You'll find drawers starting to creep into women's clothing starting in the 1840's and 50's. They really really started to become common when women started to wear cage crinolines in the later 1850's. With crinoline there were suddenly not as many layers right next to the body (nothing but the chemise and a single petticoat) and women probably started wearing them for modesty and comfort. By the time the crinoline fell from fashion they had become typical and women just continued to wear them.
Maggie Halberg -----Original Message----- From: WorkroomButtons.com <westvillagedrap...@yahoo.com> To: Historical Costume <h-cost...@indra.com> Sent: Wed, Sep 14, 2011 4:36 pm Subject: Re: [h-cost] split drawers Okay, dumb question, but... why did they need drawers at all? Chemise, layers of petticoats, and long skirts -- everything totally obscured, so why bother with drawers? Dede O'Hair --- On Wed, 9/14/11, Kim Baird <kba...@cableone.net> wrote: Victorian women NEEDED split drawers. They wore a long chemise over the top of the drawers, and a corset laced up tightly on top of that, so the only way to "drop a penny" was to have the drawers split. You just couldn't get at them to pull them down from the waist. _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
