Clothes in Books is about to take a small holiday – so no
more blogposts for the next 10 days or so.
And this last one is something different…
In a recent comment on this book:
Someone
from the Past by Margot Bennett
staunch reader Christine Harding said this: talking of under garments, what happened to the regular posts you used to do on what goes on beneath the clothes we see?
My reply: I think those posts -
they were called Dress Down Sunday - came to a natural end, but how nice that
you remember them, and I did very much enjoy doing them. And, I recently was
looking at my huge and unwieldy file system for CiB, and came across the folder
containing collected pictures for Dress Down Sunday, ones I had come across and
saved without a specific purpose in mind. I'd forgotten I had them, and was
delighted to rediscover them! Now I need to find the books to match up with them...
I should have guessed what would come next…
Susan D
Perhaps you could post a few and let your legion of fans suggest books they
relate to?
Christine H again
I’m with Susan D on
this - you post the pictures, and I’m sure your readers can fit them to books
and characters!
Well I love a challenge to me nearly as much as a challenge
to the reader (which is common in Golden age fiction, but not quite the same
thing)
So here are a few lovely pictures from the Clothes in Books
lingerie collection. If you have some great ideas for books to feature them,
please put them in the comments below. When I get back from my holiday I will
have all these ideas ready for me…
[This is by no means all of them: there is material for several posts]
What a clever idea! I'm sure you'll get lots of suggestions, Moira! I hope you have a wonderful holiday and get the chance to really recharge. Oh, and I miss Dress Down Sunday, too.
ReplyDeleteThank you Margot - it WAS a good idea, I got so many great suggestions from my clever readers!
DeleteThe first one- A Shilling for Candles (Josephine Tey) For the victim in the story.
ReplyDeleteExcellent. I just to have a gap before using that picture again (or people will think its the first post!) but I am defnitely doing this. Have dug out my copy for a reread...
DeleteEnjoy your holiday but be sure to come home again! Here's hoping your holiday includes comfortable weather and smoke-free air.
ReplyDeleteThank you, I had a fabulous time and read a lot of books
DeleteWell, I cannot ignore this, can I! Thinking cap is on, and I am scouring the bookshelves. Enjoy your holiday.
ReplyDeleteI can see that you have made your entries down the list....
DeleteWell, like Christie H, I'm committed to this. They're all tapping at my literary memory, but I'll need to think a bit more. The title Girls of Slender Means comes to mind, but I can't recall if the girls themselves were all that glamourous.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile.... "Foundette"??? Seriously?
Yes you two owe me entries in the circs! I've done a Schiaparelli dress for Girls of Slender Means, will have to check if there are lingerie mentions
DeleteSusan D here. Yes, I know. I've been back to these pics several times, and coming up blank, besides being mostly away on holiday myself. I promise I'll try to be extra clever in the future.
DeleteYour contributions are always so welcome, you are let off! But if you think of anything in the future it's never too late...
DeleteNot a suggestion--the top pic reminds me of some old commercials with the line "I dreamed I went to [someplace] in my Maidenform bra." (They featured bra-clad ladies in various locales.) Is it just me or is that gal's waistband kind of tight?
ReplyDeleteYes! Exactly right. It's one of those ads, 'I dreamed I went fashion shopping in my Maidenform bra'
DeleteThat third one with the two horizontally recumbent lingerie models reminds me of Pandora Braithwaite borrowing her mother's Janet Reger slip and allowing Adrian to touch the lace on the hem.
ReplyDelete"I was more interested in the lace near the shoulder straps, but Pandora said, 'no darling we must wait until we've got our O levels.'"
Actually there's another bit in Adrian Mole, not sure if it's the same book as this, where Grandma Mole has him spray Ralgex on her shoulder and reveals a corset like a parachute harness, and says that since they went out of fashion the country has lost its backbone.
DeleteGrowing up is realising that Adrian Mole isn't actually the hero of the early books, and that their real heroine is Pauline, his mum.
