Remember how it felt to be bundled into tights, socks, jeans, a thick sweater, a snowsuit, mittens, only to realize that you really needed to pee?
Back in 1665, the Little Ice Age compelled the well-to-do ladies of Delft to turn themselves out with a similar eye toward keeping warm, but their ensembles had a distinct advantage over the Christmas Story snowsuit approach.
Relieving themselves was as easy as hiking their skirts, petticoats, and voluminous, lace-trimmed chemise. No flies for freezing fingers to fumble with. In fact, no drawers at all.
Historical costumer Pauline Loven, a creator of the Getting Dressed In… series, builds this elite outfit from the innermost layer out, above, noting that clothing was an avenue for well-to-do citizens to flaunt their wealth:
A long, full, Linen or silk chemise trimmed with lace at the cuff
A waist-tied hip pad to bolster several layers of cozy, lined petticoats
An elegant silk gown comprised of several components:
A flat fronted skirt tucked into pleats at the sides and back
A laced up bodice stiffened with whale bone stays
Detachable sleeves
A stomacher for front-laced bodices
A loose fitting, fur-trimmed velvet or silk jacket
Silk or woolen thigh-high stockings gartered below the knee (created for the episode by heritage educator, and knitwear designer Sally Pointer)
A linen or silk kerchief pinned or tied at the breast
Square-toed leather shoes with a curved heel (created for the episode by Kevin Garlick, who specializes in handmade shoes for re-enactors.)
Fashionable accessories might include a foot warming, charcoal powered voeten stoofand understated jewelry, like the pearls Johannes Vermeer painted to such luminous effect.
If that doesn’t tip you off to the direction this historic recreation is headed, allow us to note that the attendant, who’s far from the focus of this episode, is garbed so as to suggest The Milkmaid by a certain Dutch Baroque Period painter who specialized in domestic interior scenes…and whose initials are J.V.
“In Mankiewicz’s Julius Caesar, all the characters are wearing fringes,” writes Roland Barthes in his well-known essay on Romans in film. “Some have them curly, some straggly, some tufted, some oily, all have them well combed.” This fringe, Barthes argues, is “quite simply the label of Roman-ness”: when it comes onscreen, “no one can doubt that he is in Ancient Rome.” Ever since cinema first told historical tales, hair has been among its most effective visual shorthands with which to establish an era. This is in part due to hairstyles themselves having varied since the beginning of recorded history, and — in one form or another — no doubt before it as well. But how many of them could we pull off today?
In the video above, Youtuber Morgan Donner addresses that question as directly as possible: by trying out half a millennium’s worth of hairstyles herself. As a woman, she’s been provided much more to work with by fashion history (to say nothing of biology) than have the successors of all those fringed Roman men. She begins in 1520, a period whose art reveals “a fairly consistent center-part kind of smooth look going on” with braids behind, all easy replicable. 110 years later “things get actually quite interesting,” since fashions begin to encompass not just hairstyles but haircuts, properly speaking, requiring different sections of hair to be different lengths — and requiring Donner to whip out her scissors.
About a century later, Donner takes note of a pattern whereby “styles get bigger and bigger and bigger, and then — foof — they deflate.” Such, it seems, has become the general tendency of not just culture but many other human pursuits as well: the gradual inflation of a bubble of extremity, followed by its sudden bursting. It’s in the 18th century that Donner’s project turns more complex, beginning to involve such things as lard, powder, and hair cushions. But she gets a bit of a respite when the 1800s come along, and “it’s almost like everyone collectively decided that they were tired of it, and you know what? Messy bun. That’s good enough.” Yet in hair as in all things, humanity never keeps it simple for long.
Viewers of film and television historical dramas (which themselves have been booming for some time now) will recognize more than a few of the hairstyles Donner gives herself throughout this video. But the deeper she gets into the 20th century, the more of them remain in living memory. Take the 1940s’ shoulder-length curls with pinned-back layers on top, which many of us will recognize from pictures of our grandmothers. That particular hairstyle doesn’t seem to have been revived since, but from the 1960s on, Donner works through a series of looks that have provided no little inspiration to our retromaniac 21st century. At the end of her historical-tonsorial journey, she fires up the clippers and buzzes herself completely — thus beginning hair Year Zero.
Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities and culture. His projects include the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles and the video series The City in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook.
