The Hedge Cutter A Stitch in Time


The Hedge Cutter

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Clothes are the ultimate form of visual communication.

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By looking at the way people dressed,

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we can learn not only about them as individuals,

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but about the society they lived in.

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I'm Amber Butchart, fashion historian.

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And in the words of Louis XIV,

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I believe that fashion is the mirror of history.

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So, taking historical works of art as our inspiration...

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..traditional tailor Ninya Mikhaila and her team will be recreating

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historical clothing, using only authentic methods.

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Oh, look at that. It's changing colour in the air.

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And I'll be finding out what they tell us

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about the people who wore them...

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I'm assuming the king wouldn't be dressing himself, though, right?

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..and the times they lived in.

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And seeing what they're like to wear.

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It's no surprise that the earliest painting

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in the National Portrait Gallery is of a king.

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It was hugely expensive to commission a portrait,

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but by the 18th century, rising prosperity meant

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that more people were able to preserve their likeness.

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However, it was still really unusual

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for people to commission a portrait of their workers.

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The history of fashion and also the history of art

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largely tell us stories about elite groups of people.

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If you were wealthy enough to have your portrait painted,

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you were also most likely wealthy enough

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to be following the latest fashions.

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But if I'd been alive in the 18th century,

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I wouldn't have been dressed like a queen

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or, you know, even like a noblewoman.

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So I'm interested to find out more

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about the clothing that people like me would have been wearing.

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That's why I'm so intrigued by this rare, full length portrait of a hedge cutter.

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And I'm really interested to see what Ninya makes of it.

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BELL RINGS

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-Hello.

-Come in.

-Thanks.

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So this portrait is really fascinating.

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It's unusual in art history,

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and quite unusual in fashion history.

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What are your thoughts on what is being worn here?

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I think there are clues to what's going on.

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It's difficult to see in the reproduction that we've got.

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-It's very dark, isn't it, this portrait?

-It is really dark.

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But you can just about, like you say, make out some details,

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-like this looks a bit like a mariner's cuff.

-I agree.

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And, actually, Harriet did this sketch

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to help bring out some of the details and make it easier to see,

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and we picked up on that as well.

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What that suggests is that this coat was once

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a very smart and fashionable garment.

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What's likely is that the original person was some generations before,

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perhaps a yeoman gentleman, maybe,

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and he would have passed it down

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to someone slightly below him in status,

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and it's probably filtered down two, three, four times, maybe,

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before this man actually got it.

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And what are our thoughts on what this is being crafted from?

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We think that it's most likely to have been leather, actually.

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It was both a fashionable fabric, but also, more importantly,

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as far as this hedge cutter is concerned, a very functional fabric.

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We actually have an original garment here made from leather,

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-if you'd like to have a look.

-I would love to have a look.

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-These actually belong to my brother-in-law.

-OK.

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Who is an avid collector of military clothing.

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So these are actually original Napoleonic leather trousers.

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-Oh, wow. Oh, my God.

-Which we can use to help us get an idea

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about how we might use the material and actually construct the garment.

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-Wow, these are incredible.

-Aren't they?

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The other striking thing about the portrait is that the jacket itself

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looks kind of patched together.

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-It's very striking.

-Is that sort of years and years of repairs?

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Yes, well you can see that not only is it patched,

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but it's very, very tattered.

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The stitching of the patches is really incredibly crude,

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and I think that maybe the hedge cutter himself

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might have sewn those patches on as required.

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How do the patches figure into this?

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Are we going to make it with the patches?

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Well, what I'd be really keen to do is actually to reconstruct the coat

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as it would have looked when it was new,

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because I think it's going to look really quite different

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from the way it's ended its life.

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And it would be great to have that illustration of the beginning,

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and what I presume would be pretty near to the end of this garment's life.

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-Yeah.

-So that's what I'd like to do.

-OK, great.

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-So we get to see it as almost an evolution.

-Mmm.

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Yeah, I think that's exciting. I think it can be a very nice coat.

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Great.

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Our hedge cutter is a something of a mystery.

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His image has been preserved for over 200 years,

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and yet no-one knows who he is.

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We're not even entirely sure when the portrait was painted,

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or who it was by.

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I want to learn more about the painting,

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and so I'm meeting art historian Florence Evans at Broughton Castle,

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where the portrait has been owned by the Fiennes family for generations.

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So, here we have it.

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My goodness.

