BBC, A Point of View: "The neck frill grew oversized, into the elaborate, face-framing ruffs which for many of us define late Tudor dress, as it features in any number of formal portraits of royalty and nobility. Starching these became a laundry skill in its own right - the very first specialist ruff-launderer in England is supposed to have been a Flemish woman, Mistress Dingen Van der Passe, who brought Dutch-standard starching to London in 1564. Detached ruffs and decorative cuffs were securely attached to the outer garments for each wearing, using metal pins. It has been suggested that in economic terms, these pins are the first genuinely disposable commodities of emerging consumer culture, since they were bought in bulk, used once and then discarded (though there are records of the more frugal having their bent pins straightened for re-use). Even without integral layered and embroidered neck-frills and cuffs, the amount of coloured embroidery on the upper part of shirt and smock continued to grow, transforming the simple undergarment into an object of beauty in its own right." Full text at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/magazine/7689554.stm.
Also huffduffed as…
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Lisa Jardine ponders the effect of recession on the lingerie industry … both today and in Tudor times.
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Lisa Jardine ponders the effect of recession on the lingerie industry … both today and in Tudor times.
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Lisa Jardine ponders the effect of recession on the lingerie industry … both today and in Tudor times.
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Lisa Jardine ponders the effect of recession on the lingerie industry … both today and in Tudor times.
Possibly related…
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TA: Recession Health and Youth Culture from Thinking Allowed
How does recession affect the pattern of people’s lives? Laurie discusses an analysis of data on the last three recessions in the UK with Andrew Oswald and Mel Bartley. He also talks to David Fowler about youth culture and whether we overemphasise the importance of the 1960s.
Tagged with thinking aloud bbc
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The Supergirls: The History of Comic Book Heroines
Mike Madrid presents The Supergirls: Fashion, Feminism, Fantasy, and the History of the Comic Book Heroines, an exploration of what it means for the culture when superheroines do everything the superhero does, but in thongs and high heels.
http://fora.tv/2009/09/22/The_Supergirls_The_History_of_Comic_Book_Heroines
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Building out of a recession, part 2
Can we build our way out of the recession? The Empire State Building was started just weeks after the Wall Street Crash, giving Americans hope in times of depression. Jonathan Glancey, architecture correspondent for the Guardian newspaper in London, looks at the economic and social policies of the 1930s and the parallels we can find today.