Tea at Trianon: The Coronavirus and 'Inside Clothes'

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Sunday, April 26, 2020

The Coronavirus and 'Inside Clothes'

From The Federalist:

If in the ’60s weekend-casual included blue jeans, even those seem too stiff and formal now. Young people simply roll out of bed, and change pajamas for sweats — basically the same concept. A trained eye is necessary to distinguish which pair is intended for sleep, which for jogging, and which for hanging out with in-laws.

Millennial and Gen Z women have been assimilated into this sartorial indifference from birth. The PJs they wear to sleep are the leggings they wear to play, and half the time they don’t change out of their “play wear” for special occasions. They continue the same clothing habits well into middle age.

The wardrobe of an average American woman is endless, but mostly consisting of what is essentially inside clothes, only she wears them everywhere. It’s not that we leave our homes open to germs, but that the domestic sphere took over the public one. If personal is political, what was once private is now splattered all over. (Read more.)