Although I'm not that into fashion as a subject, the topic of this documentary sounded too good to ignore: The dramatic change of fashion in Europe during the middle ages.
I'm not too excited about the beginning, Visigoths being depicted as replacing elegance with poverty and barbarism.
They don't say 'dark ages', but you can hear they wanted to.
It is also weird to hear them say Europe discovered Fashion via their contact with the Arab world.
What they mean to say was that Arab fashion INFLUENCED European fashion, not that there was no European fashion till that time.
Well the intro is a bit worrisome but they're going to use lots of re-enactors and people who do living history, so that's good.
Really nice to see how they're making linen and fabric 1000 years ago.
Wonderful picture of a family and look, their clothes have nice colours!
Our ancestors liked colours, who would have thought...
Another wonderful scene that shows us how people began their days doing their hair and having a wash.
In part thanks to the crusades new pigments and materials came from the East to Europe.
This looks amazing;
Oh a whole segment filmed in the open air museum where I used to work, I miss the place.
Fun to see this and as they're using a lot of Dutch re-enactors I'm seeing a lot of familiar faces.
There's a whole bit about all the VERY naughty badges that were fashionable at the time but I'm of course not sharing pictures of that, I can't, I had to look away from the screen, being a proper lady and all.
Interesting segment on women dressing as men during pilgrimages, seems like a good idea to me as travelling as a man would be saver.
But the church didn't like it & could accuse you of blasphemy and burn you.
Morons.
It was eventually the excuse they also used to burn Jean D'Arc
The scenes of someone being dressed are always fun, but extra fun when they're filmed with people I know and in a room I know rather well.
I've slept in that bed!
Yay bathing!
I wish they spend more time on this subject.
Fun to hear about people complaining about clothes getting shorter and tighter in the 14th century, the more things change...
Those fancy doublets, all tight and buttony, pesky medieval hipsters.
For no real reason seeing an Italian fashion designer wearing a scarf and smoking a cigarette made me happy.
I like that the documentary ends with a sobering conclusion; fashion has changed a lot since the middle ages, but although it may have looked nicer and nicer, it also became more restrictive.
So in short, it's a fun documentary with lots of different subjects, also making comparisons with modern subjects but the best thing about it is all the re-enactors and lovely locations used to bring the past back to life.
RIP Maria Augustina Norberta (Ria) van Dijk, who died yesterday.
AKA "air rifle Ria" because of her habit of shooting at the photo rifle booth at fairs since 1936.
It was quite something back then but it's also just great to see our world change through these pictures.
🧵
Girls shooting rifles and being good at it was quite a thing in her part of the world back then, in her own way she was breaking barriers.
Not just by shooting but also by going her own way and running a drugstore in stead of just working in one.
1938
As Ria shoots, year after year, and wins, year after year, every bullseye gets her a photo to take home, showing not just her achievement but also her friends and random members of the public behind her.
Watching 'The Brothers Grimm' to get a good screenshot of the carriage used in that film as it is sometimes shared with the claim that it is a genuine Victorian carriage in stead of one designed by specifically by Guy Hendrix Dyas for this film.
What a lovely film it is.
Just look at this gorgeous sweetness.
And of course it's all a fairytale sort of fantasy history so there's no real need to pay attention to historical accuracy.
Mind you, even though this isn't the middle ages, we have someone emptying a bucket from a window into a street.
Don't people realise how silly this is?
No matter what era, even in the rain, anyone, ever, would get angry if they walked underneath that.
This is Josef Menšík, the last owner and knight of Strakonicku castle in Dobrš who tried to stop a convoy of German tanks while wearing a suit of armour and seated on a horse when they tried to cross into Czechoslovakia in 1938.
Thread.
Menšík didn't like the modern world very much.
In 1911 he bought the neglected Dobrš castle in Strakonicku and renovated it.
He collected lots of old things and started living according to the values he attributed to Medieval knights.
He even had a suit of armour made in France.
Local school classes were invited to visit the castle and see his huge collection and learn about history.
Josef became a bit of a local celebrity.
Game review!
Recently I was given a copy of the game 'War Mongrels' to check out, thanks developers!
The game is a strategy WW2 game that takes place on the Eastern Front but you get to play deserters, resistance members, secret agents, etc.
If you're old, like me, it will remind you of the classic 'Commandos' which I loved and more recently 'Partisans'.
You get this top view of cities, prisons, etc. and you then have to use the different abilities of the agents you get to control to solve problems.
Spoilers ahead;
The thing that makes this game different from Commandos and most other WW2 games is the subject.
You start with two German deserters at the east front and you get to witness the most gruesome parts of the war that many games shy away from.
The Germans organised many dog inspections, dogs big enough for "war work" were confiscated.
People were told they would be guard dogs but many were probably just send into mine fields.
So the dogs had to be big and heavy.
Some of these photos were taken secretly.
Thanks to the dog tax Germans knew exactly who owned a dog.
To save their canine friends (good) people tried all sorts of tricks to fool the Germans, like (temporarily) swapping their dog for a smaller one or sending it to the countryside and say it ran off or died.