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History's Most Ridiculous Clothing, with AJ Jacobs: Part Two · Ridiculous History

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Ridiculous Histories, a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to the show,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much for
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: tuning in. Let's hear it for the man, the myth
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: Legend super producer, mister Max Williams. Look, guys, this is
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: in media arrests. We're coming to you right at the
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  Speaker 1: halfway point of a fascinating conversation with none other than
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  Speaker 1: our goodpal aj Bahamas Jacobs.
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Indeed, why don't we just join the conversation already in progress.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: We're building out this concept, this ancient idea of headdress,
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  Speaker 1: right visual signification of something like success or authority, what
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  Speaker 1: we would call a modern parlance, a flex, and that
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  Speaker 1: leads us to one thing we have to get to
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  Speaker 1: before we travel further down the body of ridiculous fashion trends.
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  Speaker 1: Toll wigs like big big old wigs big old.
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  Speaker 3: In fact, the phrase big wig is derived from the
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  Speaker 3: fact that people who had who were higher on the
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  Speaker 3: socioeconomic scale, had the big the bigger the wig, the
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  Speaker 3: bigger the bank account. I guess so yes. But the
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  Speaker 3: wigs were also incredibly vertical and reached heights of four feet.
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  Speaker 3: And this I'd say, the height of yeah, this is
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  Speaker 3: I mean, it was especially crazy during the lead up
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  Speaker 3: to the French Revolution. The famous Marie Antoinette, she was
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  Speaker 3: kind of the They would have these wigs that were
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  Speaker 3: made of wire. You needed wire because they were so big,
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  Speaker 3: but you needed horse hair and human hair, beef fat
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  Speaker 3: to keep it all in play, hollows maybe a little talely, yeah, delicious.
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  Speaker 3: You had powder like powder from wheat and white rice.
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  Speaker 3: And this, by the way, was when the peasants were starving,
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  Speaker 3: so this was not very beloved when uh, you know,
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  Speaker 3: she's using food in her wig instead of in their stomach.
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  Speaker 3: But these they became crazy tall. It was sort of
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  Speaker 3: like a you know, like the arms race, who can
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  Speaker 3: get the highest who? And they were so tall they
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  Speaker 3: would have to stick their heads out the window of
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  Speaker 3: the carriage. They would have to be very careful chandeliers.
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  Speaker 3: People's head caught on fire. And they had not just
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  Speaker 3: the hair, but they had all sorts of things in them.
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  Speaker 3: They had feathers, flowers, taxidermied birds. To go back to
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  Speaker 3: our first hat shop. Nothing a battleship, a replica replica
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  Speaker 3: of a French battleship. Marie Antoinette was famous for that.
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  Speaker 4: Uh.
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  Speaker 3: And of course a lot of insects because you had
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  Speaker 3: the beef tallow and it was just the delicious.
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  Speaker 1: So the insects a non consensual ornamentation.
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  Speaker 2: That's right.
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  Speaker 3: They were meant to be there, but they added to
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  Speaker 3: the fun.
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: And gosh, I love your locust contessa. Yeah, I love you.
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: I love your cat.
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  Speaker 3: Your hair is moving around so interesting, so active.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah.
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  Speaker 3: But yes, so this literally was one of the complaints
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  Speaker 3: that led to the French Revolution. People didn't have anything
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  Speaker 3: to eat. I mean, this is I guess the Lady
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  Speaker 3: Gaga and her meat dress really would have pissed them off.
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  Speaker 4: Oh gosh, this idea.
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  Speaker 3: Of these ridiculously tall wigs were just such an obvious
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  Speaker 3: status marker that would enrage the lower class. And they
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  Speaker 3: paid for it. They paid for it, they sure did.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, someone took something off the top.
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  Speaker 3: Right, exactly more than just.
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  Speaker 1: A wig, more than just a wig, right. And this
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  Speaker 1: leads us to I think another another important trend that
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  Speaker 1: we have to talk about. I was speaking years ago
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  Speaker 1: with a friend of ours, good friend of the show
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  Speaker 1: Holly Fry from Stuff You Missed in History class, and
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  Speaker 1: in our conversation we noted that quite a few of
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  Speaker 1: the fashion trends, regardless where they lay on the spectrum,
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  Speaker 1: Quite a few of the fashion trend for women and
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  Speaker 1: female identifying people were incredibly painful and inconvenient and literally
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  Speaker 1: bad for you. Like a far example of that would
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  Speaker 1: be footbinding. But there's a lot more to that.
