Linda writes >>When - and especially where - did lace become something that only women should wear? Is it like pink, a colour that was perfectly acceptable for men, at least if the colours of Oxford University academic robes are anything to go by, until somewhere in the twentieth century?<<
I listened to Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen's Men of Fashion recently - it resurfaces on BBC Radio 4 extra once in a while. He points out that men's (high fashion) costume changed radically with the Regency Dandies - Beau Nash and his dictats and the Victorians completed the shift to a sober, sombre, black three piece suit style. That really bled colour out of English men's fashion with only the dashing redcoats of the soldiers to enliven the gloom. Some of it may also have been the result of the various revolutions - the elaborate, embroidered, bejewelled, and lace festooned styles of the Courts see as being out of touch with the populace. You can see this through the English Civil War, the French, American, and Russian Revolutions, the fall of the Hapsburgs and other monarchies ... I see the odd pink shirt worn for formal business wear, particularly as in other cultures than the Western/Brit it has never gone out of fashion. Louise In sunny, overwarm Cambridge. The Met Office told us we were in for a pattern of cold wet miserable summers and what happens - a heat wave. - To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]. Photo site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/lacemaker/sets/
