I found it hard to believe that women used not to wear drawers until I saw Rowlandson's "Exhibition Stare-Case" - admittedly not 16th century, but... http://www.wisc.edu/english/tkelley/NASSR/images/2Rowlandsonstare2.jpg No doubt in cold weather they put on extra petticoats. After all, underwear was simply a washable lining to your outer clothes; if you didn't wear breeches, you didn't need drawers.
Kate Bunting Librarian and 17th century reenactor >>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 10/01/2006 06:26 >>> On Jan 8, 2006, at 9:53 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > Um, I have a rank newbie question. I was always told that ladies > didn't wear > drawers in this period. Is that a myth, or a regional thing, > possibly? I > usually do English. > > And I've always suspected that it couldn't be true. I've BEEN to > England. It > gets COLD there. > > Thanks for your forbearance, > Tea Rose > My observation, in my research on this general topic, is that logic and practicality are absolutely no guide to the attitudes of a given culture at a given period towards women and underpants. Women either wore them or didn't wear them because it was the appropriate thing to do in their social context and not for any other objective reason. Heather -- Heather Rose Jones [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.heatherrosejones.com LJ:hrj _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume ______________________________________________________________________ This email has been scanned by the MessageLabs Email Security System. For more information please visit http://www.messagelabs.com/email ______________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
