Dress Down Sunday: Laughing Torso by Nina Hamnett

published 1932

LOOKING AT WHAT GOES ON UNDER THE CLOTHES

observations: I went daily to the Luxembourg Gardens where I did some really good work, I think. There is a statue there that I always admired. It is of a lady standing up, with her feet crossed, in a very short skirt indeed, and a strange little hat like an inverted soup plate. I did a drawing of her.

Some years later I went to the Bal Julien dressed as her. I wore a pink silk accordion pleated garment, that really was a pair of knickers. They had no legs, but only a ribbon to divide them. I borrowed them from a rich American woman and cut the ribbon so that it looked exactly like the skirt of the statue. They had garlands of blue silk forget-me-nots embroidered on them. I wore a short blue, tight-fitting jacket that I had bought at the “Flea market” at Caulincourt and a very small blue hat that looked like a comedian’s bowler. It was almost flat and looked very like the one worn by the statue. I had a great success at the ball, especially when I explained whom I represented.

observations: The sad thing is not to have a photo of Nina Hamnett in her costume. It is quite hard to imagine, as is the garment that she fashioned it from.

She also likes to dress as a man, and specifically as an apache dancer, as featured in this entry and this one, wearing

a pair of French workmen’s peg-top trousers. I borrowed a blue jersey and corduroy coat from Modigliani and a check cap.

From Modigliani: of course. She knew everyone. Apparently she was bisexual – she is not explicit about it in the book, but you can read between the lines. For a previous entry (on a louche nightclub in a book by a different Nina), we used this photo from George Brassai, which could easily be a club or Bal that Hamnett hung round in:

-- they were very much in the same milieu at the same time in Paris.

She is endearingly aware of her own foibles and vanities, but she IS hilariously self-centred. Who would think that this:

I thought that something terrible was about to happen and imagined that it would take the form of a punishment for me for having had such a good time

- meant the beginning of the First World War – it seems rather a narcissistic way of thinking of it:

Little did I think that that punishment would wreck not only my life but the lives of millions of others during the four bitter years ahead.

There have been umpteen entries from this book – click on Nina Hamnett below to see more.

I am guessing that the top photo shows the statue she means – it comes from a lovely site called woophy.

A Weekend at Blenheim by JP Morrissey

published 2002 [set in 1905]

The guests had gathered in the great bay windows at the centre of the library. The slanting light had recast the west-facing windows into panels of gold, dazzling the eye with an otherworldly shimmer. After a moment my eyes adjusted to the light…

The duchess.. came toward us. She looked enchanting, attired in a gown of ivory satin with a low neckline, high shoulders, and sleeves of delicate voile. The skirt was smooth with small butterflies delicately sewn through it, the ends of their antennae accented with tiny gemstones that caught the light. Around her neck was a flawless sapphire surrounded by diamonds. In her gloved hands she carried a fan of peacock feathers.

observations: The Duchess is the former Consuelo Vanderbilt, who at this time was the Duchess of Marlborough, living at Blenheim Palace. Many of the characters in the book are real people: the Duke, the Duchess, the Duchess’s mother, the young(ish) Winston Churchill, Gladys Deacon who became a subsequent Duchess of Marlborough, the painter John Singer Sargent. The narrator is fictional: a young architect (significantly named John Vanbrugh) and his wife called in to do some work at the extremely grand stately home. The action takes place over the titular weekend, and there are all kinds of murky deeds and deadly goings-on: it is a (fictional) murder story.

Mr Morrissey certainly seems to know his stuff about Blenheim – there are elaborate descriptions of the building. The murder plot sits uneasily with the real-life complications and very difficult relations among the characters, but it is quite compelling. I did not find the conversations very convincing, and not because they weren’t authentic to the 1905 date. They weren’t, but they also didn’t sound like any dialogue that anyone ever had, at any date. It’s a strange, uneasy book: it feels as though the author went to considerable trouble over it, but it also feels odd to be ascribing such very extreme deeds thoughts and actions to real people.

Pictures by John Singer Sargent have featured on the blog several times. Consuelo Vanderbilt was an American heiress who married into the British aristocracy: Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Shuttle looked at a similar fictional story at around the same time.

The picture of Consuelo Vanderbilt is from the Library of Congress.