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  Speaker 2: Store, just corsets and all of that stuff just constricting
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  Speaker 2: your movements and just like the idea of suffering for fashion,
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  Speaker 2: you know.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, well, Court, let's dive into corsets. And I will say,
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  Speaker 3: for my year of living constitutionally, I tried to dress
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  Speaker 3: the part, so I had to wear the hat, which
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  Speaker 3: was not so bad. Socks were kind of a pain
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  Speaker 3: in the ass or painted like because they didn't have elastic,
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  Speaker 3: so you had to wear these little sock belts. And
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  Speaker 3: so the amount of time I spent putting on sock belts,
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  Speaker 3: I'll never get that back. But I had it easy
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  Speaker 3: because my wife was nice enough that she occasionally dressed
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  Speaker 3: up and she had to put on these stays, which
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  Speaker 3: were sort of proto corsets, and she hated them. I mean,
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  Speaker 3: who wouldn't. They are, like, you know, they're constricting, They're
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  Speaker 3: like boa constrictors around your waist and some of these corsets,
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  Speaker 3: it was a trend that was around in the seventeen
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  Speaker 3: hundreds eighteen hundreds, and they just got more and more
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  Speaker 3: constricting and unpleasant. They were made from all sorts of
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  Speaker 3: horrible things like whalebone and metal, and by the end
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  Speaker 3: they would squeeze the woman's waist to thirteen inches around.
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  Speaker 3: That is crazy, Like I'm doing my fing It's like
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  Speaker 3: an eggo waffle and yea, it is just disturbing. Now. Thankfully,
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  Speaker 3: not everyone was like, oh, this is wonderful. You had
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  Speaker 3: a lot of backlash from sort of proto feminists, early feminists,
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  Speaker 3: and also doctors who said it was dangerous and newspaper people.
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  Speaker 3: Eighteen ninety one, the Chicago Tribune said the tight lacing
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  Speaker 3: has produced generations of invalids and bequeathed to posterity suffering
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  Speaker 3: that will not vanish for many decades. Generational suffering.
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  Speaker 4: That's what I'll not pass from the earth exactly.
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  Speaker 1: It could impede just basic day to day function when
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  Speaker 1: you get down to thirteen inches in diameter, that's just
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  Speaker 1: people don't walk away from that, you know it now,
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  Speaker 1: even after you take off the corset.
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  Speaker 3: Super painful and you would have to wear increasingly small
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  Speaker 3: coursets until you got to that size, and you'd have
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  Speaker 3: people pulling. You've seen in the old movies, people pulling
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  Speaker 3: on the.
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  Speaker 1: Store, the foot of the lower back of the second
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  Speaker 1: person helping you strap it up.
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  Speaker 3: I mean that was real. That was real, and I
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  Speaker 3: one of the there were all these dress reform movements.
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  Speaker 3: One in the French Revolution, rational dress, they called it.
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  Speaker 3: Another in Victorian times you might have heard of bloomers bloomers,
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  Speaker 3: so bloomers were part of the rational dress movement where
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  Speaker 3: women were trying to find and bloomers were original. Is
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  Speaker 3: sort of like hammer pants for women, like the parachute pants,
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  Speaker 3: parachute pants basically, and they were mocked relentlessly by the press,
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  Speaker 3: so they never really caught on. But that was just
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  Speaker 3: one of the ways that they were trying to fight
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  Speaker 3: this this corporal punishment that women were like, and not
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  Speaker 3: just during the day, they'd have to wear them at
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  Speaker 3: night so that they would train their waste.
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  Speaker 4: That's just it's okay.
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  Speaker 1: It sounds crazy and intensely disturbing for a lot of
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  Speaker 1: us listening along in twenty twenty five. We do know, however,
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  Speaker 1: that again this was not the only painful thing people
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  Speaker 1: subjected themselves to in the in the chase of being
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  Speaker 1: the most fashionable one. Look, I don't know how painful
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  Speaker 1: these are, ag but one thing a lot lot of
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  Speaker 1: people in the US remember from their grade school history
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  Speaker 1: days is that whatever you saw a picture of a
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  Speaker 1: fancy or important person in Elizabethan times, unless they were
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  Speaker 1: a member of a church or like a religious official,
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  Speaker 1: they had an inexplicable rough like a white collar. They
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  Speaker 1: just like went around like somebody took a pin a
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  Speaker 1: cupcake wrapper and just pop them in so that their
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  Speaker 1: head looked like the cupcake.
