*Really* fitted with never a wrinkle?

[nineveh_uk]

I am in Yorkshire*, and yesterday had lunch at a pub** called The Highwaymay. The lunch was delicious, but obviously I had to read the poem and found myself reflecting on his clothing:

He’d a French cocked-hat on his forehead, a bunch of lace at his chin,
A coat of the claret velvet, and breeches of brown doe-skin.
They fitted with never a wrinkle. His boots were up to the thigh.
And he rode with a jewelled twinkle,
His pistol butts a-twinkle,
His rapier hilt a-twinkle, under the jewelled sky.


So now I need to know, can doe -skin breeches really fit so well they never wrinkle and yet you can get into them and also bend your knees? Is that why he was wearing thigh-high breeches, so he only had to have unwrinkled breeches visible over the bit of conveniently-shaped thigh? I know that very fine leather can be supple and a bit stretchy and I've some very well-fitting gloves in it, but the practicality and pattern layout of skin-tight breeches is a subject asserted but seldom explained in literature. Enquiring minds want to know!

*Where it is showery. Yesterday we sheltered under a garage wall, which provided a dry patch and also a very large number of enormous wasps. Fortunately in placid mood.

**In Lancashire. There was a sign on the road. We are staying on the edge here.

Comments

[sir_guinglain]

Might this have been in the part of Lancashire which was annexed from Yorkshire in 1974?

[nineveh_uk]

I have absolutely no ideal but it was near Kirkby Lonsdale, if that helps.

[sir_guinglain]

Probably not, then.

[antisoppist]

Herman Lindqvist's book about Mannerheim says that when he joined the Russian Chevalier Guard in 1891, he had to wear "white, close-fitting elk-skin breeches that were so tight that they could only be pulled on when wet. The breeches were dampened slightly and soap powder was sprinkled on the inside, whereupon two men "shook in" the officer. When the breeches dried against the skin, they fitted perfectly."

(Sitting down was more of a problem due to the boots that extended above the knee)

But presumably the highwayman did not have access to the finest tailors of Imperial St Petersburg or run round the countryside with soap flakes and men to lower him into his trousers so I am not sure this helps.

[azdak]

The prospect of being stuffed into wet soapy breeches to wait until they dry makes me exceedingly glad I will never have to be a Chavalier Guard or a highwayman. I wouldn’t enjoy all the twinkling much, either.

[nineveh_uk]

Putting a wet swimming costume back on is bad enough, let alone soapy breeches.

[executrix]

I feel like "X has to lower Y into his trousers" belongs on a bingo card.

BTW the Blakes7 set was stocked with an inclined board that Paul Darrow could lean against when his costumes were incompatible with sitting down.

[nineveh_uk]

I'm amazed it isn't a standard fandom trope!

That is humane ofnthe B7 set.

[nineveh_uk]

I'm having flashbacks to the Ross's leather trousers episode on Friends. And also concerned that the soap could be very irritating to the skin.

[ellen_fremedon]

Doeskin was the usual English term for cuir de laine, a type of wool broadcloth with some stretch to it!

(There is a line in Les Miserables in which Bahorel advises Joly to get himself a pair of cuir de laine trousers. Older translations all give this as doeskin, which led to a whole leather pants phase in the fandom.)

[nineveh_uk]

Ah! That explains how a highwayman, presumably a sole contractor lacking in strong Russian assistants, could get into them. And, given Bess's interests, out again.

Fandom wouldn't be fandom if it had resisted that.

[azdak]

Good news on the comfort score, but woollen trousers are sadly lacking in sex appeal (though doubtless very warm in winter as well as unwrinkly). Naming the cloth doeskin was a genius marketing move.

[nineveh_uk]

The advertisers are always with us!