Undressed for Success

Today's blog is about underwear and lingerie in literature - the perfect subject for Clothes in Books, creator of the Dress Down Sunday feature. So today is Dress Down Friday for once, featuring authors and books ranging from Nick Hornby and Stella Gibbons to Louisa M Alcott and Graham Greene, from dirty bras to Bridget Jones to union suits and stockings and suspenders.

The entry appears on the Guardian books blog, and these are the opening paragraphs:

In a news story that sounds like an April fool, it’s being reported that researchers at Microsoft are working on a mood-sensing bra. But booklovers know you don’t need technology to read character from underwear - remember Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall, where Cardinal Wolsey tells Thomas Cromwell ‘Try always…to learn what people wear under their clothes’. Stylist magazine recently created a list of 20 works of literature featuring lingerie: but there are many more authors who use underwear to express emotions - disappointment, titillation and a protest against repression.

Nick Hornby’s Rob lays it out very clearly in High Fidelity: ‘Women’s knickers were a terrible disappointment to me when I embarked on my co-habiting career. I never really recovered from the shock of discovering that women do what we do: they save their best pairs for the nights when they know they are going to sleep with somebody. When you live with a woman, these faded, shrunken tatty M&S scraps suddenly appear on radiators all over the house.’ (This must surely be the only paragraph from a novel to have inspired a US TV advert for Diet Coke.)

Read on by clicking here...

Alibi for a Witch by Elizabeth Ferrars

published 1952

[Ruth is working for an English family in their villa near Naples, and is having some time off]

When he repeated his invitation, she accepted it, only pointing out that she would have to return to the villa first to dress. Stephen nodded and swam away from her again.

Presently they climbed up the cliff-path together. While Ruth went indoors to change, Stephen waited on the terrace, and when she came down again, in a dress of green shantung, he was sitting on one of the wicker chairs in the shade of the wisteria-coloured trellis. Once more the first thing she noticed when she saw him was that his hair needed cutting. Irritatedly she thought that there was no need for him to look as sloppy as he did. Even if he was a writer, or whatever he was, his flannels could have been cleaned more often and he need not have worn his shirts for so many days.

observations: The Clothes in Books blog-entry-finding-team can only agree. Men in books, as sometimes in real life, simply do not pay enough attention to their clothes and appearance, so do not make for good subjects. In any book there will usually be several reasonable descriptions of women’s clothes, various possible blog entries, but very little on the male side. Tchah.

Elizabeth Ferrars, prolific crime story writer, featured recently, and is likely to appear again – Martin Edwards (in the comments) has kindly recommended another of her books to me, which is lined up. This one I picked up because of the title, thinking it might make a Halloween entry. But no – there is no witch connection at all, just a slightly dragged-in quotation from Macbeth.

It is different from others of hers, which tended to be straight detective stories – it is much more in the style of ‘plucky English girl, working abroad, gets involved in romantic and thriller-esque adventures’. There are categories of novels which I think of as those you would have found in the library of a girls’ school in the 1960s, see this entry and this one for more – Monica Dickens, Jane Duncan. Another such author was Mary Stewart, who wrote exactly this kind of book: exotic settings, an independent young woman, a dark, handsome and moody man whom she has to suspect at some point, but later, maybe….

Clothes play a huge part in the plot: Ruth changing here is very relevant, and there are disguises, swapped clothes and impersonation, some of it rather unlikely (not Agatha Christie unlikely, but still). A reasonable read but nothing to get excited about. 

There is an unlikely form of discomfort when a modern reader goes for a 1950s book with summer-y adventures – the pale English are all busy lying in the sun for hours, there are frequent references to sunburn as interchangeable with suntan, they all think the longer in the sun the better. It’s a bit like the fact that they all smoke all the time….

The picture, from Dovima is Devine is a 1950s fashion photo, shot in Italy.

Happyland by J Robert Lennon

2003 & 2013, see below

She was wearing silk shorts and a tank top, white athletic socks and tennis shoes; and her fist, the one that wasn’t holding the phone, shot out at seemingly random intervals to connect with an invisible target. When Happy answered, she stopped jogging and punching and leaned over in concentration…

“What is this?”

