Byron: The Clothing of a Regency Poet

[kestrell]

I'm currently attempting to answer the question of whether Byron always walked with a cane and, in the process, came across this amazing article which not only includes detailed descriptions of the corrective boot Byron wore, but detailed descriptions of various clothing he wore during different periods of his life. The article also includes various fascinating resources on men's Regency clothing, which is definitely one of my obsessions (am I the only one who thinks waistcoats are sexy? And did anyone else read the K. J. Charles queer Regency romance involving the valet, and all the descriptions of clothing?)
https://www.euppublishing.com/doi/full/10.3366/cost.2021.0200

Comments

[cvirtue]

Agree that waistcoats are sexy, if they have interesting woven patterns!

Or embroidery, I suppose - I remember seeing a large piece of fabric on a stretcher (like for a canvas for painting) at the Victoria & Albert Museum, which was the front of a waistcoat and also the embroidered flaps for the pockets for the waistcoat. The waistcoat edges along the front and following through the hem/curve to the side seam, were matched by the pocket flaps. I suppose keeping them all on one piece of fabric meant that each new bit of embroidery (leaf, stamen, etc - it was floral) could be finished on all the pieces at once so they would be identical, and they wouldn't get lost one from each other.

[kestrell]

Did you read the article? It mentions Byron's wedding waistcoat (since I have my screen reader program and my Alexa set to UK English they actually pronounce that word "westcot"), which was supposedly a secondhand one of one of the King George's, and the floral embroidered skirts were cut off and used to decorate the vest, although the sewing did not seem to be of the finest. Good to know not everyone from a previous centurey was automatically an amazing seamstress.

[cvirtue]

I did not read the article; I am a bad person. :)

[kestrell]

You are not a bad person for not reading an article that is full of my red kryptonite: I only asked because I wanted to point out teh nifty secondhand clothing bit.