A Delicate Purchase for a Young Man: 1881

Ribbon-work trimmed garters, c. 1875-1925 http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/106757?sortBy=Relevance&ft=garter&offset=0&rpp=20&pos=15

A SAD-EYED YOUNG MAN,

And the Delicate Purchase He Had to Make.

From the Toronto News.

“Did you ever go shopping for women?” inquired a sad-eyed young man. “No? Well, I did once, and I have had enough of it. You see, my landlady takes a motherly interest in me, and talks to me just as she would to her own son. You may think this very flattering to me, but I assure you it has its disadvantages. The other morning my landlady told me she lost one of her garters coming home from the concert the evening before, and asked me to get her a pair on my way down town. I thoughtlessly consented. As I came down the street I thought I would go into White’s. Having entered, I tried to get my bearings by the lithographs on the walls, picturing all sorts of feminine harness in active service. As the lithographs began to grow more interesting, I concluded that I was in about the latitude of garters, and halted at a counter presided over by a young woman with a mischievous eye. That’s where I got into trouble. I felt my face getting red, but I firmly asked for a pair of garters, expecting her to hand them out forthwith. ‘What kind, please?’ said she, in the most insinuating manner.

“‘Oh, something pretty good,’ I replied, painfully conscious that my ears were blazing red.

“But what style do you want?” she rejoined, evidently gloating over my misery. Then it flashed upon me that there might be a hundred styles, and how was I to know what kind my landlady wore? My first impulse was to escape, but the door was too far away, and besides, my errand seemed to have been telegraphed to every one of those girls, all of whom were eyeing me. One of them had suddenly discovered that the counter needed dusting, and there she was, right where she could hear everything I said. I asked what styles were generally called for, and the young lady began describing them with a minuteness that had only increased my embarrassment. There was the circular kind, she said, and the suspender garter attached to a waist belt and another kind that fastened to the side of a corset, and then took down a lithograph showing the manner of wearing that kind of harness. I was in a worse fix than ever, and I mentally swore I’d do no more errands for a woman. Here she was, explaining all this toggery and belaying tackle, and expecting me to know what kind of standing rigging my landlady was fitted out with. 1 looked at her in an appealing way, but she wouldn’t help me out and then an inspiration of genius came to me. “What kind would you be most likely to lose off in the street?” I asked in my most innocent tone. That girl with the duster must have thought of something funny just then, for she began laughing immoderately, and when I went out with a pair of circular elastics in my pocket I felt that every girl in the store was making fun of me, but I didn’t dare to look around. The next time I go shopping for a woman I will do it by telephone.”

The Des Moines [IA] Register 8 March 1881: p. 4

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire: One wonders just how motherly the landlady’s interest really was?  The theme of the young man shopping for a lady, only to be plunged into a morass of embarrassing underthings, was a perennially humorous one. We have seen how a verdant youth bought what he thought was a night-dress for the Beloved; also how an inexperienced young man sent a widow’s cap to his best girl, who was not best for long. And do not get Mrs Daffodil started on the theme of beardless adolescents buying silk-stockings…

The ease with which these essential articles were lost formed the basis for many an historic moment and tale, such as the founding of the Order of the Garter and the tragic story of “The Lost Garter.”

 

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdote

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.

Garters of Funereal Black: 1909

A very merry widow from a 1910 catalogue of mourning goods.

A wife, pretty enough to warrant her desire for decorative garments, wasn’t appreciated by her grouchy husband. He was kicking hard at a batch of lingerie which she was trying to make him pay attention to. She appeared before him in a film of lace.

“What do you call that?” he growled; “it looks to me like a fishnet that has caught a mermaid.”

“I’ll swear solemnly that only one idea was in my mind when I had this sent home on approval,” she sobbed. “I said to myself, how proud it’ll make my husband to see me in it—in case of a fire.”

That plea won. The man bade her keep the garment. A pair of jeweled black garters were next to be offered for his scrutiny. Their price was $10.

‘I can see why those Rhinestone diamonds catch your eye,” he grunted, “But why, oh, tell me why, have jet-black garters on flesh-tint silk stockings?”

She took to weeping to get an idea. Her gasps and moans broke him all up, and he asked what she was crying about.

“If I must tell,” she slowly said, ‘twixt sobs, “I will, though I meant to keep the secret locked within my own breast. My dear brother, who died only a few weeks ago, was a stickler for all the conventional usages of mourning, while you disapprove strongly of wearing black in token of grief. Well, there I was in a dilemma. My dear brother would want me to put on black for him, but my dear alive husband would be offended by it. I hit on a way to honor bruddy’s memory without disregarding hubby’s desire. I wouldn’t change any of my garments to the hue of mourning, but, quite unknown to all save you, me and the spirit of my departed brother, I would wear these garters of funereal black. I was caught and rended between love and duty, and I fondly hoped I had solved a complex problem sentimentally. However, if you object, then—“

The Cincinnati [OH] Enquirer 4 April 1909: p. 40

Mrs Daffodil’s Aide-memoire:  One can only admire the lady’s talent for improvisation and her patience with that growling husband….

Calls for mourning reform from those who believed it to be unwholesome and over-costly echo down the nineteenth and early twentieth century.  Mrs Daffodil suspects that the husband above objected principally to the cost, although his ghost would have been greatly offended if his wife did not put on full mourning after his passing. Here is an eloquent plea for the mourning band:

How long are we all to slavishly bow to this unwritten law of mourning, which forces us to adopt a custom inartistic and unsanitary, a blot upon the beauty of the world. a depression upon the nerves and spirits of the entire family, and very often a cruel tax upon the purse, for “mourning” and debt are only too often interchangeable terms. Why can we not break away from this tyrannical old law? There are women who, being widowed, abandon colors utterly and absolutely, just as some mourning mothers find a sorry comfort in wearing densest black as an outward expression of “that within which passeth show,” and their sincerity lends dignity and pathos to the mourning garb. But only think of the thousands who, for aunt or uncle, cousin (distant or near) or for relatives by marriage, resentfully don the purely conventional mourning, that they hate as a restraint and loathe as unbecoming;

Why may we not adopt in such cases the mourning band about the arm, securely stitched to the left sleeve of coat or jacket? It is too modest to mar either costume or suit, while it quietly and effectively announces our loss and expresses our respect.

The etiquette of mourning, like the man who drinks, or is addicted to drugs, demands a steady “tapering off”.” You should pass from crape to plain black–thence to black and white–thence to lavender and gray, and thus gently glide into blues, pinks, etc. But sometimes the deepest mourning is the briefest.

The Pittsburg [PA] Press 3 June 1906: p. 41

 

For more on the nuances and curiosities of Victorian mourning, Mrs Daffodil recommends The Victorian Book of the Dead, also available for Kindle.

Mrs Daffodil invites you to join her on the curiously named “Face-book,” where you will find a feast of fashion hints, fads and fancies, and historical anecdotes

You may read about a sentimental succubus, a vengeful seamstress’s ghost, Victorian mourning gone horribly wrong, and, of course, Mrs Daffodil’s efficient tidying up after a distasteful decapitation in A Spot of Bother: Four Macabre Tales.