The Rivethead preoccupation with fashion is inescapably related to their anxiety over being confused for subcultures they profess to hate: Goths, Punks, Metalheads, Death Rockers… The fact that so many subcultures claim black as their color of choice contributes to the confusion.
There are two points upon which theorists of post-industrial British subcultures generally agree: 1) No matter the music or the fashion, the boundaries between one subculture and another were rigorously, even violently, enforced (hence the wars between the mods and rockers), and; 2) The music and fashions of every subculture were subject to cooptation by the machinery of capitalism, to be mass produced, packaged, and sold as off-the-rack commodity, a phenomenon that occurred almost as soon as punks, mods, rockers, goths, teddy boys, skinheads, New Romantics, etc. began appearing on television — as in the post-Grundy Irish TV appearance of four young individuals above from 1983.
The interviewer introduces these punks, goths, and mods by referring first to their employment — or lack of employment — status, and then to the number of children in their family. Comments dripping with class disdain sit alongside a characterization of various subcultures as “gangs” — the Hell’s Angels thrown in among them just to drive the point home. Of course, there’s more to say about the denizens of early-80s UK subcultural street corners — more than these four representatives have to say themselves. It is communicated through performance rather than verbal exposition, through the affiliations of clothing, music, and pose — as in the mini-historical slideshow of late-20th century British subcultures below, from the 50s to the 80s.
In 1979, British theorist Dick Hebdige published what many considered the definitive analysis of these working-class scenes, which frequently centered around forms of racial and cultural exchange — as with mods who loved jazz or punks who loved ska and dub reggae; or racial and cultural exclusion — as with fascist skinheads and chauvinist teddy boys who glorified the past, while other subcultural ideologies looked to the future (or, as the case may be, no future).
Hebdige’s Subculture: the Meaning of Style begins with a story about French writer Jean Genet, humiliated in prison by homophobic guards over his possession of a tube of Vaseline:
Like Genet, we are interested in subculture – in the expressive forms and rituals of those subordinate groups – the teddy boys and mods and rockers, the skinheads and the punks – who are alternately dismissed, denounced and canonized; treated at different times as threats to public order and as harmless buffoons.
The irony of subcultures is that they identify with social outsiders, while re-enforcing boundaries that create exclusivity (cf. the quote at the top, from Hebdige-inspired Subcultures List). When the novelty and shock recedes, they become ripe fodder for commercial cooptation, even luxury branding.
What we usually don’t get from tame retrospectives, or from patronizing mass media of the time, are deviant outsiders like Genet who cannot be reabsorbed into the system because their very existence poses a threat to the social order as so construed. So much of the fashion and music of post-war Britain was directly created or inspired by West Indian migrants of the Windrush generation, for example. In too many popular representations of postwar British subcultures, that essential part of the working class UK subculture story has been entirely left out.
When the Romans pushed their way north into the German provinces, they built (circa 90 AD) The Saalburg, a fort that protected the boundary between the Roman Empire and the Germanic tribal territories. At its peak, 2,000 people lived in the fort and the attached village. It remained active until around 260 AD.
Somewhere during the 19th century, The Saalburg was rediscovered and excavated, then later fully reconstructed. It’s now a UNESCO World Heritage site and houses the Saalburg Museum, which contains many Roman relics, including a 2,000 year old shoe, apparently found in a local well.
If you think the Italians have mastered the craft of making shoes, well, they don’t have much on their ancestors. According to the site Romans Across Europe, the Romans “were the originators of the entire-foot-encasing shoe.” The site continues:
There was a wide variety of shoes and sandals for men and women. Most were constructed like military caligae, with a one-piece upper nailed between layers of the sole. Many had large open-work areas made by cutting or punching circles, triangles, squares, ovals, etc. in rows or grid-like patterns. Others were more enclosed, having only holes for the laces. Some very dainty women’s and children’s shoes still had thick nailed soles.
The image above, which puts all of the Roman’s shoe-making skill on display, comes to us via Reddit and imgur.
Note: An earlier version of this post appeared on our site in July 2016.
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TikTok, the short-form video-sharing platform, is an arena where the young dominate — last summer, The New York Times reported that over a third of its 49 million daily users in the US were aged 14 or younger.