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  Speaker 3: I love that description. Yeah, I often think they remind
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  Speaker 3: me of what my dog had to wear after getting
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  Speaker 3: Now I will say, I just want to make one
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  Speaker 3: note in general, which is that from our point of view,
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  Speaker 3: a lot of these fashion trends are ridiculous, and some
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  Speaker 3: are genuinely harmful, like the corset. But I do want
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  Speaker 3: like to do a mental experiment. Imagine someone in the
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  Speaker 3: future is like in school if they still have those
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  Speaker 3: reading about twentieth or twenty first century American fashion, and
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  Speaker 3: they would read about how these men would spend hundreds
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  Speaker 3: of dollars a year on this thin strip of colored
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  Speaker 3: cloth that hung around the neck and required elaborate loops,
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  Speaker 3: serve no purpose.
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  Speaker 4: A crevass.
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  Speaker 3: You say it is a cravas. We're a necktie, right,
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  Speaker 3: So yeah, we shouldn't be two cock I mean our
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  Speaker 3: or crocs. Can you imagine what people will say about crocs.
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  Speaker 3: I love crocs. I know that that's a functional shoe.
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  Speaker 2: It's it.
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  Speaker 3: I wear it. I wear Camo ones, so I look
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  Speaker 3: really cool and military.
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  Speaker 1: I love this point because a little while back, fascinated
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  Speaker 1: by the same thing that you're mentioning there, we did
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  Speaker 1: a ridiculous history episode on the evolution of the necktie.
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  Speaker 4: Oh and like so.
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  Speaker 1: Many things, it began with function, basic function. Yeah it
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  Speaker 1: was it was military dress, right, But then aristocrats of
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  Speaker 1: well to do people may have seen some of that
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  Speaker 1: military dress. That boy is like a functional scarf, you
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  Speaker 1: know what I mean, right, And then they said let's
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  Speaker 1: all start doing that, and it just accelerated. And now
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  Speaker 1: in certain I love that you mentioned this. In certain
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  Speaker 1: aspects of us or Western society. Even today, if you
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  Speaker 1: go to a place above a certain social echalon, you
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  Speaker 1: have to not only practice this weird conspiracy of neckties,
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  Speaker 1: but you have to have specific ones like Noel saying
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  Speaker 1: a cravat or you know, a tuxedo party, a black
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  Speaker 1: and white party, and if you don't participate in the silliness,
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  Speaker 1: then you're not at the top.
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  Speaker 3: Now, wait, what is a cravat versus a necktie? I'm
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  Speaker 3: not sure. I know.
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  Speaker 1: Well, it's really good. I would say it goes down
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  Speaker 1: more to the knot like a cravat is going to
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  Speaker 1: be a little more loosely nodded.
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  Speaker 3: Interesting, Oh yeah, that makes sense.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then you got the you know, the windsor
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  Speaker 1: and whatnot for your typical day trader tie.
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  Speaker 3: Right, And one other tie question was was there any
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  Speaker 3: truth to that it was a napkin?
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  Speaker 4: At one point I would say.
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  Speaker 1: I would say there is, from what we found in
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  Speaker 1: our research, there is robbable partial truth to that because
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  Speaker 1: the military members that were wearing these as scarves when
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  Speaker 1: they're in the field, they're using it as a catch
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  Speaker 1: all things sort of like the the towel in Douglas
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  Speaker 1: Adams works, you know what I mean, So they always
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  Speaker 1: have you know, they have a washcloth. Now they can
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  Speaker 1: maybe try to strain water, stop wounds, and then if
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  Speaker 1: they're eating, you know, clean their faces up because they
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: were probably they were probably beardy, right, who has time
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  Speaker 1: to shave?
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  Speaker 3: Well, I love that. I mean now I think it's
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  Speaker 3: actually very useful because it's you can't lose it. You
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  Speaker 3: can't lose the tie. So if we go back to
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  Speaker 3: using it as a napkin and a towel, then maybe
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  Speaker 3: that would make sense. But anyway, you did bring up
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  Speaker 3: these crazy white collars that they had in Elizabethan times.