I'm remembering more and more underwear related stuff now, like how Pandora's gang put punk studs on their underskirts after the headmaster
Deletebanned studs from being worn in school "except on the soles of football boots" and that then led me to the Red Socks situation (not really underwear, but Pandora's were lurex and then they had to wear them under their regulation black socks). And now I've just remembered Pauline Mole hiding her padded bras so that her husband doesn't find out (although I think that's Adrian misunderstanding the situation, cos it seems unlikely that his father wouldn't notice something like his wife's boobs suddenly reducing in size sans bra)
Oh these are sold gold, thanks Daniel, I will pursue.
DeleteI totally agree about Pauline Mole! I said on the blog 'Pauline Mole, Adrian’s mother, is a heroine for the ages, Cleopatra with a cigarette hanging out of her mouth and a drink in her hand, seen always, of course, through Adrian’s eyes, but still shining on as a beacon of unmaternal liveliness... When Adrian Mole started out in 1982, she seemed like our mothers. Now she is like us.'
Mother Courage!
Of course there is The G-String Murders by Gypsy Rose Lee (NOT ghost written by Craig Rice!). Most of the cast is in their underwear in the many dressing room scenes. Several American private eye novels have scenes with women in negligees though I'm unsure if the mostly male writers spent any time describing the women's clothes in detail. Their bodies, yes. The clothes...probably not. The most memorable one that comes to mind is purely from the title: The Fuzzy Pink Nightgown by Sylvia Tate (1956). It was made into a movie with Jane Russell. A woman writer so maybe a good one for intimate apparel descriptions.
ReplyDeleteThanks John. Yes G string Murders lays its stall out. And you do expect every private eye to encounter a woman in a negligee, made of 'some filmy stuff, revealing more than it hid'.
DeleteI will look up the Tate book. I love Jane Russell.
"Fuzzy" suggests cosy rather than glamorous though - something mumsy, perhaps in Winceyette.
DeleteSovay
I intend to find out! Can't see Jane Russell in winceyette mind you.
DeleteThe foundation garments may be a little earlier, but I think they are the sort of thing Marian let the saleswoman persuade her to buy in Margaret Atwood’s The Edible Woman.
ReplyDelete“She oozed herself into the new girdle she had got to go with the dress, noting that she hadn’t really lost much weight: she had been eating a lot of noodles. She hadn’t intended to buy one at all, but the sales lady who was selling her the dress and who was thoroughly corseted herself said she ought to, and produced an appropriate model with satin panelling and a ribbon at the front. ‘Of course you’re very thin dear, you don’t really need one, but still that is a close-fitting dress and you wouldn’t want it to be obvious you haven’t got one on, would you?’ At that time it had seemed like a moral issue. ‘No, of course not,’ Marian had said hastily, ‘I’ll take it.’
I always thought girdles were worn to make you look thinner - I didn’t realise that it was socially unacceptable not to wear one,
That was me. I put my name on comments and it just disappears.
DeleteAir stewardesses had to wear girdles - not to hold them in or their stockings up but in case anybody "saw anything". Silly attitude that lapsed quickly.
DeleteGirdles are a whole big subject of their own, and there are quite a few pictures around...
DeleteThere is a crime story where the reputation of a crime victim may depend on whether she wa wearing a girdle - the post is coming together, thanks for the Atwood tipoff!
How ridiculous about the aircrew!
It would be interesting to pin down exactly how long this weird rule lasted.
The two young women in deshabillée in picture 6 brought to mind Julia Larwood and her acquaintance Rowena in Sarah Caudwell’s “The Shortest Way to Hades”, unwinding after an eventful but hazily remembered evening - Rowena relaxing on the rug, Julia still puzzling over what they could have done to cause the staff of the Vashti’s House nightclub to throw them out.
ReplyDeleteSovay
This is brilliant!
DeleteSovay, I came across another reference to this author recently, so I bought the book and yes, I think you are right - the photo is a nice match for Julia and Rowena.