30-year-old Brooklyn-based artist Tyler Gunther views his creation, Greedy Peasant, as “the manifestation of all the strange medieval art we now enjoy in meme form”:
Often times medieval history focuses on royals, wars, popes and plagues. With this peasant guide, we get to experience the world through the lens of a queer artist who is just trying to make sure everyone is on time for their costume fittings for the Easter pageant.
Then last February, he found himself quarantining in an Australian hotel room for 2 weeks prior to performing in the Adelaide Festival as part of The Plastic Bag Store, artist Robin Frohardt’s alternately hilarious and sobering immersive supermarket installation:
My quarantine plans had been to work on a massive set of illustrations and teach myself the entire Adobe Creative Suite. Instead I just wandered from one corner of the hotel room to the next and stared at the office building directly outside my window. About 4 days in, Robin texted, “Now is your time to make a TikTok.” I had avoided it for so long. I always had an excuse and I was genuinely confused about how the app worked. But with no alternatives left I made a few videos “just to test out some of the filters” and I was instantly hooked.
Now, a green screen and a set of box lights are permanently installed in his Brooklyn studio so he can film whenever inspiration strikes, provided it’s not too steamy to don the tights, cowls, wigs and woolens that are an integral part of Greedy Peasant’s look.
One of Gunther’s most eye popping creations came about when Greedy Peasant answered an ad post in the town square seeking a Spider Man (i.e., a man with spiders) to combat a bug infestation:
As a former costume design student, I’m intrigued by how superhero uniforms fit within the very conservative world of Western men’s fashion. We’re supposed to believe these color blocked bodysuits are athletic and high tech. These manly men don’t wear them just because they look great in them, they wear them for our protection and the greater good. But what if one superhero did value style over substance? Would he still retain his authoritative qualities if his super suit was embroidered and beaded and dripping with tassels? This medievalist believes so.
To me tassels represent ornamentation for ornamentation’s sake at its peak. This decorative concept is so maligned in our current age. 21st century design trends are so sleek and smooth, which does make our lives practical and efficient. But soon we’ll all be dead. Medieval artisans seemed to understand this on some level. I think if iPhones were sold in the middle ages they would have 4 tassels on each corner. Why? Because it would look very nice. A tassel looks beautiful as a piece of static sculpture. It adds an air of authority and polish to whatever object it is attached to. If that were all they provided us it would be enough. But then suddenly you give your elbow a little flick and before you know it your sleeve tassels are in flight! They are performing a personal ballet with their little strings going wherever the choreography may take them. It’s a gift.
He also shoots on location when the situation warrants:
Especially in New York City, where it seems like every neighborhood has at least one building dressed up to look as if it survived the Black Plague. I love this blatantly false illusion of a heroic past. We American’s know it’s a façade. We know the building was built in 1910, not 1410, but somehow it still pleases us. Even when I went home to Arkansas to visit family, we were constantly scouting filming locations which looked convincingly medieval. Our greatest find were the back rooms and the choir loft of a beautiful gothic revival church in our town.
While Gunther is obviously his own star attraction, he alternates screen time with a group of “reliquary ladies,” whose main trio, Bridgette, Amanda and Susan are the queen bees of the side aisle. Even before he used a green screen filter to animate them with his eyes, lips, and a hint of mustache, he was drawn to their hairdos and individual personalities during repeat visits to the Met Cloisters.
“As reliquaries, they embody such a specific medieval sensibility,” he enthuses. “Each housed a small body part of a deceased saint, which people would make a pilgrimage to see. This combination of the sacred, macabre and beautiful includes all my favorite medieval elements.”
For those who remember the 1980s, it can feel like they never left, so deeply ingrained have their designs become in the 21st century. But where did those designs themselves originate? Vibrant, clashing colors and patterns, bubbly shapes; “the geometric figures of Art Deco,” writes Sara Barnes at My Modern Met, “the color palette of Pop Art, and the 1950s kitsch” that inspired designers of all kinds came from a movement of artists who called themselves the Memphis Group, after Bob Dylan’s “Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again,” a song “played on repeat during their first meeting” in a tiny Milan apartment. “I think you’d be hard-pressed to think of any other design phenomenon that can be located as specifically to a group of people,” says Yale Center of British Art’s Glenn Adamson in the Vox explainer above,
Founded in December 1980 by designer Ettore Sottsass — known for his red Olivetti Valentine typewriter — and several like-minded colleagues, the movement made a deliberate attempt to disrupt the austere, clean lines of the 70s with work they described as “radical, funny, and outrageous.” They flaunted what had been considered “good taste” with abandon. Memphis design shows Bauhaus influences — though it rejected the “strict, straight lines of modernism,” notes Curbed. It taps the anarchic spirit of Dada, without the edgy, anarchist politics that drove that movement. It is mainly characterized by its use of laminate flooring materials on tables and lamps and the “Bacterio print,” the squiggle design which Sottsass created in 1978 and which became “Memphis’s trademark pattern.”