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-I knew it was going to be large, but it really is quite monumental, isn't it?

-It is.

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-Monumental is a good way to describe it, I think.

-Definitely.

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As a fashion historian,

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it's proving quite difficult to date this portrait based on the clothing,

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because we think it's something that may have been repurposed,

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time and time again.

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Now, what are your thoughts on this as an art historian?

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The aesthetic is harking towards the 19th century.

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Whoever painted it has experimented

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-and used bitumen in the black pigments.

-Right.

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And that was quite an innovative and new way

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of getting a rich, dark tone in your paintings.

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Stylistically, the way it's been handled,

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I really do feel that it's from certainly the 1780s,

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probably the 1790s.

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The cuffs suggest that it's an earlier date,

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but you would expect a labourer to have clothes that were passed down

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and mended and endure over decades.

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And is there anything else about this portrait that you think can help us to date it?

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If you look at the pipe that he's smoking.

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Now, clay pipe bowls are very easily datable by their shape and size.

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And in the mid-18th century, for instance,

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they had a rather elongated bowl,

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and here he has a rather chubbier bowl,

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which makes me think it's later 18th century,

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and pointing again towards the 19th century.

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It's really unusual to have a portrait on this scale

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of a member of staff, someone who's working here.

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-Yeah.

-Is there anything comparable that you know of?

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Well, in 1790, Thomas Barker of Bath did a series

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of life-size portraits of pastoral figures,

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which caused quite a furore at the time.

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Were people just so unused to seeing working people depicted in this way?

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Yes. On this scale, it was very unusual

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and it would have been startling to an 18th-century viewer, really,

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when they were expecting to see polite society on their walls.

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And that's really the first time you see that, and in fact,

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actually it's the first time I've seen one on this scale myself,

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and it really is amazing, as it would have been at the time.

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It's great to hear that Florence would situate the painting of the portrait in the late 18th century,

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because if we are looking at something that was painted in the 1790s,

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then that really tells us a whole lot in many ways

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about what's being worn here.

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Ninya and I had already discussed the fact that the mariner's cuff

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dates from much earlier in the 18th century,

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around the middle or the 1760s.

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So if the portrait is from the 1790s,

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we really get a clear sense that our subject is wearing a garment

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that is most likely to be second-hand.

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Very few people can afford to get these clothes made new.

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Textiles, clothing are some of the most valuable things

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that people can own at this point in history.

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And we really lost the sense of this in the 21st century.

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We're so used to clothing being a disposable commodity.

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One of the distinctive features of the coat is its patches,

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but they're causing problems for Ninya and Harriet.

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I've made a twill for a coat from the 1750s,

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that carries a mariner's cuff, so I've drawn the mariner's cuff on.

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-Oh, yeah.

-Very attractive.

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But I've also pinned on some patches where we can see them.

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It's rather interesting where they sit, because in the painting,

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-you can't see the shoulder seam.

-No, and that's been really bothering me.

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-Yeah.

-That you can't see the shoulder seam,

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-but I think it's conceivable that the patch that's right there is just masking a little bit.

-Yeah.

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-Because there must be a shoulder seam there.

-Yes, of course.

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But obviously, if you've been throwing your body through a hedge with thorns,

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-that's probably going to be a big point of wear.

-Yeah.

-It's clearly had quite a lot.

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Well, also, I'm really struck by the fact that this whole area

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-of patching is exactly where a pocket would be, isn't it?

-Yeah.

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And it even looks like a pocket flap.

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It's like he's tried to replace the pocket flap.

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Caught it on a hedge and ripped it, perhaps.

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Yeah, but somehow, the twill underneath the patches is

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-really hinting at what's potentially a very smart coat underneath.

-Yes.

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If we look at that side of it, you can just see the...

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-That's lovely, isn't it?

-It's got a lovely pleated back.

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-And I guess he'd have a button up here.

-He would, yeah, yeah.

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-I mean, it's actually quite a beautiful shape.

-It is.

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-It really...

-It's a classic.

-Yeah. Yeah.

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I'm going to want to keep this coat.

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-THEY LAUGH

-Should I make it to fit you?

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Let's see how much is in here.

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Oh, it's quite a good hide.

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So, the skin here along what would have been the spine of the animal,

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is the strongest part.

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-Yes.

-So...

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It's still got a good stretch to it.

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-Oh, yeah.

-It's nice and thick and you can see the edge there

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is much, much puckered.

