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What can historical clothing reveal that other sources cannot?
- hinkley 3y agoI recently encountered a couple articles about the Bronze Age collapse. Turns out most civilizations did not contain substantial quantities of both copper and tin, since they appear in very different geological formations. When supply lines were interrupted, everything went off the rails. The provenance of the materials in an item can say a lot about the geopolitical landscape at the time they were made. Status and fashion tends to contain items where supply lines are a mere trickle.
- eesmith 3y agoFWIW, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse says "Archaeometallurgical studies performed by various teams have also shown that trade in tin, a non-local metal necessary to make bronze, did not stop or decrease after 1200". It lists many other possible causes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse#Possible_causes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Late_Bronze_Age_collapse#Possi...
- pimlottc 3y agoWikipedia has an article about the specific jacket and portrait mentioned at the start, with a good photo: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Layton%27s_embroidered_jacket https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Layton%27s_embroidere...
- mitthrowaway2 3y agoThe V&A museum's historical clothing exhibit was my favourite part of an already outstanding museum collection.
- keiferski 3y agoHistory is more about political and social history, but the article made me think of the concept of qualia, or subjective experience. I feel like clothing would be a huge resource of individual experiences wearing corsets, suits of armor, togas, and so on, and how they affected daily life and deeper values, too. There is probably a book out there that compares the Roman toga to the modern business suit and then explains how that is relevant to how political power “feels” today vs. in the ancient world.
- AnimalMuppet 3y agoMy wife points out that wearing corsets may be related to the expectation that a gentleman will pick up a dropped handkerchief (or other item). The lady can't bend because of the corset.
- keiferski 3y agoFor sure, there are a lot of examples like that, including women’s buttons being backwards (for an assistant to button them, the theory goes) and a knight needing a page to help put armor on. Most clothing today can be put on without any help, which might be a reflection of an individualist culture. https://nowiknow.com/why-womens-shirts-button-backward/ https://nowiknow.com/why-womens-shirts-button-backward/
- hotnfresh 3y agoThose slim little mid-century genre paperback novels (sci if, mostly) fit suspiciously perfectly in blazer/suit outer pockets, without even wrecking the drape. I’d say they were sized—including ideal length of the work—with that in mind. Older Modern Library kinda works, too. Certain variants (the smaller leather softcover run) are much better than others, and of course many of the books are simply too thick for that.
- keiferski 3y agoA funny related story: Sony co-founder Akio Morita desperately needed to sell the company’s first transistor radio - the first in Japan and the second in the world. So Morita pitched it as being shirt-pocket size. The only problem was that it was slightly larger than a shirt pocket, so Morita ordered several shirts with abnormally large pockets for his sales force. https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1995/mar/13/sony-puts-big-sound-in-shirt-pocket/ https://www.spokesman.com/stories/1995/mar/13/sony-puts-big-...
- desi_ninja 3y agoWish these articles would start facing heat for only covering history of certain countries and culture.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- sheepshear 3y agoHave you considered reading articles that you would enjoy?