Tucking your dress into your belt – Sources

It can be quite easy to fall into re-enactorisms. “Why are you doing it like that?” “Oh, because so-and-so does it like this”

So my goal for 2018 is to document all the little things where when someone asks us “and why do you do it like that?”

I’m starting off with a fairly light-hearted subject -tucking your dress into your belt while you work. With the full length dresses (which I do not wear in my day to day life) and find that I can easily trip over the hem if I’m not paying attention to how I’m walking, and it can get wet and muddy if I need to go through dew grass when I do the early morning breakfast.

So I like to grab one corner and tuck it into my belt, reducing the hem line and keeping it off the grass.

Maastricht Hours (Brit. Lib. Stowe 17, fol. 211r), 1st quarter of the 14th century (English)

http://www.bl.uk/manuscripts/Viewer.aspx?ref=stowe_ms_17_f211r

Voeux du paon (PML G.24), c. 1350, French

http://corsair.morganlibrary.org/icaimages/2/g24.010ra.jpg

http://corsair.morganlibrary.org/icaimages/2/g24.042ra.jpg

http://corsair.morganlibrary.org/icaimages/2/g24.113va.jpg

La Roman de la Rose (14th French)