What if...

like in BuzzFeed’s Women Wear Hoop Skirts For A Day While Being Exaggeratedly Bad At Doing Everything In Them video, one woman comments that she’s being “oppressed by the patriarchy.” if you’ve read anything Victorian man ever said about hoop skirts, you know that’s pretty much the exact opposite of the truth

thing is, hoop skirts evolved as liberating garment for women. before them, to achieve roughly conical skirt fullness, they had to wear many layers of petticoats (some stiffened with horsehair braid or other kinds of cord). the cage crinoline made their outfits instantly lighter and easier to move in

it also enabled skirts to get waaaaay bigger. and, as you see in the late 1860s, 1870s, and mid-late 1880s, to take on even less natural shapes. we jokingly call bustles fake butts, but trust me- nobody saw them that way. it was just skirts doing weird, exciting Skirt Things that women had tons of fun with

men, obviously, loathed the whole affair

(1864)

(1850s. gods, if only crinolines were huge enough to keep men from getting too close)

(no date given, but also, this is 100% impossible)

(also undated, but the ruffles make me think 1850s)

it was also something that women of all social classes- maids and society ladies, enslaved women and free women of color -all wore at one point or another. interesting bit of unexpected equalization there

and when bustles came in, guess what? men hated those, too

(1880s)

(probably also 1880s? the ladies are being compared to beetles and snails. in case that was unclear)

(1870s, I think? the bustle itself looks early 1870s but the tight fit of the actual gown looks later)

The reason you suck at doing things in a hoop skirt is because you’re not used to doing things in a hoop skirt.

The first time I got in a Colonial-aristocracy dress I felt like I couldn’t breathe. The construction didn’t actually allow me to raise my arms all the way over my head (yes, that’s period-accurate). We had one dresser to every two women, because the only things we could put on ourselves were our tights, shifts, and first crinoline. Someone else had to lace our corsets, slip on our extra crinolines, hold our arms to balance us while a second person actually put the dresses on us like we were dolls, and do up our shoes–which we could not put on ourselves because we needed to be able to balance when the dress went on. My entire costume was almost 40 pounds (I should mention here that many of the dresses were made entirely of upholstery fabric), and I actually did not have the biggest dress in the show.

We wore our costumes for two weeks of rehearsal, which is quite a lot in university theatre. The first night we were all in dress, most of the ladies went propless because we were holding up our skirts to try and get a feel for both balance and where our feet were in comparison to where it looked like they should be. I actually fell off the stage.

By opening night? We were square-dancing in the damn things. We had one scene where our leading man needed to whistle, but he didn’t know how and I was the only one in the cast loud enough to be heard whistling from under the stage, so I was also commando-crawling underneath him at full speed trying to match his stage position–while still in the dress. And petticoats. And corset. Someone took my shoes off for that scene so I could use my toes to propel myself and I laid on a sheet so I wouldn’t get the dress dirty, but that was it–I was going full Solid Snake in a space about 18″ high, wearing a dress that covered me from collarbones to floor and weighed as much as a five-year-old child. And it worked beautifully.

I can ride public transportation while wearing them. I can take a taxi while wearing them. I can go on rides at Disneyland while wearing them. Because I’ve practiced wearing them and twisting the rigid-but-flexible skirt bones so I can sit on them and not buffet other people with my skirts. 

They’re also – and I can’t emphasize enough how important this is – really easy to pee in.  If you’re in split-crotch drawers (which, until at least the 1890s, you were), you can take an easy promenade a few feet away from the gents and then squat down and pee in pretty much total privacy.  It gives so much freedom in travel when it’s not a problem to pee most anywhere.

People also don’t realize that corsets themselves were a HUGE HUGE IMPROVEMENT over previous support-garment styles – and if you have large breasts that don’t naturally float freely above your ribcage (which some people’s do! but it’s not that common), corsets are often an improvement over modern bras.

They hold up the breasts from underneath, taking the weight of them off your back.  Most historical corset styles don’t have shoulder straps, so you’re not bearing the weight of your breast there, either, and you can raise your arms as far as your dress’s shoulder line allows (which is the actually restrictive bit – in my 1830s dress, literally all I can do is work in my lap, but in my 1890s dress I can paddle a kayak or draw a longbow with no trouble.  Both in a full corset).  They support your back and reduce the physical effort it takes to not slouch, helping avoid back pain.  They’re rigid enough that you don’t usually have to adjust your clothing to keep it where it belongs.  They’re flexible – if you’re having a bloaty PMS day you just … don’t lace it as tightly, and if your back muscles are sore you can lace it a little tighter.  And you can undo a cup (or, y’know, not have breast cups) to nurse a baby without losing any of the structural integrity of the garment.

I do educational/historical dressing and people are really insistent, like, “The corset was invented by a man, wasn’t it?”  “Actually, women were at the forefront of changing undergarment styles throughout the 19th century!” “But it’s true that it was invented by a man.”  

thinking about kirk and his dumb workout pants

twitter.com/sidetrek2

being in a fandom that you thought was gonna be toxic but it’s actually nice

…

Source: [x]

apparently, a city renovated its park, and ended up putting a tree branch over a beloved path:

of course, this meant the path had become unusable, which is an utter tragedy, so an anonymous citizen did the rational thing and got up in the middle of the night, went to the park, and cut the branch in half using a chainsaw. 

so like.. this citizen should probably get arrested for destruction of public property right??? nah. the city just thought it was funny and even made a joke about it when the renovated park got-re opened. the only thing to come out of it was this photo, posted by a local news site:

book one: does not pull off this very traditional cut at all. he looks like an onion with a horse’s tail glued onto his head. (1/10)

book two: wholesome cut, so cute. just look at him, he just wants to support his uncle and be happy. (10/10)

^^^ THIS is true Zuko book three hair. It has just the right amount of floofyness to dance in the breeze and it’s BEAUTIFUL 11/10 don’t come at me with your Beach episode Zuko.