*Really* fitted with never a wrinkle?
Jul. 4th, 2022 08:56 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
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.
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.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-07-04 12:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-07-04 04:47 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-07-04 06:37 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-07-04 02:20 pm (UTC)(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.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-07-04 03:53 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-07-04 05:00 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-07-04 04:44 pm (UTC)BTW the Blakes7 set was stocked with an inclined board that Paul Darrow could lean against when his costumes were incompatible with sitting down.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-07-04 04:52 pm (UTC)That is humane ofnthe B7 set.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-07-04 04:51 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-07-04 04:31 pm (UTC)(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.)
(no subject)
Date: 2022-07-04 04:58 pm (UTC)Fandom wouldn't be fandom if it had resisted that.
(no subject)
Date: 2022-07-04 06:24 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2022-07-05 09:05 am (UTC)