Literamour

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Lithographs of Marie Taglioni in La Sylphide

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It’s Not a Plot Hole, It’s Just Something That They Opted Not to Spoon-feed You Because It Would Be Obvious If You Thought About It For 20 Seconds

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It May Be a Plot Hole, But It Still Works In Terms of the Story’s Themes and Character Logic

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All Works of Fiction Represent Constructed Realities and by Demanding a Lack of Plot Holes, You Are Improperly Importing the Rules of Objective Reality into a Subjective Creation that Must Be Judged Primarily on Its Aesthetic Merits

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Edit: THERE’S A THIRD ONE?!????

I was unable to locate the exact needlework pattern, but I think there’s a decent chance these waistcoats are inspired by the description of one worn by the character Mr. Jawleyford in popular sporting author Robert Smith Surtees’s book Mr. Sponge’s Sporting Tour (first serialized in 1849 (at least that’s the earliest I could find) and published as a novel in 1853.)

Mr. Jawleyford is described in the book as “a cross between a military man and a dandy, with a slight touch of the squire” and his hunting ensemble is described in minute detail including: “But if Mr. Jawleyford’s coat went to ‘hare’, his waistcoat was all for the ‘fox’. On a bright blue ground he sported such an infinity of ‘heads’ that there is no saying he would have been safe in a kennel of un-entered or unsteady hounds.”

Now I can’t say for certain whether the waistcoats were inspired by the book or the description of Mr. Jawleyford’s ensemble was based on an already extant trend for blue fox head waistcoats, but there’s clearly some sort of connection.

I looked to see if I could find any earlier mention of this trend, but the closest I found was in The Ladies’ Fancy Needle-Work Instructor (printed in 1841) which states that “for sporting gentlemen the “Fox Head” is very pretty” but doesn’t go into any more detail than that.