How Did Victorian Ladies Stay Warm in Winter? || THE EXPERIMENT

hi there um how do you like my fur coiler it is heated honey do you have somewhere to be right now or you need to like move get going so anyway victorian fashion is dope there is no denying that but living in a country that used to have quite cold winters in the 19th century i'm always like how did you keep warm though like fashion is important but i guess so is not freezing to death perhaps living in the age of advanced winter sports were with complicated system of layers of specifically designed fabrics it does seem a little bit crazy that people went through much worse winters without all that so how do they survive when i was doing my research i decided to narrow it down to a particular specific silhouette so let's say we're focusing on the 1890s and if our little experiment takes place in poland and it does because i am in poland right now let's stick to polish statistics or rather statistics that were taken back when poland was still annexed so in 1890s in january the average temperature was around minus one minus two celsius which according to google is 28 to 30 degrees fahrenheit but since that was the average we can safely assume that some of the days were colder than that so let's say our fictional lady is a daughter of a manufacturer so she's mixing with the upper class but her lifestyle remains a little middle class meaning she could go on a longer walk herself to fetch something from the shop so assuming no carriages were available what would she wear on such a walk one of the most important aspects of winter clothing in the pre-plastic era was isolation so like the right fabric that could isolate you from the cold and that would keep the warmth in a common choice for countries that went through will through what's wrong with my pronunciation today a common choice for countries that went through rougher winters was of course real fur because fur coats and fur lined coats sometimes were practically the only thing that could keep you reasonably warm for longer periods of time but because buying real fur to make a victorian coat is not really something i'm morally interested in and i don't happen to have an actual original victorian fur coat anywhere near me we'll have to go around it well there was also sheepskin and leather but again not something i'd be super happy buying in a bulk these were mostly used for the outerwear though like what what about all of the other layers and elements of the outfit a regular winter skirt was probably not made of leather either the answer is wool and not a wool as in whew let me put on a wool coat over the silk dress because it's getting a little bit chilly in it no layers and layers of wool i remember reading about victorian wool dresses and i was like well that surely wasn't enough it wasn't it was everything that went on underneath and everything that went on top it was a wool onion i once underestimated wool and thought you know what fleece is cheaper i can't afford wool and fleece looks pretty much the same and is about the same thickness as actual wool so what if i make a fleece outfit and then wear it to a snowy battlefield where i'll sit for hours in freezing temperatures well no do not do that don't ever underestimate wool especially layers as always i started from the deepest layers of the outfit i do remember seeing thin wool shirts in museums but i didn't possess one and also the perspective of a woolen garment worn directly on your skin underneath a corset wasn't really appealing to me so i wore my regular cotton chimes now here came the dilemma of whether or not i should wear my stockings now or after and i'll let you know in a second why i hesitated um but i eventually decided to wear a pair of silk stockings then when the core said mine is not actually an 1890 score set but never mind mine is two layers of cotton but there are excellent corsets made of wool which could definitely be a good protection of the torso against the wind so now's the fun part i knew there were like wool skirts and wool petticoat but i also knew that drawers were split and were quite loose as well and stockings ended right above the knee so i kept wondering how did they keep their thighs warm so i found a couple of examples of knitted garments ladies combinations made of wool and obviously i wasn't going to knit it because the only thing i ever needed was a scarf for my cat and it took me two weeks to make so originally i wanted to find a knitted wool fabric and just make it from that but as it turns out there isn't that much wool around and everything is acrylic so i settled on a thin smooth wool fabric which is quite soft and had 10 elastan which could help me get in and out because it would be a little bit stretchy sort of like knitted wool and it hopefully meant that it will hug my body nicely so i was a little confused whether this garment should go over my corset and my stocking but my reasoning was thus it closes with buttons so you obviously would not want buttons underneath your corset because that would press against the skin and be generally speaking quite uncomfortable and also the less raw wool on my skin the