Memphis design shared with modernism another quality early modernists themselves fully embraced: “Nothing was commercially successful at the time,” says Barbara Radice, Sottsass’s widow and Memphis group historian. But David Bowie and Karl Lagerfield were early adopters, and the group’s 80s work eventually made them stars. “We came from being nobodies,” says designer Martine Bedin. By 1984, they were celebrated by the city of Memphis, Tennessee and given the key to the city. “They were waiting for us at the airport with a band,” Bedin remembers. “It was completely crazy.” The Memphis Group had officially changed the world of art, architecture, and design. The following year, Sottsass left the group, and it formally disbanded in 1987, having left its mark for decades to come.
By the end of the 80s, Memphis’ look had become pop culture wallpaper, informing the sets, titles, and fashions of TV staples like Saved by the Bell, which debuted in 1989. “Although their designs didn’t end up in people’s homes,” notes Vox — or at least not right away — “they inspired many designers working in different mediums.” Find out above how “everything from fashion to music videos became influenced” by the loud, playful visual vocabulary of the Memphis Group artists, and learn more about the designers of “David Bowie’s favorite furniture”here.
Haruki Murakami is a novelist, but for some time his name has been no less a global brand than, say, Uniqlo’s. Though both the man and the clothing company happen to have come into existence in Japan in 1949, this comparison goes beyond mere nationality. In their homeland, both Uniqlo and Murakami came into their own in the 1980s, the decade when the former opened its first casual-wear shop and the latter published the name-making A Wild Sheep Chase and the cultural phenomenon that was Norwegian Wood. Having assiduously cultivated markets outside Japan, both have become internationally known in the 21st century: just as Uniqlo now has shops all over the world, Murakami’s books have been translated into at least 50 languages.
Therefore, perhaps Murakami and Uniqlo’s convergence was only a matter of time. “Haruki Murakami and Uniqlo have teamed up for a line of T‑shirts inspired by the author’s novels like Norwegian Wood and 1Q84, as well as his radio program,” writes Spoon & Tamago’s Johnny Waldman.
With graphics contributed by sources like illustrator and frequent Murakami collaborator Masaru Fujimoto, “the collection showcases the world of his masterpiece novels, his love for music, and of course cats.” The reverse of the Murakami Radio shirt, seen at the top of the post, even features this unambiguous quotation of the man himself: “Books, music, and cats have been my friends from way back.”
More than a few of Murakami’s fans could no doubt say the same. They’ll also delight in the nuances of the words and images on the seven other Murakami shirts Uniqlo has created for sale from March 15th. Many have read Norwegian Wood, but relatively few will notice that Uniqlo’s shirt based on that book comes in the very same red-and-green color scheme as its two-volume Japanese first edition. Far from drawing only on the popularity of such big hits, the collection also pays tribute to Murakami’s lesser-known works: his sophomore effort Pinball, 1973, for instance, which went without a major English translation for 35 years.
Still unpublished outside Asia are most of Murakami’s essays, which he’s been writing on music, food, travel, and a variety of other subjects nearly as long as he’s been a novelist. But this November, Knopf will publish Murakami T: The T‑Shirts I Love, a book documenting his impressive collection including T‑shirts “from The Beach Boys concert in Honolulu to the shirt that inspired the beloved short story ‘Tony Takitani,’ ” all “accompanied by short, frank essays that have been translated into English for the first time.” Writing essays or fiction, whatever the language in which they appear, Murakami’s work remains broadly appealing yet distinctively his own, belonging at once everywhere and nowhere in the world — more than a bit, come to think of it, like Uniqlo’s clothing. On March 15, purchase the shirts online here.
Based in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and culture. His projects include the Substack newsletterBooks on Cities, the book The Stateless City: a Walk through 21st-Century Los Angeles and the video series The City in Cinema. Follow him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Facebook.
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