Sandra O’Connor asks: “. . .exactly how large would the (storage) wardrobe generally be for a lady of the ton.”
Pat here: The wenches do try to answer reader questions as time permits, but we get so absorbed in our own research that the really good questions are left to languish until we come out of our writing caves. Since I just wrote The End on my draft, I reached into the question hat today. Sandra O’Connor has an excellent query about how ladies of the ton managed to store all those beautiful gowns and petticoats and whatnot in which we dress our heroines. Sandra, I owe you a book!
Of course, in all things historical, there is no one simple answer, which is why writing historicals allows us to let our imaginations run rampant. Which ladies and which era can open a whole raft of different answers, and when you live in houses that have been around for centuries. . . one can have anything one desires with a tweak here or there.
For instance—armoires. These date back to medieval times, particularly French. Originally, they were enormous cupboards where all the knightly armor was tucked away. These things were typically the size of eight small men, so they didn’t get moved around much. But if your lord or lady lives in a medieval castle, they might very well have an armoire. And as years passed, these armoires often acquired rods and hooks for hanging clothes, especially when fashion dictated enormous skirts and coats that would be crushed in a typical storage trunk or drawer. But armoires were made of wood and deteriorated over the centuries—as did the castles large enough to contain them. Fashions changed, billowing skirts and coats vanished, and eight-man closets became less necessary. Besides, who wants a castle when a lovely Georgian mansion with a landscaped garden is the thing—and armoires fit for a castle no longer suited fashionable chambers. Besides that, by Georgian times, oak was virtually impossible to obtain and England was importing furniture from upstart places like the Americas. Armoires were not meant for transport.
So by the Georgian era, spacious hanging rods for clothes were basically left to shopkeepers. Those lovely mansions had wall-papered chambers designed to hold elegant furniture, often gorgeously carved and inlaid works of art. (image is Chippendale drawing) Closets weren’t unknown if my lady had a suite of rooms. But a closet was basically storage, often hidden because one wouldn’t want to mar the beauty of the chamber with needless doors. Or better yet, there was a dressing room where the maid kept all the boxes and tidbits tidily tucked away on shelves until needed. Terraced townhouses in the city were less likely to have extra chambers, but they might enclose a nook beside the chimney for hidden shelving.
Typically, my lady’s bedchamber furniture might include a trunk type chest, where one lifts the lid and digs down into the depths, probably for heavier items like cloaks. Although I suppose gentlemen might store half their bulky wardrobe in there as long as they had a valet to iron it out. Their starched shirts were more likely to be on shelves or in drawers. A less wealthy household might only have a chest for clothes storage, but then, they’d not have many clothes to store. (Isobel Carr has some nice images of clothing storage here.)
Then there were the lovely chests of drawers for smaller items, delicate chemises and stockings and ribbons and items that needed to be sorted. By this period, the armoire had been reduced to a clothes press, with drawers on the bottom and pull-out shelves behind closed doors on top. Keeping in mind that Regency gowns were often little more than a slip of muslin, they didn’t need much space. Even an evening gown from the era could easily be folded away. One can understand why preparations for a ball might entail much time and confusion as gowns were dug out and ironed, matching stockings and undergarments sorted, and heaven forbid there be a tear anywhere in that delicate fabric!
I know we bestow fabulous stacks of gowns on our heroines, but in truth, most women simply bought a new gown or two each year, then modified older gowns with bits of lace and braid, and dressed them up with a new shawl or bonnet. They might switch one bodice with another—those ladies’ maids were extremely useful if my lady didn’t sew. At the end of the season, they’d discard the outmoded or worn—or give it to the ladies’ maid. Anything deemed worthy of another season might be tucked away in a trunk in the attic when the new season’s clothing was carried down. Accessories, requiring all those drawers and shelves, were the bulk of a lady’s wardrobe—hats, shawls, gloves, adorable little spencers, shoes, boots. . . and all the trim necessary to update when inspired.
It wasn’t until the fuller gowns of the Victorian era emerged that those armoires—or wardrobes as they were often called since they weren’t storing armor anymore—came back into fashion. The walnut clothes press probably imported from New England grew a little larger and might sport a short rod for hanging billowing gowns or perhaps hoops, petticoats, and bustles. But drawers and shelves were still the main means of storage. (I am trying to picture shoving a springy crinoline into a trunk. . .)
I think I need to create a heroine who has just gone on a marvelous shopping spree, comes home to discover she’s run out of furniture, and invents the closet.
Surely most of us remember the tiny closets in houses built before the 1970’s? Walk-in closets were reserved for the wealthy. However did we find room for all our shirts and dresses back then? What kind of closet did you have growing up?