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Yeah, it's much thinner and also, yeah, as you say,

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it's puckered and crinkled, so this is where

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-we should actually take things like buttons and...

-Bindings.

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-..bindings.

-Yeah.

-Facings, things like that,

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-cos it'll be much easier to sew.

-Yeah.

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We really have to think quite carefully

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when you're cutting leather, don't you,

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about which bits you're going to end up sewing in which way?

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But there's also the joy that,

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because we're going to butt the seams together,

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we don't have to allow any sort of seam allowance.

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It's a very helpful straight edge along the backbone, isn't it?

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It is, although we haven't got enough straight edge

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to get all four pieces, have we?

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We might have if we're very careful.

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But this is a good big piece, so we should be fine.

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The fashion and textiles collection at the V&A Museum contains over 75,000 objects.

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Fashion curator Susan Nourse is going to show me a garment

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that could shed a light

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on the early life of our hedge cutters coat.

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So what we have here is a great example of a frock coat.

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What's the provenance of this?

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Well, it's a rather informal style of coat.

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This one probably dates from about the 1750s,

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although the style comes in earlier.

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The first examples that we see show up in the 1730s.

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This coat is actually kind of emblematic

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of the second-hand trade, isn't it?

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Because there is also a label in here for a costumier.

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-Yes.

-Which is very exciting, I think,

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to be able to see a couple of different lives

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that this coat has had.

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Absolutely. What we've discovered about the 19th-century theatre,

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at least in London,

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was that when you look at photographs of actors in costumes,

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say from the 1870s, and they're in a production that's 18th century,

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they're wearing real 18th-century clothing.

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And it was probably cheaper to go down to Seven Dials

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and buy something that fit you

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than it was to hire a tailor to make something for you.

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And, of course, this is a time when the actor is responsible for his costume.

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He's got to pay for it.

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And one of the reasons I chose this portrait was because

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I was really keen to explore more everyday dress,

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like, something that someone like me, maybe, would have been wearing.

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Now, it's very, very difficult to actually find that out

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through museum collections.

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So why do you think there is that lack of working dress?

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Most of the fashion museums obviously want the glamorous things,

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so that's part of the bias.

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But then the other bias is what people save.

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We tend to save the most expensive things,

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the most beautiful things,

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most working-class clothing would have gone through five, six life cycles,

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getting ever more bedraggled,

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to a point where really the only person who's interested in it is the ragman.

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Now, the ragman buys linen and cotton

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that's really just too decrepit for anything.

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He takes it away and they make paper out of it.

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He gets money for it.

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Even when it was a rag, there was somebody who was willing to pay you for it.

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Anything we do have, I would say, really is an accident.

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It's benign neglect. Somebody forgot to recycle this.

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-Lucky for us.

-Lucky for us.

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The hedge cutter is such a fantastic character.

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We really get a sense of his personality in the portrait.

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So I'm looking forward to seeing his clothing come to life in 3-D form.

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Now, in the painting, of course,

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his clothing is old, it's dirty, it's used, it's patched.

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So seeing it as it would have been when it was a brand-new garment

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is going to be quite fascinating.

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It's also going to be interesting from a practical perspective

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for me to have a go working with the leather.

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It's not something I've ever worked with before,

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so that is going to be quite eye-opening.

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So, what's going on?

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Well, this might sound a bit weird,

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but my brother-in-law's trousers have been speaking to me

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quite a lot for the last few days.

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-They have lots to tell me.

-Yeah.

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Let's see if they'll share any information with you.

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Looking carefully, I can see that there is

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very particular seam treatments for very particular areas.

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-Right.

-You see this seam here?

-Yeah.

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This around here looks very complicated.

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It's a seam called a butt stitch.

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-Right.

-Which you see more normally on much thicker leather.

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And it's where you need the leather to just butt up

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-one edge to the other.

-Yeah.

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The way we actually sew the butt seam

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-is that the holes have to be made in the leather first.

-Right.

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The hole is going through the top and out the side of the leather,

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-out the middle.

-Oh, crikey.

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Which is why you're then able to kind of butt the edges together,

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like that.

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So the first thing you have to do is use an awl,

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which is this tool here.

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-It's like a kind of pointed blade.

-Yeah.

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And I'm going to push the hole from the side

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and then slide it out like that.

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And that takes a bit of practice.

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-Yeah, it looks really difficult.

-Yeah.

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And it's quite easy to tear

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-a leather that this...

