Ok, But What Did Poor People Wear?

what did one mill worker say to another? ok loomer
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[Gugunet]

"Poverty always had different types of shapes, colors and shades"

*50 Shades of Poor*

[duchi]

*"Today we're talking about poor people"*

Why do I feel called out

[rebeccaelise]

In Downton Abbey, the costume designers touched on the whole ‘working class wearing slightly out of date clothes’ thing. If you watch carefully, you can see Lady Mary wearing an outfit in one season, and then Anna (her maid), is wearing it in the next season/a few years later! I always thought that was such a clever little touch from the costuming team.

[disagio]

1 like = 1 farmer's son i'll flirt with not wearing a corset

[allegedly]

Do poor people live or do they just go to work and suffer? - rich people

[dinaatjuh]

Still to this day people who know nothing about being poor make the most f- up assumptions about those who do. For example, clothing donations. First, if you donate make sure the clothing is ok to wear still, make sure it's not stained, it's clean and not ripped. Donated clothing that does not suffice gets trashed, so donating it is redundant. Second, consider that woman's and children's clothing get donated the most, so if you want to really help donate men's clothing, specifically shoes in larger sizes are needed when the winter arrives. This goes for other will intentioned donations too, make sure it's good stuff. Poor people deserve nice things too. It all comes down to basic respect of ones humanity, being poor doesn't make you less of a human.

[guytorie]

Imagine being the first rando to walk around in a gigantic collar that you made by yourself out of oats on your tiny farm and then some rich bastard has the gall to get some laws made against you.

[kathleenwest]

My grandmother was a single parent in the 1930s, the depth of the Depression. She lived with her parents and my mom and supported herself and Mom by sewing in a WPA clothing factory. They weren't starving poor, but they were definitely working poor. Grandma skipped meals for six months to get Mom roller skates poor. Looking at the pictures, though.. They were damned well dressed. Grandma made all the clothes for the whole family, from underwear out. The fabric might have been recycled from older clothes, but the styles were as up to date as anyone.

[hunyotiago]

Sometimes I really think she is a real time traveler.

[MissLograh]

I recently read a book, ''The unwomanly face of war'' by Svetlana Alexievich, which is consists entirely of transcripted excerpts from interviews done by the author, where she talks to women who served in the Red Army during WWII. It's an altogether fascinating and powerful read, and there are some stories of clothing as well. Since a lot of the girls were only teenagers when they went to war, they talk about how they started crying when they had to have their hair cut of and how they'd save sugar from their rations to try to use it to set their fringes into something cute as soon as it grew out enough. They'd be handed male uniforms several sizes to big, and do what they could to alter them to look less horrible. They'd use footwraps (square pieces of fabric wrapped around the foot in place of socks) to sew collars or other accessories. One woman got married on the front lines, and made her own wedding dress from whatever was available (parachute, maybe? Or just footwraps). Many of the women say how wonderful it was when, later on in the war, they were actually given female uniforms. And how much of a joy it was to be issued female underwear, instead of men's shirts. Those who could still keep civilian clothing with them might dress up in their old dresses, just among the girls, to get to feel feminine and beautiful just for a little bit.
There's one story, the woman talks about a friend she had at the front lines. The friend told her one day ''I'm going to die in the battle tomorrow, I feel it. Let's go and make them issue us fresh underwear, I don't want to die in these''. And they went and got it, and the next day her friend was killed.
It says something about how important fashion can be. Even in the most horrid if circumstances, starving and freezing in the mud while friends die around you, just being able to wear something nice, something that feels like normal, to remind you that there's a different life.

[eternal_winter]

Women of past eras were simply genius in making beautiful things out of near nothing.

There was a lady that used to live in my town in the 20’s to 30’s by the name of Elsie, poor as a church mouse, but still wanted to wear the fashionable furs, and instead of waiting for her husband to maybe one day surprise her she spent the winter trapping and skinning dozens of ermine and come spring/summer she had a lovely white fur stole made by her own two hands.

[owlislike]

Thanks for doing this. It's frustrating to hear a lot of fashion historians discussing subjects like "scandalous" upper class women wearing "bloomer pants" in the Victorian era when poor European working women ( coal workers, miners, etc) have been wearing pants FOREVER but because of their class it has been overlooked. The "poor" have been at the forefront of useful fashion out of necessity and then once a wealthy person gets a hold of it THEN it matters. Ugh.

[wickedthing]

Imagine future generations thinking we all dressed like Kim Kardashian.

[berlineczka]

I think, if we consider the corset to be the bra of yesterday, many women - especially the big chested ones - would still CHOOSE to wear it. If I didn't have a bra (because they weren't invented yet) I would definitely need to address the problem of boob swag and boob weight. Either with a corset or with some sort of bandage, as they did in ancient Greece for sports. So yeah, I imagine many of these women actually preferred corset to no corset, and simply would tie it less tight for comfort. I certainly would

[dantemcedgelord]

“Today we’re talking about poor people”

Me, a 12th century serf: 👀

[AnanasX]

"What's got you so down?"
"Oh, it's just Margaretta. She...She's not wearing her corset again."
*GASP*
"I know. It's so demoralizing."

[emmaeriksson]

It would be so much fun if this were like a series with theme “poor people one century at the time” or am I just a huge historynerd?

[TheRadioControLEmma]

"Looking well put together" and the "Look the part" is still so fricking relevant. You wouldn't go to a job interview or a meeting in sweatpants and/or wearing a T shirt with moms spagetti spillt all over it. Well.. you can. BUT Looking well put together gives a good and favorable impression to people who don't know you. In any era.

[JustAPrayer]

I really appreciate your comment on Sumptuary laws. That's something a lot of historical fashion fans NEVER talk about. A lot of us get so carried away romanticizing fashion in the old days that we forget that depending on our social class of the time we might not have been allowed to wear those things we enjoy looking at even if we did live back then. Things were prettier clothing wise but it was also more conformist in a lot of ways.

[everythingispain]

Fun fact about those clothing laws that I learned from my theatre history class, in England, the only exception to these laws was the theatre. Because actors had to portray these rich characters on stage, they were allowed to wear the clothing of the rich and rich people would often donate their clothes to the theatre!