One very stupid thing that bothers me in historical romances and fanfic is the fact that male characters often take off shirts but stay in their breeches. The breeches arenât the last layer of underwear, the shirt is. The shirt is the body linenâ thatâs the thing that goes against the skin and is the first thing to be put on and the last thing to be taken offâ thatâs the thing that is sewn by hand by wife/ sister/ daughter/ mother partly out of a lack of extensive manufacturing but because it is the most intimate layer of clothing and you donât want a strangerâs work against your skin.
Is it just because to modern eyes it would look silly? Is this a case of âI got too interested in the material culture of body linens in the Regency era and now I know too much to enjoy myselfâ??
bless 2020 emma for giving us a scene of mr. knightly dressing (it was short but loved that it included his valet - upper class men also had help dressing and undressing! - and proper dressing order and him tucking his shirt between his legs as his breeches/trousers go on **infinite chefs kisses**)
we often get scenes of women dressing in period pieces but similar scenes with men are very rare and it's a damn shame.
like you got your shirt wrapped around and tucked in to be your underwear... the very act of taking the shirt off to do the anachronistic shirtless with breeches look would be way more complicated than the people who perpetuate the anachronism ever imagined
You get it!
Period Seinfeld and George is at the diner pub explaining how he tried to take his shirt off to impress his date?? and Jerry's like "ere your breeches?"
"yes ere my breeches"
"why"
"i know not, jerry! i know not - in the fervor of the moment, the fancy seemed appealing! but my notions were - forsooth, i nearly yanked certain provisions clean off"
"yanked off your provisions! he yanked off his provisions"
"NEARLY!"