-Thin.

-..thin.

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-Gosh.

-So, do you want to try one in the actual sleeve?

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I guess. OK.

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So...

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Oh.

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Yeah, that's good.

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Am I going too far?

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My holes seem to be bigger than...

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No, that's fine,

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cos it kind of closes back again.

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I'm slightly losing the straightness of the line that you had.

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-OK, well, let's stop there.

-THEY LAUGH

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-Would you like to try actually sewing them together?

-OK.

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-So here I've got one piece of thread with a needle on each end.

-Right.

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So this needle is going to go in that hole there.

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-This one here?

-Yeah.

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OK. And before you pull too tight, put that needle down.

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-Pick this one up.

-Yeah.

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So this one is going to go back through that same hole

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that you've just sewn through.

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Oh.

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NINYA LAUGHS Yeah, I've done it.

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OK, and then you can pull the two threads away from each other

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to get the tension and tighten it up.

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Probably have to pull it quite close to the leather. Yeah, that's it.

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OK. Gosh.

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That's an awful lot of work, isn't it, to join two bits...?

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-Mm.

-..of leather together.

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OK. Fun as this has been...

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I might leave the rest of it to you for now.

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-Are you sure?

-I'm sure, yeah.

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Well, that's nice of you. Thanks.

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Thank you.

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So I'm keen to see what you're up to over here.

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This looks very exciting.

0:17:270:17:28

Yes, it's nice when you start to get the finished garment coming out.

0:17:280:17:33

Now, we did debate whether to have the edges just left raw,

0:17:330:17:38

because leather doesn't fray

0:17:380:17:40

and it would have made sense to just have the pocket flap

0:17:400:17:42

-made without any sort of binding on it.

-Yeah.

-But...

0:17:420:17:45

Guess what happened.

0:17:450:17:47

-Oh!

-Brother-in-law's trousers.

0:17:480:17:50

The trousers speaking to you, too.

0:17:500:17:52

-Yes.

-They said, "Excuse me, that's wrong."

0:17:520:17:56

Yeah, if you remember,

0:17:560:17:57

when you looked at the edge of the fly flap...

0:17:570:17:59

-Yeah.

-..it's got a bound edge made with the same leather.

-Yeah.

0:17:590:18:03

-And so we've done that with the pockets.

-Right.

0:18:030:18:06

And it's made it much stronger and it just...

0:18:060:18:09

-It looks...

-It looks lovely.

-..right, doesn't it?

0:18:090:18:11

-It looks really nice.

-Yeah.

-Lovely.

0:18:110:18:14

So the binding gets stitched on as you would with a cloth binding.

0:18:140:18:19

You stitch on one side and then turn it over.

0:18:190:18:22

-Aw, nice.

-And stitch the other side down.

0:18:220:18:24

-Aw.

-And when you've done that, it's a little bit bulky,

0:18:250:18:30

so we don't do it with an iron, we do it with a hammer.

0:18:300:18:33

-Oh. That's exciting.

-Yeah, that is exciting.

0:18:330:18:36

It is exciting. It's quite satisfying.

0:18:360:18:38

-Because it melds all the bits of leather in together.

-Right.

0:18:380:18:41

So I haven't done this one yet,

0:18:410:18:44

but you can see where it's sort of folded into the corners,

0:18:440:18:46

-it's still quite big and bulky, isn't it?

-Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

0:18:460:18:49

-So...

-Oh, look!

0:18:490:18:51

If you just hammer it flat like that, it immediately...

0:18:510:18:53

-Makes such a difference.

-..sits down.

-Yeah. Really nice.

0:18:530:18:57

-Do you feel...?

-Yeah, go on, then. Great.

0:18:570:19:00

You can see it's sort of flattening out, can't you?

0:19:020:19:05

-That is exciting.

-It is.

0:19:070:19:08

-That's really good fun.

-It's a quick result.

-Yeah.

0:19:080:19:11

-It's immediately exciting.

-Oh, look at that!

0:19:150:19:17

-That's so great.

-That's lovely.

-Is that flat enough, Amber?

0:19:210:19:24

THEY LAUGH Sorry.

0:19:240:19:26

All of the effects of ironing but much more fun. Yeah.

0:19:260:19:29

Not only do we have very few portraits of working people,

0:19:340:19:38

but we have even fewer surviving examples of what they wore.

0:19:380:19:42

But what we do have is an amazing collection of 18th-century everyday textiles

0:19:420:19:47

from here at the Foundling Museum.