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  Speaker 1: Which were not napkins.
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  Speaker 3: They were not napkins. They were purely ornamental, although I
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  Speaker 3: imagine they did catch food so you could like save
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  Speaker 3: them for later. But they were like they were called ruffs,
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  Speaker 3: and the biggest ones where they made of six yards
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  Speaker 3: of cloth, that's a lot of cloth, and they would
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  Speaker 3: they would fold them in these little pleats up to
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  Speaker 3: six hundred pleats. They would go out like eight inches
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  Speaker 3: from your neck and they were just absolutely absurd and
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  Speaker 3: even people at the time thought that they were absurd,
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  Speaker 3: and including religious people. Preachers called them the tools of Satan.
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  Speaker 3: One preacher, one preacher said, the devil, in the fullness
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  Speaker 3: of his malice first and invented ruffs. So yeah, and
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  Speaker 3: they were sort of again a class distinguisher. The richer
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  Speaker 3: you were, the bigger, you're rough, and they were banned.
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  Speaker 3: The Puritans hated them, of course, but they were also
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  Speaker 3: banned by King Philip of Spain, who was trying to
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  Speaker 3: reduce the power of the nobles. There were colored ruffs
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  Speaker 3: that were very controversial. There was a famous woman who
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  Speaker 3: was convicted of murder in sixteen thirteen and she was
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  Speaker 3: alleged to have invented the yellow ruff, which was like
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  Speaker 3: even more offensive than the white ruff.
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  Speaker 2: Can I just say that I'm a little bit of
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: a conundrum. I am afraid of birds, but I have
• 14:45
  Speaker 2: in the last year or two become very fond of
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: the board game Wingspan, which is a bird based strategy
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  Speaker 2: game and it's a lot of fun. Highly recommend it.
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  Speaker 2: But there are these cards that are different birds and
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  Speaker 2: tells you little details about them. And there is a
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  Speaker 2: bird called a rouff. And the question occurred to me
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: that has this plumy thing around its neck. What came first,
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  Speaker 2: the rough the bird or the rough the fashion trend?
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  Speaker 2: And I'm trying to figure that out. And the Internet
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  Speaker 2: is very confused about this, and the one Guardian article
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  Speaker 2: that seems to fully go into it is behind a
• 15:15
  Speaker 2: paywall and I can't get to it, so we'll just
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: have to chicken or the egg that for now.
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  Speaker 3: So to speak, to use a bird metaphor. Indeed, nicely done. Well,
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: that is fast, and I have heard great things about
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: that game. I actually bought it and I spent like
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: two hours reading the instructions and I still don't know
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: how to play.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: One is just when you get down, when you get
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: over this way, or when we're up that way, let's
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: just make it night, all right.
• 15:41
  Speaker 3: Absolutely.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: I have the expansion, the Eastern European Expansion with the
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: nectar and everything. It is one of those games AJ
• 15:48
  Speaker 2: where it has quite the learning curve, but once you
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: push yourself over it, it is so rewarding in such
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: a zen lovely game. And it's a less of a
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: competitive game and more of like a kind of let's
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: all just hang out and be part of this ecosystem
• 16:01
  Speaker 2: together kind of game.
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  Speaker 3: Love it. Yeah, I've heard you. I've heard it from many,
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: including people who actually do like birds.
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  Speaker 1: Imagine how much they like it as Yeah, yeah, all
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  Speaker 1: about it. We Also, I have one question, going back
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: to what we were saying AJ about ruffs. Does it
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  Speaker 1: not a question for the group. Am I a dummy
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  Speaker 1: for Like the first time I saw a rouff, I
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: assumed it looked like there was a connecting piece that
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: would go over it. I didn't think it would be
• 16:32
  Speaker 1: possible for people to wear just this gaudy circle of
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: fabric without you know, some other like.
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: Attachment, like like a space helmet.
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: Like a space helmet. Yes, just so anachronisms society. That's
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: kind of what I was thinking. I was like, maybe
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: a plague helmet or something. You know, maybe they just
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: want to look ready. But as we have learned, and
• 16:54
  Speaker 1: as your research shows, this was entirely to end Kate's status.
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  Speaker 3: This was not functional, and you did you did need wires,
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: like it couldn't just maybe that's the prob It couldn't
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: just hold its shape by itself like the wigs, like
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: some of the huge crazy dresses. They needed metal support.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, okay, all right, And I love the tools of Satan.
