Petticoats, Tails and Teachers

Tuxedo tails is the height of elegance in men’s wear today. And boys wear dresses to get christened. And the doctored images we see of macho pirates in the movies, history may have fooled us. Some of those pirates may have worn dresses. The pirates of that time lived before cameras. And Cristobal Colon (aka Christopher Columbus) who knows what he wore!

Franklin D R

The petticoat has a long and interesting history in Europe and later North America.  Some men wore them as part of their dress (yes like dresses) ensemble all the way into adulthood. A sword at the side was one way of distinguishing men from women as they both wore dresses. Both boys and girls, in Europe and America wore dresses until the boy generally was breeched as his signal into male hood. It was easier to potty train that way, one would assume. Franklin Delano Roosevelt (Smithsonian - 1884), wore a dress until the age of 6 or 7 when he was breeched. Who knows what poor people wore, since their story is not in recorded history?  Ragged hand me downs possibly.The throwaway society did not exist then. The petticoats demise happened shortly after WW1, but the fashion industry has been known to tinker with petticoats occasionally. 

Several vintage images circling around on the internet showing a teacher’s contract have been claimed by many. This was common for school districts of North America in the 19^th and early 20^th century. The one in this picture is from 1923. At that time women’s suffrage was a huge issue between liberals and conservatives. (No politics intended).  Among other things our dear teacher was never to be married and had to stay away from the company of men. And she needed permission to leave town. That list is indeed laughable today. I don’t think the rule about ice cream will fly with today’s teacher. That she had to wear two petticoats, not one, well, if worn by today’s teachers, might be quite a radical fashion statement. Why not? The sisters of old survived wearing them,  winter and all.

Modern epigenetic theories may yet come to the rescue of those men who are more comfortable packaged in dresses. They may, however, have to forego the sword at the side. How could they drive the SUV with a sword? If history was rewritten, Johnny Depp in a dress prancing around in Pirates of the Caribbean would probably not have been resulted in those films raking in the billions of dollars. Those tails that are the summum bonum of the tuxedo fashionistas are after all the remnants a dress that was left open to reveal the petticoat underneath. One is left to wonder what the world would have been like had selfies been around in those bygone days.