Dressing up a maid, 1880s

[Music] [Music] today we are thinning with a clothing for a working-class woman so no more similacs no more frills we are looking at what a working-class woman would be wearing during her years in service we are mostly concentrating on the 80s here but most of the principles would be the same for most of the of the victorian era undergarments very sturdy uh the next meets plain black stockings and what drawers i'm portraying made from a quite well-to-do household so obviously my own clothing reflects that and i do have a little bit of lace just time a little bit and obviously the time lace was machine made as well so it was relatively cheap right let's have a go at boots again study i will be on my [Music] i'll be wandering around all days and standing most of the day um if i were a generic mate responsible for cleaning i would really be on my knees most of the time cleaning um cleaning fireplaces and making sure everything is ready before the household wakes up obviously the amount of servants and the roles and responsibilities will hugely depend on what kind of household it is um and obviously the richer you are the more servants you have like you got bedford i think had about 320 or so quite unbelievable and whereas some household would have a cook as calorie mate maybe a long roommate a ladies mate to help with the dressing up and generic chambermaid and that would be quite well to do whereas some would just have one made of all work and the whole thing we have to do quite a lot basically everything the surface was after agricultural work one of the most popular if not the most popular sectors for employment for employment for young women in the 50s you will get your mates usually from the country and country losses were in huge demand and very recommended at the mob fairs of the hiring fairs which were not the best we wouldn't enjoy them today and later on um register registered servants and charities or businesses would be providing a list of girls and boys [Music] but [Music] and obviously workhouse would be a great source of domestic service too it would be a responsibility of the housekeeper to hire a mate so let's have a good all right we've got our boots on let's go for the cool and obviously corset was just a normal part of of your everyday wear there wasn't anything special in it it would be providing you with great back and busted support and all glasses for it um this one here is based on the um cementing pattern for the pretty housemate and it was made um in hundreds if not thousands in late 80s and early 90s it was very very popular it was relatively pretty it was very sturdy it was hard to be cheap and it sported several features that would mean that it would last the mate for quite some time let's have a closer look it does have bones in the seams they would be well born at the time obviously and lots of cording and cording would be made with um paper or cotton cord this one also has an under busk to get the pad with a spoon bask especially because if you are cleaning fireplaces if you are cleaning the stairs and sitting on your knees all the time you are bending a lot and that's in time would cause your mask to break whereas with this little underbust here you've got additional support that will provide you a little bit more life to your corset excuse me [Music] these were not tight lacing corsets they were just very functional piece of wardrobe that would be one day in and day out it's really supportive possibly a little bit too big for me there you go this one is made in um and could heal energy usually you could have it made in in 12 that's what the original one is and originals also supported um machine embroidery on the on this bit of boning i do have a machine involved but well i did it by hand right so that's our basics now atis obviously are the bustle types but mate doesn't have a need even a housekeeper really doesn't have a need for a bustle however the basic silhouette would be just a little bit enhanced to go with the fashion a petticoat is quite simple and again i'm working in quite an affluent household so i have some basic cotton base again washable easily to displace but nothing hugely fancy for female servants obviously female 7's were paid less than male equivalent but uh throughout insults injury whereas the um sevens were usually provided with livery um women were not so they had to bear the cost of the clothing themselves or make it themselves [Music] and there wasn't a specific literary per se you would be just wearing very serviceable garments again depending on the household you might be issued with a standard apron or a cap or cuffs um or maybe it would be a recommendation of what colors are you supposed to be wearing depending on your status usually if you're working in the kitchen or if you're working in the roots it would be very plain clothing that would be easy to wash that would not show that too much and that would last you for quite some time the ladies maid however could be a little bit more fancy because very often she would be getting the cast of clothing from the lady of the house in fact if the lady of the house died it was traditional that her wardrobe would go to her to her grenade and that would include basically everything apart from items in velvet satin with fur and place and very often mates would be quite additionally motivated let's say to care more for the garments because they knew that they were going to get off the castles right um basic skirt very generic um same length with a little bit of a pastel part at the bottom just to keep that little bit boom for the silhouette in very plain and thin wool and also pockets they have a watch pocket here and a waistband which was quite a useful addition for several reasons um if you were a housekeeper you would keep your chat lane nearby and then a little watch [Music] know [Music] and done that's basic scratch it has a little bit of bustle going