0:19:470:19:49

What we are seeing here are records of children,

0:19:530:20:00

often babies, who were left at the Foundling Hospital.

0:20:000:20:05

Much of the time, when they were left,

0:20:050:20:07

they would be accompanied by a textile token.

0:20:070:20:10

This could be part of their mother's clothing

0:20:100:20:13

or maybe a specific textile,

0:20:130:20:16

but the purpose of it was so that if the mother found herself in better circumstances,

0:20:160:20:22

she could return and identify her child by this textile token.

0:20:220:20:29

25th June 1764, female.

0:20:300:20:33

Now, what we can see here is a beautiful example

0:20:340:20:39

of an 18th-century printed cotton textile.

0:20:390:20:43

But then stitched onto it on the back

0:20:430:20:48

is this heart-shape on cardboard.

0:20:480:20:52

It says, "Anne Smith was born January 4th, 1764."

0:20:530:21:00

John Bedford, Anna Chamber, Elizabeth Hodeley.

0:21:010:21:05

Sarah Hanley. Francis Summons.

0:21:050:21:08

Charles Mallet. Mary Allen. John Payne.

0:21:080:21:10

The collection is hugely historically important.

0:21:100:21:15

What we can see here is a lot of printed cotton textiles

0:21:150:21:21

which were becoming more and more fashionable

0:21:210:21:24

as manufacturing techniques improved and enhanced.

0:21:240:21:29

These replicate the embroidered patterns

0:21:290:21:32

that you could see at this time on very expensive Spitalfields silks,

0:21:320:21:38

so this is almost like the equivalent of

0:21:380:21:42

the high street designer knock-off.

0:21:420:21:45

We're used to associating fashionable dress

0:21:450:21:49

with court circles, the aristocracy, throughout history.

0:21:490:21:54

But now we're really beginning to see that members of the urban poor

0:21:540:22:00

are able to start engaging in this fledgling consumer society as well.

0:22:000:22:07

From a historian's perspective,

0:22:100:22:12

this collection is just absolutely invaluable.

0:22:120:22:15

What we're left with here is about 5,000 textile swatches.

0:22:150:22:21

And it's now the largest collection of everyday 18th-century textiles

0:22:210:22:27

that we have in the country.

0:22:270:22:29

From a human perspective,

0:22:290:22:31

it's actually a very difficult collection to look through.

0:22:310:22:36

Just the hope that is bound up in these.

0:22:360:22:40

Less than 1% of mothers were able to return and reclaim their children

0:22:420:22:50

from the Foundling Hospital.

0:22:500:22:52

But what we can see here is

0:22:520:22:54

that so many of them really had the belief

0:22:540:22:58

that they would be able to come back.

0:22:580:23:00

While cheap printed cottons meant that working people had a choice

0:23:150:23:18

of fabrics for the first time,

0:23:180:23:20

our hedge cutter was looking for function rather than fashion.

0:23:200:23:23

So we've been working with this leather

0:23:230:23:25

and discussing how soft and pliable and beautiful it is

0:23:250:23:29

and actually questioning its defensive properties,

0:23:290:23:32

so I thought I'd come to the back of my garden,

0:23:320:23:34

where I know there is a really viciously spiky rose

0:23:340:23:37

and I'm just going to see whether it actually tears

0:23:370:23:40

if I give it a good go on these spikes.

0:23:400:23:42

So let's see.

0:23:420:23:44

Oh.

0:23:440:23:46

I'm going to pretend we're really getting into this hedge.

0:23:470:23:52

Right, so we can see there's lots of scratch marks,

0:23:540:24:00

but nothing like anywhere near tearing.

0:24:000:24:03

Which is really interesting, it's still really intact.

0:24:040:24:09

You can imagine that after repeated days and weeks and months

0:24:090:24:12

of going in and out of hedges,

0:24:120:24:14

you might get a particularly vicious one

0:24:140:24:16

that would finally go through a very worn patch,

0:24:160:24:18

but that's impressive, actually.

0:24:180:24:20

And what's happened is it's actually broken off the tops of a lot of these thorns,

0:24:200:24:26

the leather has done more damage to the rose

0:24:260:24:28

than the rose has done to the leather,

0:24:280:24:30

which is really interesting.

0:24:300:24:31

So what I'm doing here,

0:24:360:24:38

I'm attaching my pre-covered buttons to the front of the coat

0:24:380:24:44

so that the pocket flap can be fastened.