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: I love how it sounds like one Satan is real
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: and then two was having like a slow week. It
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: was kind of just sort of out of ideas at
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: four point thirty on a Friday, and said no silly collars.
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: That's why silly collars is the new malice, torture.
• 17:41
  Speaker 3: You've got murder and these big collars. I do love
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: what they condemned as satanic. I remember doing a history
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: of utensils, like eating utensils and the forks. I remember
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: where the Puritans they hated the forks as the tool
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: of the devil. Again, the devil.
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: So it's just like knife, spoon, hand.
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like God gave you hands for a reason. That
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: was his argument in the sermon, God gave you hands.
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: I guess he liked Ethiopian food.
• 18:15
  Speaker 4: There we go, Yeah, I get.
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: Some TIBs and so what's that amazing bread in Jira?
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I don't remember the name.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: That's the you know, like the yeah, oh man, we
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: should go to an Ethiopian restaurant and then play wingspan.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: That's what God wants us to do.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: It's what God wants us to do. And as we
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: are further exploring ridiculous clothing trends of yesteryear, we're moving
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: down the body and then we're going to something that
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: remains a hot button issue for a lot of people today.
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: Shoes like hats can wax and wane in the world
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: of fashion rights. As you noted and anybody, any cinophile
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: can see in you know, like the Golden Age of
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: Hollywood and you know, other earlier iterations of fashion. It
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: was common for guys to wear hats. It was considered
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: kind of low and working class if you didn't have
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: a hat. But no matter how ephemeral fashion can seem,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: people always need shoes, right, most of the time.
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: You need shoes, absolutely, and those shoes can become ridiculous.
• 19:27
  Speaker 3: To use an appropriate word, they can get they can.
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: We invented that word. We coined it.
• 19:33
  Speaker 3: Can you believe it nicely done? I've I've been found
• 19:37
  Speaker 3: it very useful. Yeah, either in height or in length,
• 19:40
  Speaker 3: these shoes seem to have grown in different ways. Height Wise,
• 19:47
  Speaker 3: there were the probably the height no pun intended of
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: the he was the chopines. I believe I'm prodicing that correctly.
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: So this was around Shakespeare's time, sixteenth century. It was
• 20:02
  Speaker 3: in Europe, especially Italy, and these were women's shoes that
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: were elevated. And if you go and google the images,
• 20:13
  Speaker 3: they're hilarious because they grew and grew and grew. Originally
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: it was to keep the shoes out of the mud,
• 20:18
  Speaker 3: and they would have these little platforms of wood, but
• 20:22
  Speaker 3: they grew to be like almost two feet tall, like
• 20:25
  Speaker 3: twenty inches. They were like stilts. They were wood and
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: cork and velvet, and these women were walking on stilts
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: and they needed a cane or they needed a servant,
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: because you can't just walk around on two foot tall
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: stilts unless you're a circus performer. And they led to
• 20:46
  Speaker 3: a lot of of course, injuries and spills. They were
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: mocked by Shakespeare himself who said in Hamlet, he said
• 20:56
  Speaker 3: that the shopine was near made women near to heaven
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: altitude of the chopine, which is sort of like the
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: higher the hair, the closer to God, sort of that.
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: And eventually they caused a backlash as well. The Puritans,
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: of course, hated them tools of the devil.
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: Think, hang, I'm going to stop us here real quick,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: because from what you're describing about these Puritan folks, they.
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: Seem kind of uncool, not great.
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: Or like very strict.
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: They are tough, Yes, they have their pros and cons.
• 21:32
  Speaker 3: I probably wouldn't want to be a Puritan, but uh.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: Because you're so you're super into forks, right, it's just
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: love it.
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: And I love high heels and ruffs. But yeah, I
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: mean the good part is they were very against the
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: corruption of the Church of England and all of that,
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: so they had that going for them. They didn't like, uh,
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: or at least some of them hated monarchy. I'm not
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: a big fan of manarchy, so you know, everyone has
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: their pros and cons, but I probably would not want
• 22:05
  Speaker 3: to party with them on a Saturday night.
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I think they probably also would find parties
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: as a concept ungodly and evil.
• 22:16
  Speaker 4: But then you know, yeah, there are.
