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From: betsy@dartvax.UUCP (Betsy Hanes Perry)
Newsgroups: net.singles,net.women
Subject: Re: fashion and high heels (lengthy)
Message-ID: <3007@dartvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 2-May-85 12:43:33 EDT
Article-I.D.: dartvax.3007
Posted: Thu May  2 12:43:33 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 7-May-85 08:40:31 EDT
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> 
> 	There is some interesting history (and herstory!) involved
> with the wearing of high heels and other fashion items. In Western
> culture, the notion of a man using his family as a means of displaying
> his wealth first became strong in the Middle Ages (prior to that,
> the Romans hid their wives away, as befit virtuous women), especially
> with the rise of the bourgeois. It was not considered proper for a
> man to be ostentatious, so he dressed up the wife and kids to show
> his wealth. The more restrictive a woman's clothing (corsets, trains,
> etc), the less work she was able to do for herself, thus showing that
> the man could afford a useless wife with servants to wait on her. Poor
> women wore much less restrictive clothing, and even pants when field 
> work was being done. This attitude later changed to the extent that
> men became popinjays themselves. Louis Quatorze wore high heels the
> likes of which you couldn't pay me to wear ! In time, the pendulum
> swung back again with the Victorians - somber men's clothing, very
> restrictive women's clothing, and very opulent displays of possessions.
> The Jazz Age finally freed women in this country from wearing several
> pounds of foundation garments and even saw the invention of the brassiere.
 
As a fanatical costume historian, I'd like to amend the above.  Everything
the above says about medieval fashions is true of Victorian fashions:
they were restrictive, men's clothes tended toward the subdued (with
notable exceptions like Disraeli and Oscar Wilde), women toward the costly.
However, none of the above consistently describes costuming in the Middle Ages.
 
Take first, the assertion that men wore subdued clothing.
In fact, there are several eras in which male clothing was much more peacockish
than the female.  Look at a portrait of Henry Tudor sometime.  Then check out
one of his wives.  (If you want to call him Renaissance, I can dig up
earlier examples when I'm at home with my references.)
 
Secondly, Medieval women's clothing couldn't *afford* to be confining;
even the lady of the manor had a full day's work to do.  Many of the
costumes of the period offered more freedom than some modern clothing
I've worn.  THere are tricks to managing long sleeves, for instance,
but they're no more cumbrous than managing a short skirt to keep it 'decent'.
The most confining clothing I can call to mind had inconveniently
long skirts, but *no* corset.  (As I understand it, there's some debate
about *when* boned corsets began, but it's definitely late-Medieval to
Renaissance.)
 
Don't blame the Middle Ages for the abominations cooked up by the
VIctorians.  There's a fair amount of evidence to say that women
(especially widows) were considerably freer in the Middle Ages
than in any other time until today.
If anybody out there is more knowledgeable about these matters than I,
I would welcome further instruction.  
-- 
Elizabeth Hanes Perry                        
UUCP: {decvax |ihnp4 | linus| cornell}!dartvax!betsy
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"Ooh, ick!" -- Penfold