DeleteExcellent - I love this idea and I love those books. It will be a joy to do the post.
DeleteWould the pink negligee do for Gwendolen in the pink flat above a nightclub (The Shrines of Gaity, Kate Atkinson), or would something a little slinkier be better? I think she might enjoy this, so different from her sensible, old night attire and her life as a librarian.
ReplyDeleteGreat idea - I haven't blogged on that book, even though I'm a big fan of Kate Atkinson.
DeleteYou should - there are some great descriptions of clothes. There’s the knitwear worn by Freda and her fellow models, and her theatrical costumes, and Gwendolen’s fabulous blue and silver evening dress (1926, with lots of embroidery - you can forger about the blood stains!). And there are lots of silver dance shoes, which could be worth a post on their own.
DeleteIt's not my favourite of her books, but I'm surprised that I didn't blog on it - I read it in 2023, and can't have been in the mood! Thanks for the reminder.
DeleteI've read somewhere - can't recall where but it may come back to me - that silver and gold dance shoes were rather looked down on because they went with many different dresses; really chic girls had a pair of shoes for each dance dress, dyed to match it or covered in the dress fabric.
DeleteSovay
Oh that's a lovely titbit, and you can just imagine some poor nouveau girl being caught out by it - having the finest silver shoes money could buy....
DeleteI’ve no idea whether it happened in real life but in fiction the ‘outsider’ debutante’s parents might hire an impoverished society lady as chaperone, thus hopefully gaining an insight into these shibboleths and subtleties as well as ensuring the Court presentation and introductions into the right circles. I suspect the shoes to match each dress was a council of perfection in any case! Laura in Angela Thirkell’s “Pomfret Towers” has silver evening shoes and presumably wears them with all three of her evening dresses, none of which is silver, but then she has no pretensions to chic.
DeleteSovay
I believe the 'paid chaperone' thing did happen in real life, though obviously was slightly kept quiet.
DeleteI think you're right and perfectly respectable girls had one pair of evening shoes, and that was fine. I'm sure the Mitford girls, and their fictional counterparts, would have had one pair that went with everything
I suspect a single pair wouldn't be enough if one was going to a lot of dances - shoes probably suffered badly from inept partners walking on one's feet. The fabric covered ones in particular may have had a very short lifespan.
DeleteSovay
There were stories of people wearing out several pairs of dancing shoes during one evening, perhaps a little exaggeration.
DeleteI think there were dancing shoes that resembled ordinary shoes, but also dancing slippers, which you only changed into when you got to the dance, and would be very lightweight, more like real ballet slippers.
I don't like the sound of the light "ballet" dancing slippers - I'd be inclined to go the other way and have steel toe-caps!
DeleteSovay
Given the men in their shiny polished perfect shoes - definitely!
DeletePicture 5 - the young woman despairing in her petticoat - that’s clearly a 1950s petticoat rather than 1940s but in every other respect it would be perfect for one of Elizabeth Bowen’s WW2 ghost stories, “Pink May”.
ReplyDeleteSovay
Oh that sounds amazing, I haven't read her short stories much but will look that up
DeleteClothes are often significant in her work - Ann Lee's hat shop has already had a mention and there are a couple of other 1920s stories - "Shoes: An International Episode" and "Making Arrangements" that might also be worth a look.
DeleteSovay
Oh this is sounding great, I will definitely have to look at her stories. Thanks!
DeleteIt's surprisingly difficult to come up with suggestions that fit the pictures - especially suggestions for books or stories not already featured on the blog. Lady B in Joyce Dennys's "Henrietta Sees It Through" (which HAS already featured) says she's been wearing the same style of stays for the last 30 years, which must mean something like the "Jurna" model in picture 4 - the "Foundette" garments don't look like her sort of thing at all (and what big heads you have, 1930s Foundette-wearing ladies ...)
ReplyDeleteSovay
Thanks Sovay, any excuse to reread those books!
DeleteWhen I was looking for corset-style pictures in the past I have always borne in mind that an older lady will not be uptodate in her choices, she is probably wearing the same items she has bought for years.
