From a historical perspective......

[Musicforsnorks]

How did people keep the rain off when clothing like in these photos was fairly standard? Or at least in rural parts.

Less people had vehicles (WW2 era? I am no fashion expert)
The elements will have been just as un-predictable, rainy and merciless as today, i presume.
Less central heating, access to modern gadgetry, and so on.

Theres lots of wool and heavy fabrics, im picturing margaret rutherford as miss marple here ❤️.......kinda like Toast and Margaret Howell style.

Its all very lovely but.....practical?
Do you think this resurgence in old-english country style is just a gimmick as opposed to an effort to bring back sustainable/quality pieces?
The images are by Holland & Holland from around 2016-ish.

This is a brilliant podcast for anyone interested, this episode has got Jamieson's of Shetland talking about their history producing wool and Di Gilpin talking about the history of Ganseys.

fruityknitting.com/2019/01/29/jamiesons-shetland/

What a fascinating thread!

We are plagued with clothes moths. I've given up buying knitted wool garments because they were invariably eaten. Would this have been a problem with some of the very dense knits of the past?

I used to have a lovely black winter coat made from wool, but woven, and the moths didn't bother much with that, oddly, given they'd enjoyed nibbling their way through the wool carpets we inherited from the previous owners. I wondered if it was because it was so much more dense than a knitted fabric.

Oh that's horrendous Gasp0de

They like to be undisturbed as it's the larvae that eats the fibres so if you were poor and had less clothes and wore the ones you had frequently, they'd probably not get so much of a chance to get at them.

I read an article somewhere recently about the national trust and how they fight clothes moths and it was basically work very hard, dusting, shaking and turning fabric as frequently as possible. Deterrents don't actually affect the larvae themselves, just the moths.

Fascinating reading (and I stumbled on this by accident)! All the historical detail that often never gets mentioned. I've always struggled to imagine knitted stockings and brreches and so on when reading historical novels - they make a lot more sense now I know they were knitted in thinner needles! I was imagining them in a larger knit...

Thanks, Flavia - it's not as horrendous as it sounds. The carpets were old and for a long time I thought they were just a bit beaten up. Then I started noticing tiny holes in my cardigans and thought I'd snagged them (I am quite clumsy!). So the moths had time to get quite a hold before we finally twigged. The carpets were due to go as part of refurbishment anyway and the combination of assorted moth deterrents, new flooring and no wool cardigans has got their numbers right down.

Moths have always been a problem - there's advice on avoiding them in the Menagier de Paris, which is a medieval household manual. Even if you didn't have many clothes, you would probably have some you wore in the winter but put away for the summer. They have exploded lately due to warmth/people not cleaning that well/really good chemical deterrents being unavailable, but they were definitely an issue before.

Moths are bastards

They really don't like lavender and cedar wood, so old fashioned methods of storing your clothes in a cedar chest with lavender sprigs between layers is actually pretty good for prevention.

Once you actually have an infestation, eggs and larvae are hard to get rid of. Putting the wool clothing in a plastic bag and putting in the deep freeze for 48-72 hours will kill them. Or if that's not feasible, it's also possible to very slowly lower wool clothing into a bath of very hot water (as close to boiling as possible) and leave them there until the water has cooled to room temperature. So long as you don't agitate the clothing at all, the wool won't felt or shrink, but the heat will kill moth larvae and eggs.

I once rescued some beloved merino jumpers that way as I didn't have a proper freezer at the time. It was an interesting experiment in (ahem) applied social history but it worked! Perfect condition, no shrinking, no more moths!

As someone who used wool covers over cloth nappies I can assure you that it can be fully waterproof! Wonderful stuff, so much warmer and more breathable than synthetics. Also not always itchy, my family all wear wool next to our skin through winter. Certain breeds of sheep produce very soft wool and if there’s some lanolin still in it it makes it even softer. Densely woven (or heavily felted) wool can be pretty much waterproof without being treated with lanolin too.

I don't think there's any evidence for ganseys before the very end of the 18th century.

True, I didn't think about seasons Countess, people would hardly have worn winter gear all year round.

I didn't know about lavender unique, that's interesting. Much cheaper and easier to get hold of and refresh than cedar wood.

I definitely now have to find some silk underwear and a woollen kitchen apron 😁

Again, thanks to everyone f0r contributing to this. I would love to have this thread to read in book form.

Such an interesting thread. The weight of wool if it was fully immersed in water was a problem though, many women died of drowning in the medieval period due to falling into rivers (while doing laundery?) and not being able to climb out due to the weight of their clothes.

Gansey is an old norse word so you can trace the route of the Vikings by where it is used, gansey is used in Orkney and Shetland as well as the NE.

many women died of drowning in the medieval period due to falling into rivers (while doing laundery?)

Not just laundry - collecting food, crossing rivers, fetching water were also dangerous. Men in the other hand often drowned without clothes on trying to wash and cool down after work.

(For those interested in such things this has examples of the many ways the 16th century could be dangerous - including a man who drowned despite using two inflated bladders as an early flotation device. tudoraccidents.history.ox.ac.uk/?page_id=177. There's a shorter list here www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-13762313 which includes drowning when collecting food - no mention of the weight of the wool dress though)

Wool can be very waterproof if it retains its lanolin. I think they had thick woollens and tweeds that kept them dry but stank! I remember those old fashioned sturdy clothes and they reeked of untreated wool.

Gansey is also used in Cornwall for fishermen's knitted sweaters. That it's a Norse word would make sense, as there are place names locally that reference Viking raiders and settlements.

On wool clothing storage, we have a camphorwood chest brought back from Singapore in the 1960s that does the job perfectly. And 4160 Tuesdays, beloved of the perfume threads on MN, make a spray that deters moths with essential oils that works well, although DH hates the smell.

I’ve got a hand made wool jumper, bought in Shetland and a “traditional” fisherman style.
It is incredibly heavy and slightly oily (lanolin) and it really repels rain.
It’s also extremely warm but also itchy as hell so I don’t wear it very often!

How have I never found the moth spray, I am a complete 4160 Tuesdays addict. Would you happen to remember what it's called, Xingming?

Countess
www.4160tuesdays.com/4160tuesdaysscentshop/prod_6361431-SoDoCloMo-antimoth-spray.html

Just been looking myself. Thanks XingMing!

That's it @TheCountessofFitzdotterel. And for about £20, it goes on for ages, and seems to deter the mothy blighters. The smell is strong, but not unpleasant.

I would have replied sooner, but DS has been rebuilding the PC so have been offline.

Thank you very much! I must have missed it because it was part of the Our Modern Lives set.