What about the girls . . .

When I was posting about my favorite historians, I was asked what about female historians? To be quite honest, I really don't think about the sex of those provide me with my drug of choice. But of course there are many women out there whose work sits in pride of place upon my shelves. None of them more so than Janet Arnold.

As most of you know, I'm a big fan of the minutia of history, the tiny details that made up actual everyday life. And when a new book that feeds my mania hits the shelves, I'm overjoyed. When said book just happens to be by all-time favorite historian, one who is sadly deceased, it's like a miracle.

Janet Arnold was, IMO, the most accomplished costume historian of our age. Her Patterns of Fashion books detail extant garments from the 16th century up through the early-20th. When she died, she was rumored to be working on a book about undergarments, a decade later that rumor has been proven true. Her assistant finished that book, and it was recently published as Patterns of Fashion 4. A more fitting tribute I can't imagine.

This new book details the cut and construction of shirts, smocks, neckwear (as in ruffs and rebatos), drawers, and caps from 1540 to 1660. I've been pouring over it, soaking up the details of cut and construction and, even more importantly, how each item connected to create the silhouette of the day.

My favorite item in the book is a pair of women's drawers from Italy, c. 1630 (yes, Italian women, unlike their English counterparts, wore them). It's entirely possible that this pair belonged to a courtesan. Either that, or to a woman with a rather devilish sense of humour and sexuality. Made of white linen, they are embroidered in blue silk in a pattern of double headed eagles and acorns and the words "voclio il core' (I want his heart).

These are the kinds of details that set my imagination running. Who was she? Why did she have these extraordinary underpants? What was her story? What happened to her? Did she get his heart? In my version she most certainly would.