In a message dated 4/11/2009 7:41:19 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, [email protected] writes:
In message <[email protected]>, [email protected] writes >In Aileen Ribiero's book about 17th century fashion, and in other books >there is reference to one Ann Turner who went to her hanging in yellow >starched >lace. As I emailed Devon last night, I remembered quoting the passage referring to yellow starched lace from JR Planché's "History of British Costume" (pub. Charles Knight, 1836) some time ago. The following quotes from this book may be of some use - it would appear that the portrait painters who painted so much in white did little justice to the colourful costumes of the times! How do you have access to this book? Is it on the web, or is it only available in library cages, locked up? Thank you for this information. It is very interesting. I would love to see a portrait with one of the colors other than yellow being used for starch. If anyone sees one, please let me know. Since posting my notice last night, I found, oddly enough on my front hallway floor a book I had ordered from Amazon called Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory. It has a chapter on Yellow Starch in it. (I did not order it knowing that it had this chapter, but because I was seeing its title in a number of other sources and it seemed to be destined to fly into my library.) Unfortunately, while there is a lot about yellow starch in it, it has some kind of academic perspective vis a vis gender identity issues of the 17th century which I do not yet perceive as being of interest to me. (Give me time.) The quotes and original source material is largely contradictory. Especially the concept that the yellow starch ceased to be worn after Mrs. Turner's death or originated in any way with her. It would appear that it was worn into the 1620s. The historical writing of the time, much of it done in the time around 1650 seems more oriented toward associating yellow starch with all things bad, the devil, sexual deviancy, pro-Spanish sentiments and pro-Catholic sentiments, this being the time of the Puritan factions overthrowing Charles I, so it seems to be as biased as the present treatment, but in a different way. The closer you look at the phenomenon, the less you are able to understand it, as in so many things. Susan has provided some interesting recipes and I am tempted to someday try the potato one,since I don't know what gum arabic is. I don't know if I can successfully frost a potato after buying it at the grocery store, of course. Oddly enough, that is the one starch not mentioned in the Materials of Memory, while wheat and bran and a variety of other things are. Also, there is some mention that this became a class issue while some people were starving for lack of food, and others were using food to stiffen their ruffs. In the course of my reading, I have come across the interesting diary reference by someone named Fiennes who traveled in Italy and said that they didn't seem to be very good starchers, so that they had to have limp neckwear. One of these days, I should read all these diaries, since they sound very informative, ie. Pepys and De Foe. This intense issue in the mechanism by which starch influenced fashion has been brought on by the need to give a little talk about 17th century lace fashions. I know that starch was mentioned before, but I had not realized how important it was in fashion, or had, at any rate not realized that I should become much better informed about it. It would be interesting to know more about Mrs. Vander Plasse and her starching activities. Some of these 17th and 16th century contrivances are such that I, familiar only with spray starch, cannot imagine can hold their shape. I wonder how rigid they really were. Devon **************Hurry! April 15th is almost here. File your Federal taxes FREE with TaxACT. (http://pr.atwola.com/promoclk/100126575x1221653545x1201423923/aol?redir=http :%2F%2Fwww.taxact.com%2F08tax.asp%3Fsc%3D084102950004%26p%3D8 2) - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]