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: Strong reasons to object to monarchies. We're with you on
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: that one. Just as a concept, it's a weird idea.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: And this leads us to one of the most glamorous,
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: one of the most diva esque, one of the most
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: extra monarchs in European history, a guy humbly called Louis, Yes.
• 22:41
  Speaker 3: King Louis the fourteenth. He was the Sun King, right,
• 22:44
  Speaker 3: wasn't that him? He was self.
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: Proclaimed super humble dude, super right.
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: Super humble, and one example of his humility is that
• 22:54
  Speaker 3: he didn't want anyone taller than him. He didn't want
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: no one could wear heels that were higher than his heels,
• 23:01
  Speaker 3: and also red heels. He was banned those for some reason.
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: It reminds me of Actually there was a friend of mine.
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: I've never been to this party, but apparently a friend
• 23:13
  Speaker 3: of mine threw a party where everyone was required to
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: be the same height, so you sent in your height
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: before the party, and he would provide these little platform
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: stilt shoes so that everyone was the same eye level
• 23:27
  Speaker 3: with the tallest person. I love that idea. I think
• 23:30
  Speaker 3: that's really interesting. How would that change social dynamics? But
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: King Louis the fourteenth would not throw or attend that party.
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: That's my point. That's why I brought it up. It
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: just seems so.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: It seems so unnecessarily weird to say, Like, imagine if
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: you were the president of a country and you say,
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: I like Air Jordan's and no one else can have them,
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: you know what I mean? Like, that's bad for the
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: Nike company, This is weird for the folks making the cobblers,
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: making King Louis shoes. And it sounds like, again, as
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: you maintained earlier, there are some reasons that the French revolted.
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: Right, And there's a hole that actually is a phrase
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: called sumptuary laws, which you've probably heard of. Yeah, the
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: laws that ban certain clothes and sometimes there because they
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: it's a religious band, so that you don't look to
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: you don't look you're not too much like a peacock,
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: you have humility. But sometimes it's the powerful people saying
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: only we can wear these clothes and that you had
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: a lot with the color purple actually was banned in Rome,
• 24:52
  Speaker 3: and I think in England only the nobles were allowed
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: to wear the color purple because yeah, don't want these
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: peasants to upstage you with their colorful fashion.
• 25:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and there is I hate the devil's advocate here,
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: but we could argue in sumptuary laws back in that time,
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: we could argue that there was a serious state concern
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: that people dressed a certain way might be able to
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: impersonate an authority figure.
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: Right there you go.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: So there's a feels so weird to defend what I
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: think is just a cartoonish policy. But maybe maybe that
• 25:31
  Speaker 1: was it because not everybody had the internet, right okay, sorry,
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: fact check us. Before the email, no one had the
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: internet technically the truth, they just had the town crier.
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: They had the town crier. That's an excellent point. Yeah,
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: they had the guy who would run out and say, some.
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: People are wearing purple.
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: I picture I picture the town crier always, you know,
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: I I know we all have this this trope of
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: some guy going here, ye hear ye, But I always
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: like to think of the town crier as just like
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: a grizzled early nineteen eighties comedian.
• 26:09
  Speaker 4: You know, he's in the South Square. He's like, stand up,
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: that's it's really true.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: Be here, Max. He's like, USh, what else? Okay? Check
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: this scroll? And he's like, yeah, the plague.
• 26:19
  Speaker 4: Huh?
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: You ever noticed that the play? You haven't noticed. That's
• 26:24
  Speaker 3: a great point. They were the first stand up comedians.
• 26:27
  Speaker 4: Love it.
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: I mean, they probably had a high turnover rate depending
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: on their material.
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: But we do know.
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: These sumptuary laws are are things that can be found
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: continuing in some places today. Sometimes there might be a
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: hard law against it, but then I would argue often
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: we talked Nolan, I talked about this a little bit
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: a while a while ago. Often they're these sort of
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: social agreements that are not legally enforceable on what is
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: or is not considered a costume versus regular clothing, Like
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: we're wearing tricorn hats now, and if we got together
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: and we walked out to you know, just go hang
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: out in a public park, people would assume that we
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: are having a party with a theme, or that we
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: are like filming a music video or something. So do
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: you see sumptuary laws continuing into the future.
• 27:32
  Speaker 3: Well, first of all, that's a great point. I am
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: very grateful for my tricorn hat because as part of
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: my year of living constitutionally, I also bore a musket.
