, sneaked into our consciousness in a Trojan horse of sisterly helpfulness. It is a euphemism for fat-shaming, a sniper attack slyly targeting our hidden vulnerabilities. ‘Flattering’, in other words, is cancelled.”
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November 25, 2019
Historical hats
Lindybeige
Published 4 Mar 2015Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Lindybeige
More videos here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list…There were so many types of hat in the past, and yet it turns out that many of them were actually the same.
Lindybeige: a channel of archaeology, ancient and medieval warfare, rants, swing dance, travelogues, evolution, and whatever else occurs to me to make.
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Twitter: https://twitter.com/Lindybeige I may have some drivel to contribute to the Twittersphere, plus you get notice of uploads.
website: http://www.LloydianAspects.co.uk
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