Hand in Glove, or Not

Long, lovely, opera gloves. Is there anything more elegant? Made from supple kid leather or fine silk, they embrace your arm from fingertips to elbow and higher. Well, okay, on me they have a distressing tendency to fall down. And what was a girl to do when she wanted to eat something from the midnight supper buffet?

The answer to that little question has made for avid discussion among those of us who write about the nineteenth century. Certainly if you’re eating a formal dinner, you’d just keep them on and use your fork. But supper buffets are notorious for having the nineteenth-century equivalent to finger food. I’ve tried eating petit fours with white gloves on (oh, the lengths we go to for research!); the gloves don’t stay white.

Unthinkable that a young lady would take them off. Why, your skin might actually touch the skin of a gentleman! Scandalous! And where would you put the gloves if you did take them off? Everyday gowns and cloaks might have pockets, but you’re unlikely to find one in a ball gown. I suppose you could stuff them in your reticule, but you probably would have left the little bag, if you’d brought one, with your cloak.

So, how do you eat with gloves on? One theory is that you unbuttoned the tiny pearl buttons at the wrist of your glove and pulled the portion off your fingers and hand to bare them. Then you tucked that portion inside the glove that still covered your wrist and arm so you could eat. This actually works fairly well (yes, I know from research), until you want to put the things back on. Ever tried buttoning pearl buttons wearing a silk glove?

It’s excellent research. You should try it. If you get it to work, let me know.

So, I guess I’ll never be certain what they did with their gloves while they ate. It’s one of those things that keep me up at night. Along with great books.

Fan (non) Fiction

It happens in dozens of historical novels: the heroine is at a ball and has been accosted by the (a) the future hero after one too many glasses of champagne (b) the villain or (c) some other guy just in there to give the heroine the opportunity to show how plucky she is. A, B, or C says something rude or suggestive to the heroine or, even worse, tries to kiss her, so she pulls out her fan (closed) and raps him smartly (it’s always “smartly”) across the knuckles. The hero/villain/other guy is vanquished and slinks away, nursing his throbbing hand.

Uh huh. Yeah. Sure. Ever tried it? You can barely mush a mosquito with the average fan you can find at, say, a party supply store. No heft at all. Utterly useless as a weapon. Were these chicks really trying to protect their honor, or was the tap with the fan just a tease?

Just recently I got my hands on a real nineteenth century fan (I’m not quite sure of its age, but it’s definitely old.) It’s about a foot long when closed--good sized, but not outrageously huge. The ribs of the fan are made from either bone or ivory, carved, and the upper part is made of satin backed with a layer of paper (to stiffen it) covered with fine muslin. That's it, opened, in the photo above.

So in a spirit of investigation after thinking about intrepid heroines laying about them with their accessories, I rapped myself on the knuckles with it…and darn, it hurt!

The reason? The fans you can buy today are all mostly made of plastic. Plastic doesn’t weigh much. And it didn’t exist until later in the nineteenth (celluloid, the earliest plastic, was invented in the 1850s but didn’t begin to come into general use until the mid 1870s). Earlier on, they used bone and ivory where now we use plastic. And bone is much denser and heavier than plastic.

So yes, being hit on the knuckles with a closed fan would hurt. Those heroines weren’t being coy or fluffy-headed females trying to defend themselves with something about as threatening as a popsicle stick--they meant business. Sorry I doubted you, girls.