• 27:40
  Speaker 3: And if I had borne a musket without my hat,
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: I think I would have been arrested and throwned. But
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: people were like, oh, he's just dressing up. Well I think, however,
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: you define saw.
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: The gun and then they saw the hat, and the
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: cops said, ah.
• 27:53
  Speaker 4: Let's keep going.
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: Exactly, I would say, I mean there, as you said,
• 27:59
  Speaker 3: there's always going to be laws about what people can
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: and cannot wear, Like you can't you can't just go
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: out and wear you know, nothing, for instance, even in
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: modern day America, that's uh, there are laws against that,
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: obscenity laws, and they're probably it's sort of like the
• 28:22
  Speaker 3: First Amendment. There there's gonna be exceptions. There's always going
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: to be exceptions. And although I will say that was
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: the final chapter in our history of ridiculous clothing, is
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: just that no clothing at all. Yeah, the naturist movement
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: to be a little more what they like to call themselves.
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: But I was fascinated and I only learned this while
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: researching the First Amendment. But one of the big cases
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: of First Amendment rights, and this was when the ACLU
• 29:01
  Speaker 3: was just starting, was nudism. There were all these people
• 29:08
  Speaker 3: in New York City who were nudists, and they weren't
• 29:12
  Speaker 3: hippie dippy. They were in fact, they were more Marxists.
• 29:15
  Speaker 3: They were socialists, and they believed that clothing was an
• 29:21
  Speaker 3: oppressive capitalists conspiracy because.
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: I could get behind that agree. You know.
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: Well, they said, you know, the rich people can afford
• 29:30
  Speaker 3: clothing and differentiate themselves. So the solution is get rid
• 29:34
  Speaker 3: of clothes. That's the solution. And the ACLU went all
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: in and supported them in there in several court cases
• 29:45
  Speaker 3: in favor of nudism. So that is and I think
• 29:49
  Speaker 3: that still remains something that they're case built.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: You know. I think that it's such an interesting kind
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: of protest because it represents a lot of things, Like,
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: on the one hand, it seems to be a strike
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: against kind of puritanical ideas and sort of body shaming
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: notions and the idea of like, you know, our naked
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: human forms being somehow unclean or you know, against God
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: or whatever, even though you know God supposedly, if he exists,
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: created this, why is this such a horrible thing? So
• 30:19
  Speaker 2: I think that's interesting because it's striking out against sort
• 30:21
  Speaker 2: of oppressive fashion notions and the idea of only being
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: considered an active member or a I guess, upstanding member
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: of society if you dress the part. But it also
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: strikes out against this idea of like our bodies being
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: something to be ashamed of. I mean, maybe I'm overthinking it,
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: but I know it's interesting.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: I mean, it's variant, and in fact, this swayed me
• 30:42
  Speaker 3: more towards the side of nudism. In the nineteen thirties,
• 30:46
  Speaker 3: the Nazis in Germany went on a campaign against nudism
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: because it threatened the morality of the voke and it
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: deadened women's natural feelings of shame that nice, and destroyed
• 31:02
  Speaker 3: men's respect for women. So uh, And they wanted to
• 31:06
  Speaker 3: destroy it because it was sort of a socialist Marxist movement.
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: But listen, if the Nazis were against it, maybe there's
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: something to it.
• 31:15
  Speaker 4: I think that's true.
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: Nazis are against it in general. I think we should
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: be for it. It'll call me bias, but I don't
• 31:22
  Speaker 1: think they were great. Uh. This also, this is something
• 31:25
  Speaker 1: that we can all learn more about in Aj Bahamas
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: Jacob's newest book, The Year of Living Naked.
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: Right, that's it exactly, I'm doing it now. Let me
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: take off my shirt.
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: Constitution Year of Living Naked. Incredible, incredible.
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: I hope you do most of your research in the summer, right,
• 31:50
  Speaker 1: just for weather purposes.
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: That's true. Mann's a lot. Well, that's why I'll be
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: visiting Atlanta a lot.
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: Yes, please do.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: And in the meantime, Aj, this is likely going to
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: be a two part series. We cannot thank you enough
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: for joining us on Ridiculous history this week. One of
• 32:12
  Speaker 1: the big themes that you taught us this week that
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: we can all agree on is that fashion is a conversation,
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: and perhaps the most important point is that we must
• 32:24
  Speaker 1: be hesitant to dunk on fashion of yesteryear too hard,
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: because history proves we're about ten days or ten years
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: away from all the stuff we like being made fun
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: of on shows like.
