On #NationalUnderwearDay I want to talk about the ancestor of the bra: the strophion!
In #GreekRomanArt the goddess #Aphrodite can sometimes be seen putting it on or taking it off but mortal women are depicted wearing it too.
It is uncertain what the Greek strophion looked like but the Roman adaptation, the strophium, was a breast band, a strip of cloth wrapped around the upper torso.
It was a normal but optional piece of feminine clothing.
Here is a photo of a woman replicating the Roman Strophium, inspired by the Greek Apodesme. It was folded from a single piece of fabric, as in the figure of Aphrodite above.
@bjornlarssen I wish I knew! It seems to me as if the band is wrapped around once and then girded in those beautiful knots. I wish I could try to replicate it.
@AimeeMaroux@antiquidons@histodons If anyone works out how this is tied, I'd love to know! It actually looks much more comfortable and elegant than the padded thing I've got on today 😕
@VVitchy@Sine@antiquidons@histodons It would prolly be a piece of linen and linen is awesome at absorbing moisture.
I'll see if I can maybe work it out with a scarf. The original page with instructions sadly is no more 😔
@VVitchy@AimeeMaroux@Sine@antiquidons@histodons Well, the other issue is that this information simply isn't out there - not Google's fault! A lot of nitty-gritty construction information that comes from trial and error is only produced by reenactors (because it's typically not relevant to academic practice wrt dress history) and so you are very dependent on people maintaining their blogs in order to find info like this.
You could try a meta search engine like https://metager.org/which will give you different results. It also comes with the advantage of nor tracking you.
@Sine@gunchleoc@mimicofmodes@VVitchy@antiquidons@histodons My first learning was that all my scarves and linen strips are way too short! I can only bring it to the front once, without doing any of the fancy crossing.
I think it was inspired by the Greek breast-band that we can see Artemis wear here:
@AimeeMaroux@mimicofmodes@VVitchy Same here! I've got three wraps that might work if I cut one in half lengthways and sewed it into a double length. That's a lot of hemming though and I don't have a sewing machine 😄 Plus, I think the fringes would be tickly!
@Sine@mimicofmodes@VVitchy I only have very much not fancy head scarves for medieval reenacting (plus two modern scarves). I could possibly tie them together just to try out the tying process 🤔
@mimicofmodes@VVitchy@AimeeMaroux@antiquidons@histodons Better late than never 🙄 but I've got a cut-up t-shirt functioning as a strophium right now and it is surprisingly comfortable although I might have tied it just a tiny bit too too tight!
It is actually two 2-metre long strips of an old running t-shirt so it is thin lycra rather than cotton or linen, and they are tied together in a knot at the centre. I didn't want to waste effort sewing until I had seen if it worked 😄 Each strip is a bit less than 30cm wide when flat though the fabric easily curls in on itself
.
I started with the joining knot front and centre. Then wrapped each side around keeping the fabric as wide as possible. On returning to the front, I kept the fabric wide over each boob, before folding it narrow above the opposite boob to give some 'lift'. I then wrapped the folded fabric around and back to the front again where I tucked one side over the original central knot before knotting the ends together and tucking the remaining ties in.
After half an hour including dancing energetically💃to Peat And Diesel and Face The West, my strophium is still comfortable and firmly in place. From the front it is less visible than a padded bra I often wear, although there is a bit of bunching across my back. I can probably improve that with more tying practice though.
I think I have worked out the weaving in that original photo we saw too, but I need more hands to be sure 😂
@Sine@mimicofmodes@VVitchy@antiquidons@histodons That's amazing, Sìne!!
I wonder if it will keep just as well with linen since it probably isn't quite as stretchy as lyrca 🤔
The bunching in the back may be resolved with someone just help tie it?
@AimeeMaroux I do have an old linen skirt that I am planning to cut up and sew into a long enough strip next so I can compare the two. I'm surprised by just how comfortable this lycra one is though. I've been wearing it since 11 this morning and it hasn't moved or loosened and still feels supportive.
The bunching at the back just needs a bit more practice with getting the lycra wrapped so it's not all layered on top of each other in the same place. I can't see that it is particularly noticeable to anyone else - it doesn't look like I have a hunch under my tshirt - but I am aware of it when leaning back in a chair, for example.
I might try trying to tie it with one short end, wrapping the longer end around continually in the same direction to see if that lessens the bunching effect. I'll need to sew, rather than tie, the two lycra strips together first though, otherwise I can guarantee that central knot wil place itself somewhere uncomfortable 😂
It's fun experimenting though. Despite cursing awkward bras for years, I'd never thought to try actually making a historic alternative before. I'm going to try a few ways of tying this lycra one in the coming days, then get to work hemming the linen.
@gunchleoc@VVitchy@AimeeMaroux@Sine@antiquidons@histodons Yes, although you run into the same issue: that this is a very niche topic and the online historical fashion community has essentially lost the tradition of low-tech blogs full of experimental archaeology and detailed explanations for people on the same wavelength. It's been very sad to watch its erosion alongside the rise of CosTube. I'm getting the same results when I search on Metager.
@mimicofmodes@gunchleoc@VVitchy@Sine@antiquidons@histodons I was honestly so bummed when I returned to a once incredibly active reenactment forum after a few years of not doing any reenacting and finding it utterly barren! Nobody could tell me exactly where the people went, vaguely suggesting Facebook and Pinterest. I'm on neither of these platforms. Some of the webpages are still up but it's a tragedy how much was lost 😔
@AimeeMaroux@gunchleoc@VVitchy@Sine It's really sad. I understand why people shifted from blogs to FB Groups and I understand the incentives of CosTube, but the community no longer exists. And there was so much good work coming out of it! I got into higher-level fashion history through websites like http://extremecostuming.com/
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