Victorian Wardrobe Secrets

Betwixt The Sheets: The History of Sex, Scandal & Society

History Hit

Society, Sex, Scandal, Education, History

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 14 April 2023

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

If someone from the future looked inside your wardrobe, what could they find out about your life? That you like going out to parties? Maybe your work uniform is in there? Or perhaps there is still evidence of fashion trends of yore, like the oh-so-low rise jeans of the early noughties….

We can find out so much about people, culture and society through our clothes, and it’s the same for our ancestors.

Today Kate is joined by fashion historian Dr Kate Strasdin Betwixt the Sheets to delve into the wardrobe secrets of a real life Victorian woman, from deadly dyes, to an actual pirate flag.

Senior Producer: Charlotte Long. Producer: Sophie Gee. Mixed by Joseph Knight.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello my lovely betricksters, it's me Kate Luster. I am here with your fair do's warning.
0:06.1	Fair do's, everybody. This is an adult podcast spoken by adults to other adults about
0:10.9	dirty things and an adulty way and you should be an adult too. Do you know, I don't actually think
0:15.7	that this is the rudest episode that we have ever done. We are talking mostly about Victorian
0:21.1	fashion and fabric samples. So it's not super risque. It is really interesting though, but I think
0:28.6	that basically I enjoy doing the fair do's warning so much that I'm going to do them
0:32.4	regardless of the subject. So fair do's. If anyone is offended by Victorian fashion samples,
0:38.4	this is your chance to back out now and for the rest of you, let's do this.
0:45.2	If someone from the future looked inside your wardrobe, what would they find out about your life?
0:51.8	In my case is that I have substantial clarinet, but what might they find out about you that you
0:57.7	like going to parties? Maybe your work uniform is in there? Or have you married condoed all of your
1:04.4	socks? And they're all neatly rolled up in colour-coordinated fashion in order of size? Perhaps there's
1:11.9	still evidence of fashion trends from yesterday in there, like the, oh god, the low-rise jeans from
1:18.4	the early naughties. And I'm told that they are making a comeback. Slight deviation now, but
1:24.8	Gen Z, no, no, no, no, no, don't do that, leave those things in the gutter where they belong,
1:30.2	they were awful. Sorry, that was just a really scary flashback there, don't do it. But we can find
1:37.6	out so much about people, culture and society, brew their clothes, and it's the same for our ancestors,
1:45.2	of course it is. Today, we are doing this, we are people from the future looking into the wardrobe
1:52.2	of a real Victorian woman. We're going to find out about the kind of deadly dyes that she was
1:57.1	using to make her clothes, and what she was doing with an actual pirate flag. Yes, really.
2:22.4	Yes, social courtesy does make a difference.
2:35.3	Hello, and welcome back to Bitwix the Sheets, the history of sex, scandal and society, with me,
	...

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