“This,” said Jennifer, with obvious delight, “is you, fighting me, for the privilege of buying my gas station.”…

Happy reached not for the doorknob but for the pair of shorts hanging on the wall. She shucked off her sweats, pulled on the shorts, and cinched them tight. Then she put on her gloves, smacked them together, and spat. “Get in the circle, slut,” Jennifer croaked.

Happy stepped over the tape. “No tits, no kicking.”

“Fair enough.”

Outside, the oily toll of the Crim Hall bell sounded over the town. “Now have at me, trailer trash,” the doll mogul growled, and she socked Jennifer Triesman right between the eyes.

observations: "Have at me, trailer trash"? Was this ever the book for me. Having randomly picked up this author’s Familiar, and adored it, I looked to see what else he’d written, and saw that this book was being published, after a very odd history. So I ordered it straightaway, and oh, it is a good book. It tells the story of Happy Masters, a fierce businesswoman who owns a hugely successful doll company. She visits a small town in New York state, takes a fancy to it, and uses her immense wealth to buy up great swathes of it. The town contains a women-only liberal arts college, and this also is the focus of her attention. Some of the residents are happy to go along with her plans, others resist strongly. The book moves from person to person, from event to event, following this bizarre story.

He is such a good writer – from small perfect phrases (‘a laptop computer the color and thickness of a slate shingle’) to the description of the library: ‘sagging stacks, worthless in the dark: and then suddenly, with the crackling dawn of daylight-corrected light, taking on its glorious burden of meaning.’ The book is a complete joy to read: hilariously funny, and very clever, and obviously satirical.

So far, so brilliant. But there is a whole other feature to this, which is that people have thought that he was actually writing about a real person and a real situation – Pleasant Rowland and the American Girl Company (a business venture well-known in my family). That is why the book was dumped by its publisher in 2003, and has only now been put out by a small company. Pleasant Rowland herself – showing some grace - has said that she will not sue because “he said it’s all fictional.”

Author Lennon says “its real inspiration [is] the 2004-era Bush administration that I reviled, and that distracted me from everything in my life that I loved. (Read Mayor Archie, for instance, as Colin Powell.)”

Well. We’ll have to hope that it’s OK to use American Girl dolls for the pictures for this entry.

There she was, wrapped in a pair of gray wool pants and a fluorescent yellow fleece. She looked up at him [Mayor Archie/Colin Powell] and, apropos of nothing, winked.

American Girl doll Samantha has starred on the blog before, but might be hard to find. J Robert Lennon is here.

Advent: Midnight Come by Michael David Anthony

published 1999  chapter 14

The high-soaring nave resounded with the triumphant processional hymn as a double file of red-robed choirboys and adult male choristers, headed by a golden cross, began slowly pacing the central aisle. Behind, led by a gowned sidesman, came the clergy, followed in turn by the portly form of Simcocks, bearing his ornate vesturer’s staff and moving with ponderous solemnity as he conducted a thoughtful-looking dean towards where, ahead of the advancing column, a sombre-clad altar gleamed with festive light.

The unusually large numbers attending matins that morning were partly a result of the weather, the clouds and rain of the preceding 24 hours having given way to blue skies and bright sunshine. Nevertheless, the size of the congregation was, in the main, due to factors beyond the merely meteorlogical, the first Sunday in Advent being traditionally marked by the attendance at the cathedral of all the master and pupils of the King’s School. As a result, some 800 grey-suited youngsters stood in packed rows immediately facing the pulpit, their juvenile voices adding a slightly shrill note to the singing of those gathered to celebrate the official start of the new Christian year.

observations: Advent is a religious season only really of great importance to Christians – eating chocolate every day from an Advent calendar doesn’t count, and really isn’t in the spirit of Advent (a period of watching and waiting), though anyone trying to convince modern children of that is going to have a hard time. It is the start of the new church year, as stated above, and has its own atmosphere: new year, new hopes, and Christmas coming soon.

This book has a strong feel for time and place, and is very good on the rhythms of the church year – it is set in Canterbury cathedral in the south of England, the senior place of worship of the Church of England. An earlier entry on the book, which should be read with this one, gives more details, and this entry on another book in the series explains more about Canterbury.