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: This exactly, and maybe not even like crocs. For instance,
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: you were. I think people are mocking it even as
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: we speak. But yeah, no, listen, I love being on
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: your show no matter what I'm wearing, whether it's or
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: if I'm wearing nothing at all, you provide such a
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: delight full product. Can I call it a product?
• 33:03
  Speaker 4: For a podcast product?
• 33:04
  Speaker 2: I love that it's a cork and can I just
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: say I think I said this off Mike, but you
• 33:10
  Speaker 2: make Thursday feel like Friday, A friend.
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: My goodness, that is well, thank god it's Thursday. I'm
• 33:17
  Speaker 3: sure right t G.
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: I t a prodcast uh a j before we before
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: you hop out for further adventures. Where can people learn
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: more about your work?
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: Well, there's the Puddler podcast with guests such as the
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: one Michael and Black. Yes he was one, but but
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: I was mentioning. I was going to mention Ben Bowen,
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: Noel Brown of our favorites.
• 33:46
  Speaker 4: Flattery will get you somewhere.
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: But yeah, I'm on. I have website a J Jacobs
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: dot com. Oh, I have a substack. So that's end
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: to me.
• 33:56
  Speaker 4: What a substack is?
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: It? Is? It just like a like a gussied up
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: male lists. There we bringing back the nailing list exactly.
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: It's a newsletter, but just called the substack. And you're
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: supposed if I were a good substacker, I would make
• 34:09
  Speaker 3: people pay for my stuff, and substack doesn't like me
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: because I'm I'm not aggressive enough with my sale. I
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: give it all away for free.
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: On the contrary, well that makes you an excellent substacker.
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: You're a substacker for the people.
• 34:21
  Speaker 1: Substacker for the people.
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, like the nudists, I'm a socialist SUBSCT officer.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: I'm naked for the people right now.
• 34:29
  Speaker 4: And weirdly, substack is also a euphemism for the penis.
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: There you go, There you go.
• 34:36
  Speaker 4: That's all I got said.
• 34:38
  Speaker 1: Of course, we can't thank you enough for joining us today.
• 34:41
  Speaker 1: Also big thanks to our super producer mister Max Williams.
• 34:44
  Speaker 1: Big thanks to It's weird because we usually shout you out.
• 34:47
  Speaker 4: In the credits.
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: Believe that right now we're so thirsty, So big banks.
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: Also to our our composer Alex Williams, Jonathan Strickland ak
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: the quist or Hey no, it will be interesting to
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: get those guys together.
• 35:03
  Speaker 4: Can you imagine?
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: It would open up a black hole time and space,
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: a rifts suck us all into our death. Now I
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: think it would be fun and worth testing because as.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: Nice and Jonathan Strickland aka the Quist is.
• 35:16
  Speaker 4: He's a real grouch. Do like I had just stopped
• 35:19
  Speaker 4: on that. It's okay, it's okay. I'll say it for
• 35:22
  Speaker 4: both of them.
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: Hughes Taks Chris Frosciotis and he's Jeff Coats, both here
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: in spirit as perty usual. Let's see what you got
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: your buddy, Rachel big Spinach Lance underwater.
• 35:33
  Speaker 4: That's true, that's true. We need to bring her back.
• 35:35
  Speaker 4: She's so cool. Have you heard about this person?
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: Aj she's an underwater explosions expert what not that she
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: makes them, but she studies the history of them, and she,
• 35:44
  Speaker 2: I believe wrote a book about the Hunley, the Civil
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: War era submarine and the sinking thereof that Clive Custler
• 35:52
  Speaker 2: was so fascinated with.
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: No, okay, I'm a real class expert. Yeah, but you've
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: had her on right.
• 35:58
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna listen one once. And yet we thank her
• 36:01
  Speaker 4: at the end.
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: Of every episode because the fame got you her. No, No,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: we're kidding, and also ridiculous historians joined us. Next week
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: we have we have even uh more stuff to check
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: out with you in the meantime, tune into the Puzzler
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: and Noel.
• 36:17
  Speaker 4: Thanks to you Man, Dang you as well, Buddy. We'll
• 36:20
  Speaker 4: see you next time, folks.
• 36:28
  Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.