0:24:440:24:48

The base of the button would have been either horn or wooden.

0:24:490:24:54

So I just put a circle around,

0:24:540:24:59

gather it up and then stitch it in place.

0:24:590:25:02

Like with anything, your first button is always the worst button.

0:25:020:25:06

And then you get quicker and also better.

0:25:060:25:10

Luckily, my worst button isn't terribly chunky,

0:25:100:25:14

but you can tell that it is chunkier

0:25:140:25:16

because it sits on one side rather than central.

0:25:160:25:20

So now it's the moment of truth.

0:25:220:25:24

Having lived for so long with the shreds and patches

0:25:240:25:27

of our hedge cutter's coat,

0:25:270:25:29

it will be intriguing to discover what it would have looked like

0:25:290:25:32

in its pristine state.

0:25:320:25:33

Oh.

0:25:410:25:42

Look at that. Oh, wow, look at that.

0:25:440:25:46

Oh, the back is amazing!

0:25:460:25:49

And also that...

0:25:490:25:50

Just that particular 18th-century men's shoulder, as well,

0:25:500:25:55

it doesn't have any of the squareness

0:25:550:25:57

that we associate with men's jackets today, does it?

0:25:570:26:01

It's a much rounder look.

0:26:010:26:04

It's kind of interesting cos it shows how our ideas

0:26:040:26:07

about sort of manliness and masculinity changes, doesn't it?

0:26:070:26:11

I'm just so surprised by how soft it is already.

0:26:110:26:14

I thought it was something that would need to be worn in,

0:26:140:26:18

but it's actually really easy to move.

0:26:180:26:21

I was impressed how thin the leather can be

0:26:210:26:24

and still do the things that we wanted it to in a defensive way.

0:26:240:26:29

Oh, it's absolutely beautiful, isn't it?

0:26:290:26:33

-I remember hammering some of these.

-Yeah.

-Yeah.

0:26:330:26:37

Yeah, I love those Mariner's cuffs.

0:26:370:26:39

-Just such a great detail, isn't it?

-A really great detail, isn't it?

0:26:390:26:42

Really great detail.

0:26:420:26:43

This leather, when new, has this kind of bright, soft yellow light colour.

0:26:430:26:50

-Yeah.

-Which we don't see in the portrait.

0:26:500:26:52

And this kind of leather, over time, being outdoors in the sun,

0:26:520:26:56

getting oil from hands and stains and everything,

0:26:560:26:59

-would have become much, much darker.

-Yeah.

0:26:590:27:01

So give that another 40 years or so,

0:27:010:27:05

and the colour, the tone of it would change quite a lot.

0:27:050:27:08

Well, I think that just adds even more weight to this idea

0:27:080:27:11

that it was definitely a second-hand garment, doesn't it?

0:27:110:27:14

I love the movement when you swoosh.

0:27:150:27:18

I wasn't expecting it to be so swooshy.

0:27:180:27:22

I must admit.

0:27:220:27:23

I thought there would be no swoosh at all.

0:27:230:27:25

I am pleasantly surprised.

0:27:250:27:28

I feel like I don't want to take it off.

0:27:280:27:30

It just immediately does become like a second skin

0:27:300:27:32

and you could kind of do anything in it.

0:27:320:27:35

-Coat for life.

-A coat for life.

-A coat for many lives.

0:27:350:27:38

-It's very now.

-Indeed.

-Yeah.

0:27:380:27:41

I really wanted to investigate the clothing of working people,

0:27:420:27:47

clothing that regular people,

0:27:470:27:49

the majority of the population would have been wearing.

0:27:490:27:52

Seeing this coat in the flesh has been invaluable

0:27:520:27:56

because it's absolutely reinforced our theory

0:27:560:27:59

that this is a second-hand garment.

0:27:590:28:02

The fact that this likely didn't come new to the hedge cutter

0:28:020:28:06

is really clear when we see it.

0:28:060:28:09

It's an exquisitely made coat,

0:28:090:28:12

it's unlikely that a working man would acquire something

0:28:120:28:15

that's such a light colour

0:28:150:28:17

that would immediately get very, very dirty.

0:28:170:28:19

And it just feels very elegant to wear, as well.

0:28:190:28:23

This is something I would totally wear today.

0:28:230:28:25

It's really very dapper, indeed.

0:28:250:28:28

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