The
Tatler
Saturday, June 6, 1710
Advertisement
‘A stage-coach
sets out exactly at six from Nando’s coffee-house to Mr. Tiptoe’s
dancing-school. And returns at eleven every evening, for one shilling and
four-pence.
‘N.B. Dancing
shoes not exceeding four inches in height in the heels, and periwigs not
exceeding three feet in length, are carried in the coach-box gratis.”
As Shakespeare didn’t, but undoubtedly meant,
to say, “If all the world’s a stage, then let’s dress like it.” At the end of the day, how do you dress if you
live in a hierarchical society bulging at the seams? Some say out—panniers,
wires or swords, and some say up--heels and wigs or hats (?). Steele’s’ acidic advertisement in 1710 points
to the foibles men will go to impress themselves and everyone else. Well, as
Tripping Knob, a famous, but undocumented dancer of the 1710s put it, “I may
not have the power of the Monarch, a Duke, a General or Councillor of State,
but by g-d I can be taller than all of them combined. If all these persons of
rank want land and space here and abroad, shouldn’t I be able to colonize some
space at home?”
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Men's Mules circa 1710, Bata Museum https://www.flickr.com/photos/suddenly_susan/2898003324/ |
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Admiral George Churchill, by Godfrey Kneller http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:GeorgeChurchill.jpg Jeff Hopper is an author, editor and manager of the Warner House |
Perhaps this will be a summer of looking at wigs and heels
and things that make your space, my space à la the 18th C.
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