cacakerbamakhlukpolitik

I’m going to be a bit ranty today. I just saw something on The Daily Mail that really concerns me. Supposedly Hilary Davidson, the fashion curator at the Museum of London, says that the discovery of these two items “totally rewrites” fashion history. To which I say BOLLOCKS! These items were found in Lengberg Castle in east Tyrol (Austria). They are thought to have been buried c. 1480. I’ve spent 30+ years as a re-enactor studying late 15th century and early 16th century “German” Landsknechts. It’s probably the period I know the most about, and these garments don’t rewrite ANYTHING from where I’m sitting. In fact, they appear to be rather common. Let’s start with the underpants (please click on the images to enlarge them, I had to make them small to fit them all in). I haven’t the slightest idea how Davidson came to the conclusion that the underwear were for women. Every scrap of evidence I’ve seen supports the opposite conclusion. Here is a detail from The Men’s Bathhouse by Albrech

Underwear, that is. Smalls, short for “small clothes,” in the 19th century underwent a change as drastic as conquering the West and building bridges and cities. Of course, these changes reflected the changing status of women and - most certainly - their location: Eastern and Southern ladies wore gowns from Paris, laced-up corsets, and petticoats so bouffant getting through doorways or perching on settees could be problematic. Women walking across the country with a covered wagon had no time for such fripperies. Even so, a German writer in 1865 noted peasant girls working in fields in crinolines, and one Arnold Bennett captured the hazards in a scene from “Old Wives’ Tale: Two young girls unpack their mother’s new crinoline, and Sophia tries it on. “Her mother’s newly delivered crinoline ballooned about her in all its fantastic richness and expensiveness.... Then Sophia fell, in stepping backwards; the pyramid was overbalanced, great distended rings of silk trembled and swayed giga