on here and again i can put my little watch there corset cover would be next or it's a little bit chilly of today a standard blouse with buttons obviously now the quality is required of female servants deferred vastly depending on the household that's everything but honestly was necessary being presentable if your ladies made because you are going to be seen was another advantage hard-working obviously if you're a chambermaid you basically wouldn't want to be seen at all and lots of people would really resent seeing a champion additional qualities that would give you an employment would be a knowledge of trust making so very often a dressmaker's apprenticeship a apprenticeship would be a desirable ladies mate um similarly a talent and experience with um hairdressing and if you could design clothing as well and you have to use a sewing machine perfect another pocket here for anything i need to be wearing and let's put the bodice on for my servants surprisingly for example as footman is concerned very often the criteria were a little bit silly the taller the man was the better his pain would be it was all appearances [Music] buttons too bad now the rules of the household depended on the will of the of the of the lady and her husband but some of them were really petty and restricting the freedom of the servants it was difficult to get the full life really but there is quite a lot of professional pride that you see in the different memoirs of settings of big houses for example um there was a sort of a career path you could actually start as a chambermaid work your way through to being a navy's maid and maybe a housekeeper so basically upgrading from the lower to upper taste of servant good cook has always been a great asset to the household so that's another career path i have no mirror so difficult to see if i'm doing it all right i think what was that so that would be basically my uniform um the chambermaid would be wearing that or the housemaker can can wear that ladies might come by that you should worry about other beauties that would risk that we have an apron [Music] so there's surprising surprisingly good amount of photography concerning servants so quite easy to get i should have tied it before yes so that's basically what i would have done a little cap [Music] usually covering my hair that was very much status symbol but also [Music] a very good hygienic practice now if i was made of a work or if there was an event and there would be more health needed in the kitchen and obviously i don't really want to change from my sort of nice bodies to something else i would wear steam protectors and these are basically bit of cotton with ties you see them later on in 20th century a lot of nurses as well it was much easier to wash your sleeves than to wash the whole uniform but you see these ones being washed in the 80s and 90s just for washing up or helping in the kitchen when there is a southern rush or maybe guests arriving i was going to my family or maybe on a date i can hope um i will probably be wearing the same gown just without the white bits or i might have a second guy justin playing caught on a plain wall and if i was a little bit more affluent it would possibly adhere a bit more to the fashionable silhouette as well so it would be still plain cottons playing walls inexpensive fabrics not a lot of frills not that other place but the silhouette would be a little bit more fashionable so hey there we go night [Music] well who we are we have another middle class or working class outfit but something that our mate would be wearing for visiting family or going to town or maybe sneaking out for some barn dance you never know admittedly this kind of style would be just as much in their place for a a working woman in a town that's woman or dressmaker or trait tradesman's wife or daughter or maybe even a middle class sort of house gown for generic chores hello melin [Music] sorry that's your melanchomy the material is still really cheap it's cheap cotton in line with cotton and it's quite easy to make it's not really sophisticated however there are some little touches that will make it fashionable so yes cheap material but we have a little bit of linen trim all around that will be easy to to get on cotton will be nice to clean as well so easy to wash buttons are possibly the most expensive items here because they are covered with strips of velvet can be a gift from my from my house lady um there is still a little bit of bustle pattern at the back the shoulders have a little bit more fullness to adhere to the fashionable silhouettes and i'm laced a little bit tighter than for work i also have a little um apron front skirt to make it ultra fashionable made out of the scraps of the remaining cotton because the sewing machines were so popular and at that time in the 80s there were mostly um there was at least one in the household proper household or a few households will be sharing one it would be much cheaper for a mate or a woman of modest means to make an outfit like that because suddenly it didn't take hours and hours and hours of hand stitching but it could just take a couple of days or a few hours to you know to run the bodies in the machine and then finish to later on so suddenly making fashionable items became a bit more easier and cheaper and the fact that the magazines like the harper's bazaar or english domestic movement magazine provided patterns and instructions how to make clothes easily accessible to everyone made it even easier for a woman of modest means to get a nice nice outfit like this one so yes let's go with that and let's get on to my family and have a bit of a break [Music] sure [Music] [Music] hmm [Music] [Music] you

Channel: priorattire

Views: 249,618

Keywords: victorian, historical costume, historical fashion, victorian maid, working class, fashion, reenactment, prior atttire, housemaid

Id: GaiWemnkbJE

Length: 23min 1sec (1381 seconds)

Published: Sun Jul 19 2020