I sit here, in my draughty Victorian house, at a mid-19th century kneehole walnut desk, writing. The room in which I sit was built in 1892, its only heating an open fire. My feet rest on the original red tiles and my little writing nook is nestled in the corner of the room, by an exposed brick wall.
“Why are you telling us this, Ruth?” you might be enquiring. Stick with me. We’re getting there.
Were I an actual Victorian lady, scribbling away at my desk while the parlour maid poked the fire and the children played upstairs in the nursery, awaiting the return of my husband from the City, I wouldn’t be dressed as I am now.
It’s a spring day and I’m clad in just three garments. My dress and what the Victorians would refer to, with a shudder, as “unmentionables.” Bra and pants to the rest of you. Oh, and slippers. But I’m not counting those for the purposes of this blog.
If I felt minded to weigh my outfit (and don’t worry, I don’t), I don’t suppose it would tip the scales at much more than 6lb. My three lockdown outfits have been jeans (blue) with a variety of tops, jeans (black) with a variety of tops and the dress with my husband’s fleece over the top. They allow me to move in comfort, keep me warm and can be hurled into the washing machine at a 40-degree wash.
I shudder sometimes, looking back at the ill-advised fashions I used to sport in my youth. As an Essex girl, I would sometimes wear stilettos (yes, I owned a white pair). Pencil skirts impeded movement and my on-trend mint green shiny blouse with shoulder pads (it was the Eighties, people!) had to be hand-washed and ironed to get rid of a mass of wrinkles.
This was nothing, however, compared to the ensembles worn by fashionable Victorian ladies. Corsets which squeezed the internal organs, huge crinolines, masses of petticoats and vast, bell-shaped sleeves.
The whole kit and caboodle seemed designed to slow women down, and that was indeed one of its purposes. Ladies (at least middle-class and upper-class ones) were not supposed to work. They presided over their households, made and received calls and brought up their children.
In 1881, tired of clothes which weighed a ton and stopped women moving naturally, the Society for Rational Dress was formed in London. They were against tight corsets, high heels and skirts which forced a woman to drag yards of material behind her. Cycling was rapidly becoming an acceptable leisure activity for ladies (although seen as rather “fast” when it first came in) and lighter, divided skirts enabled girls to leap on a velocipede (as they were known) and skim off around the streets.
160 years on, as we sit in our homes, hair uncut and uncoloured, faces unmade-up (I speak for myself), fashion sense all but gone (loungewear, anyone?) perhaps it’s time to think about a new clothes movement, as we start to emerge, blinking, into the sunlight.
Many of us have over-indulged in food and drink over lockdown. It’s a comfort to sit on the sofa, bingeing on box sets and chocolate simultaneously.
I suggest that we start a Rational Elasticated Waist movement*
No more fitted suits or dresses, no jersey (so unforgiving to the more generous figure). Instead, let’s embrace fabrics which swathe our ample forms in elegant billows, allowing us to re-enter polite society smartly yet comfortably dressed.
I’d be happy to lobby the fashion industry for a new, on-trend look. I’m seeing the Office Jogger (well-cut, good fabric, elasticated waist), the Conference Culotte (same), the Presentation Pantaloon (you get it). Who’s with me?
*Thanks to my friend and fellow writer Fran Hill for this excellent idea.
Ruth is a novelist and freelance writer. She is married with three children, one husband, three budgies, six quail, eight chickens and a kitten. Her first novel, “The Diary of Isabella M Smugge”, came out in February this year and she is writing the sequel, “The Trials of Isabella M Smugge.” She writes for a number of small businesses and charities and blogs at ruthleighwrites.co.uk. She has abnormally narrow sinuses and a morbid fear of raw tomatoes, but has decided not to let this get in the way of a meaningful life. You can find her on Instagram and Twitter at ruthleighwrites.