better so i decided to put the stockings first and then the wool garment considering i drafted it over my swimsuit and i completely improvised the rest i'm actually quite impressed by how well it is fitting i for sure felt like a victorian man about to take a nap though i then uh decided to go for another pair of stockings like it might seem strange but i'm sure no sane victorian lady would risk her smexy long johns showing underneath her skirt and that's also an additional layer of warmth so i wear wool stockings on top of my combinations then came the petticoat and it only made sense that the petticoat should also serve some warming purposes rather than just supporting the skirt when researching wool petticoats i found that there is like two main types the first one is made of thin stiff wool and is usually made in a way that kind of looks like a regular skirt and the other one is usually knitted is much thicker and it's kind of a random shape like it doesn't look like a regular petticoat so i decided to make one mixing those two types a little i used a thicker wool with a really nice texture but then i followed a pattern of a regular petticoat i also noticed that wool petticoats are constructed in a way that the top part is made of a thinner fabric like linen or cotton to avoid the fabric bulking in your waist and on your hips because yes you want to stay warm but you don't want your silhouette ruined do you i put the petticoat under my bum pad because it made sense for it to be close to the skin and i then put my bam pad on purely for aesthetic reasons but i guess it could also serve as an additional layer anyway over the bumper had went my regular petticoat made of cotton which unfortunately proved a little too long and i think i wore it back to front so you will see it peeking through every now and then now came the time for the dress i originally just made the skirt but then went wait a day a minute what do i wear on the top so luckily i had some leftovers and whipped up a bodice now mind you this was all happening the night before the experiment so it was all an improvised mess the bodice is also made of wool and lined with viscose and original 1890s bodice will probably be lined with something like cell which also apparently behaves very well very well when it comes to keeping the warmth in but also that's the best we're gonna get what do you want me to tell you then comes the skirt i've noticed that a lot of victorian skirts especially those worn in winter are actually a bit shorter and honestly that makes a lot of sense piles of dirty snow are not necessarily something you would want in direct contact with your skirt though i must say together with the bodice the length is slightly awkward the shoes were a bit of a pain in the ass after i've put on all the layers but since i was putting another pair of stockings over my wool combinations i had to put my corset on before the shoes anyway so i knew it's not going to be great now if our hypothetical lady was about to take a carriage ride to the shop she could wear carriage boots which were kind of like over shoes to protect your footwear but assuming she's just taking a walk a pair of leather boots will have to do i'm wearing memory boots by the way on top of the dress went a wool jacket lined with viscose again it should probably be silk the standing dracula-like collar serves not only as a cool fashion statement but it also actually kept my ears and my neck a little bit warm it was basically like a neck shield because following the paintings and the photos that i used as inspiration i didn't have any scarf on the last bit of the outfit was the accessories i wore leather gloves and i wore a fur muff it's made of a vintage fur collar that my aunt gifted me years ago and the fur is basically falling apart at this point so i decided before it completely deteriorates i might as well use it and make him off out of it and then came the hat i'm pretty familiar with 1890s hat styles and a lot of 1890s fashion plates and most of the hats were worn on top of the head even in winter now my ears are pretty sensitive and i have to cover them almost the whole year round and i'm not even joking like the slightest wind is gonna kill them so i was desperately looking for a hat that covered the ears and i settled on a small bonnet that had ties strips of fabric attached to it so when you tied the fabric underneath your chin it kind of covered your ears at least for a couple of seconds before they slid off i tied the ends in a bow and actually it behaved a lot like a scarf like it kept my neck warm the bonnet as most of the outfit was inspired by jean barrod's paintings and also looked a little bit like mickey mouse i made the hat using a pizza box and a glue gun and honestly it could have been much worse the problem with pizza boxes though is that the cardboard is quite thick and it's a bit difficult to get the hat pin through that is why my hat kept sliding off my head and it was like at the back of my head and exposing my ears because basically i couldn't keep it on top now let me just note that when shooting the next couple of clips the whole outfit was pretty much still unfinished