[Sca-cooks] Bellybuttons and garb

[jenne at fiedlerfamily.net]

> Actually, Jadwiga, while I was playing around, researching bunny fur
> bikinis, I discvered that many women athletes, before the Church got so
> repressive, wore breast bands and small loin cloths, as a sporting costume.

That outfit appears in the Pompeiian murals, yes; and I was familiar with
those (though I'm not sure whether I would consider them 'public' wear')
but you can see how I was making a massive overstatement that only applies
in a very weak manner, if at all, and only to out-of-door, public clothing
in a certain time and place frame.

The Mayans, for instance, certainly wore clothing in period that showed
the  bellybutton too!

> It's not unknown, it's just appropriate to only certain cultures and time
> periods- which really, is what we all need to learn and understand about
> ANYTHING declared "period".

Well, there's also the question of _under what circumstances_ different
kinds of clothing would be appropriate. I doubt that the Bohemian
bathhouse keepers went out-of-doors in their working uniforms... (Not that
it will stop me from making one to wear at Pennsic one day.)

And of course there's a lovely picture of people bathing in a big garden
fountain but the loinwraps they are wearing probably don't constitute what
we would normally call 'period outfits'. :)

But overgeneralizing generally leads to errors, as it did in my case.

-- Jadwiga Zajaczkowa
jenne at fiedlerfamily.net OR jenne at tulgey.browser.net OR jahb at lehigh.edu
	"Index your brain."