When we looked at this book earlier, we poked the most gentle fun at Michael David Anthony’s reluctance to use the word ‘said’ – characters remark, and continue, and add, and exclaim, and murmur. They all sound so fidgety.

There is also an odd form of would-be-elegant variation whereby when a character speaks for the second time, it comes out like this:

‘That’s right’ said the other, nodding.

The other? It’s a weird little construction.

But as we said before, that does not spoil the book, which is an easy and interesting read, with an atmosphere very much of its time.

It may be too soon to be nostalgic for the 1990s, but the atmosphere of the Cold War in the earlier book (entry should be read for a bit more info on Colonel Harrison) comes out nicely, and – at the other end of the scale – this time there is a cheerful party at the Dean’s house, with vol-au-vents, sausage rolls, and

a modest Riesling and a highly economical Bulgarian red.

-- ah yes, budget 1990s entertaining. Glad that’s done and gone.

The pictures are of a service (vespers not matins) and procession at Taos in New Mexico in 1941. It is listed as an Advent service, but more likely celebrates the Fiesta of Guadalipe on December 12th, which is always within Advent. The images come from the National Archives and Records Administration.

Patrick Leigh Fermor, his long walk, and a guest blogger

The Broken Road: from the Iron Gates to Mount Athos by Patrick Leigh Fermor

Published 2013

One pair of pyjamas, two grey flannel shirts, a couple of blue short-sleeved ones, two white cotton shirts that could be worn with a tie at a pinch, two pairs of grey canvas trousers, one kept for best, a thick soft white pullover with a high neck, and quantities of different and brightly coloured handkerchiefs … The great sartorial treasure among all this was a thin, light, beautifully cut grey tweed jacket.

observations from guest blogger and cultural commentator Veronica Horwell:
The traveller Patrick Leigh Fermor inventorises the wardrobe contents of his pack after it has been stolen, and returned, in Bulgaria in autumn 1934, almost a year into his walk across Europe from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople-Istanbul: this is from The Broken Road, the final part of the trilogy that narrates his journey. The jacket had been a present in Transylvania, and most of the other items had also been donated – no wonder he called the first book A Time of Gifts – mostly because his initial pack and contents had been stolen in Munich the previous winter. Still, his heavy-weather gear, most of it ex-military, bought in London to outfit him cheaply for the magnificently absurd jaunt, is still with him, a brown leather jacket softened by hard use, breeches, brass buckled leather belt, the army greatcoat that had served as blanket so often in apple lofts and under the stars, and the not so useful puttees. These are cloth bandages (their name means that Hindi) wound round the leg from below the knee to the ankle; they were adopted by the British Army early in the 20th century and worn until just before the Second World War: exasperating to put on and keep up – many a poor infantryman must have gone over the trench top to death with his puttees descending slovenly in spirals round his feet: they were supposed to confer a feeling of protection, like working gaiters -- that you could walk your way across, and even over, any horror. Elsewhere in the book Leigh Fermor mentions squalid socks, and his growing collection of ethnica, the woven sashes and local fur hats he can’t resist buying: he loved dressing up, the full Byron fig appealed to him; when he fought with the Cretan resistance in the war, he wore local costume, complete with fleas.

And then there are Paddy’s boots, “the heroes of this walk” – patched and resoled and indestructible. They were ammunition boots, another First World War surplus bargain, studded with hobnails that took the brunt of wear, and war. If you travel on foot, and live for months out of a single pack, you will be incredulous at how much he seems to be carrying in his – there are so many other items besides the clothes: it must be bigger on the inside. You will also recognise with a pang the familiar footwear problem, since all shoes are hard to pack, and none will ever be appropriate for whatever event you are invited to on your road. He complains he has, beside the boots, only ghastly local canvas shoes and a pair of gym shoes (think Converse lows, only tatty). How will he not offend the smart international set in Bucharest? They love him of course: his hair almost peroxided by the sun and his tan as dark as walnut stain, youthful excitement animating the handsome face. He could've gone barefoot. Somebody would've found him the right shoes. 

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Veronica Horwell has guest-blogged before, here, and helped out with the fabric called ‘facecloth’ in the comments on this entry.

The pictures include a photo of PLF, post-war, and slices from the covers of the previous two books on this walk.