If Lady B's really still wearing the "Jurna"-style stays I'm very impressed that she's able to play bowls in them! Not much bending possible, one would have thought ..
DeleteSovay
Good point. As I go about my day I often wonder how those people coped, with corsets/stays and long skirts round their ankles.
Delete“Henrietta Sees It Through” also features Henrietta’s knickers; she’s in the habit of wiping her hands on them after putting coal on the fire, which suggests that they are a) black and b) long – knee-length Directoire or gym-knicker style maybe – as presumably she doesn’t have to hoick her skirt up too far in order to reach them.
DeleteSovay
Good detection, and yet another reason to read those books again
DeleteCould the girl with the wide petticoat be The Tortoise and the Hare?
ReplyDeleteI am so going to have to do another post on The Tortoise - it keeps cropping up!
DeleteBarbara Pym’s “Some Tame Gazelle” could be another candidate for Dress Down Day – Harriet’s corsets, which require constant ‘strengthening’ with elastic thread, could well be Foundette or the British equivalent (assuming that STG is set in the 1930s when it was written, rather than 1950 when it was published). Also Belinda is knitting herself a vest in pink wool which she has to hide when the curate calls, as it’s clearly a feminine undergarment and so not suitable for his eyes, even as a work in progress. She didn’t buy enough wool so is having to finish it in a slightly different shade of pink.
ReplyDeleteSovay
Oh yes! I was just rereading it because I am giving a talk to the Barbara Pym Society (which I will report on soon). Harriet was forever leaving them around in the sitting-room and they had to be thrust under the cushions...
DeleteI look forward to the Barbara Pym Society report! Will you be mentioning the curate's combinations?
DeleteSovay
And I’ve realised that in my head, you’re going to be speaking to the Barbara Pym Society about underwear! Presumably this is not in fact the case … though nevertheless I shall mention an incident in “Excellent Women” - Mildred’s friend Dora who is staying with her “decided to do some washing before supper and within half an hour the kitchen was festooned with lines of depressing-looking underwear - fawn locknit knickers and petticoats of the same material. It was even drearier than mine”. To make matters worse, Rocky Napier calls in later in the evening and is dripped on by Dora’s dreary garments.
DeleteI seem to remember that BP herself, when writing in her diary about particularly significant events, used to describe her own outfit right down to the skin - I think this is the only context in which I’ve encountered ‘trollies’ as a synonym for ‘knickers’. Blue Celanese ones on one occasion IIRC.
Sovay
No to the combinations and the dripping washing for my talk, yes to the trollies! I have been investigating that word, and indeed noting that she gave very full descriptions of her clothes.
DeleteIt is listed as a slang word, but is vanishingly rare in use, and given a ridiculous etymology. I have read that it was a slang word at Pym's school, which would explain it.
Kate Atkinson uses 'trollies' in Shrines of Gaiety (currently being discussed above in the comments) - but I would strongly suspect that she got the word from Pym in her extensive researches into the 1920s.
The school slang origin sounds plausible - what’s the alternative and ridiculous etymology?
DeleteSovay
There is something called trolley lace, superficially possible, but not for the kind of sensible school knickers - Pym's later ones would have had lace!
Deletethe other idea is Cockney rhyming slang: Trolley Wags = bags = trousers, but then what are trolley wags, is that really a phrase?
However - hot news - at the Pym conference a participant told me that RAF chaps during the war referred to their trousers as trollies. Which doesn't necessarily crossover to underwear, but interesting.
I've never heard of Trolley Wags, but then there are quite a few supposed rhyming slang phrases I've never heard of. The potential RAF connection is interesting though - IIRC Barbara Pym's diary entry pre-dates the war by some years.
DeleteSovay
I think people go round making up alleged Cockney rhyming slang.
DeleteAnd yes, the RAF trollies are a long way after Barbara, and I don't really think connected, just interesting. (particularly in relation to 'bags')