it was thrown together at the very last minute uh in a day and a half so please excuse any imperfections mainly a part of this sleeve that became undone and is peeking out through my shoulder and me not noticing it until i get home so when i eventually put on all the layers it was time for the experiment the first thing i noticed was that putting all the layers on took so damn long that by the time i was finished i was already sweating like crazy and i dreamt of leaving the house so when i finally exposed myself to this cold air i didn't even feel it because i was so hot the camera person aka my sister on the other hand she complained straight away that it's cold can i also say it is such a blessing to be able to walk through the city in a victorian outfit without a single tourist stopping you for a picture because a there are notorious because of travel restrictions and b they won't approach you anyway because it's a pandemic and you don't want to get close to strangers so if there is one thing i'll miss when the pandemic is over it's surely not being bothered so it has been like what 20 minutes and i am not cold it is currently minus seven degrees celsius which i have no idea how much that is in fahrenheit but who cares and the only part of my body that's dying right now is my ears don't zoom one on my ears because the hat doesn't cover them it just doesn't and i have been researching hats 1890s hats and none of them covers the ears so i'm like how did you guys survive without going deaf my outfit was quite comfy the shoes weren't slippery which i was kind of worried about the skirt was quite comfortable as well it didn't get in my way and it didn't get stuck in the piles of snow because it was short the muff was a bit problematic because while walking if you kept your hands in a mouth your balance would be kind of off because you couldn't use them use your hands for the balance so it was either being balanced or keeping your hands warm so this thing is very useful 10 out of 10 would recommend your personal hand pillow so then something interesting happened about half an hour into our walk i was still warm and not uncomfortable at all while my sister who was wearing modern clothes and a fake fur was unfortunately getting colder and colder every minute hello so half an hour i think has passed oh that's a disgusting background this is much better and i'm okay i'm i'm okay i don't feel cold at all meanwhile she is freezing well not that bad but she is apparently a little bit cold are you she is and that shows you the power of wolf hello um it's been i think 45 minutes or a little bit more it has gotten slightly windy which made everything like 10 times worse my ears are like on the brink of destruction right now okay not not so much but they're basically like really cold um but apart from that and my fingers i guess which are like just leather modern gloves i'm still okay so so far so good i was also surprised at how much my core set helped at keeping me warm literally the part of my body that felt the most comfortable the whole time like the cold didn't even get there was my torso hello and welcome to the weather report it is currently minus nine and i'm okay i'm not she's not [Music] hello um i think it's now like an hour since we left home and it's minus nine and i think the only part of my body that feels like slightly chilly now and could use some additional layers is my arms and i think that's also because i don't have a wool petticoat on my arms obviously and i don't have like as many layers there i don't have a corset and stuff like that so so our walk took about an hour and i returned um pleasantly refreshed i would say while my sister's legs turned out to be lobster red and she had to spend the rest of the day under a blanket with a hot water bottle so if you appreciate her effort comment a lobster emoji just so she knows she has your respect overall i was a bit shocked at how well the layers worked at keeping me warm i am quite used to low temperatures but -9 degrees celsius or 16 degrees fahrenheit isn't necessarily a temperature i normally feel comfortable in and yet i would honestly be completely okay with spending some more time outside the only issue was the lack of ear protection and i have to dig deeper because there must have been a fashionable way of not letting your ears freeze to death i also think wool petticoats should make a comeback because these things are cute so summing up i feel like we like to think of our modern solutions as the best ones so far just because they're the newest but we forget that there is a lot of factors that go into why we do things the way we do them nowadays and some of those factors are just that some products are easier and cheaper to obtain and not necessarily better so keep that in mind because wool is cool so bad anyway i'm actually wearing a wall dress today and i'm kind of hot so i mean not hot as in oh but hot as in i'm actually warm so bye

Channel: Karolina Żebrowska

Views: 388,538

Rating: 4.9843335 out of 5

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Id: Dzzh4pQt_2M

Length: 16min 45sec (1005 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 22 2021