Second Skin ? Cut My Cote? Author's Message....

https://witness2fashion.wordpress.com/2015/11/08/the-evolution-of-the-shirt-and-cut-my-cote-book-recommendation/

I'll say this right now: Witness2Fashion has put solid thinking into this topic, and you can just go read this post and stop here.

Of course, I'm not stopping there. 

I'm reading "The second skin; an interdisciplinary study of clothing", this edition, by Marilyn Horn, this edition dated 1968 (there is a newer one, but I don't have it at hand),

Hey, you can read it online for free (you gotta sign up and stuff, but finding an out of print book in a library gets harder and harder these days)

It's a doctoral thesis, 

https://archive.org/details/secondskininterd00horn/

A point of order: Cut my Cote is from 1993.

Most of it isn't really new, but after reading Second Skin (thanks Ithaca Maven from IG for the heads up), I am reminded how much of historical research depends on bad thinking following poor research.

Lookit at those happy Etruscans!

 In "Etruscan Places", DH Lawrence posits that the Etruscans were happy because their funeral markers have smiles on their faces.
Uh, no. Maybe. Maybe not.

One of my favorite moments in college was a presentation by a fellow student on the art of the Etruscans. At the end of it, our professor asked which book he used for reference, and when he did not answer, she said "You know, that Lawrence book is fiction, don't you?"

It took me years to read it myself, after that event, but I have enjoyed it. It is memoir and fiction from the end of a writer's life, not researched or vetted.

We wore our copy of this book out. I wept frequently.

 A prosperous city. A happy time, Roman Times, as it's shown.

And next page, what the book calls The Invaders 600 CE

The whole concept of the Barbarian Tribe differs on where you live and when the history was written.

I prefer the first era, as Romans had indoor plumbing.

Enter the peoples of what will be Europe. They are on the move (illness, advances in transportation, horse collars and horse shoes 6-900 CE into use, allowing horses to pull wagons and walk longer distances), they come through and we don't get indoor plumbing back for ....a really long time. According to this book.

This is a gap/assumption in research that bothers me. Partly because I like indoor plumbing, and potable water is a really great thing that makes or breaks a civilization.  Mostly because people tend to retain useful knowledge and not just dump it. I know from years of reading that the 'medieval period' has got a ton of stuff going on we just dismiss out of hand because shiny Renaissance stuff. 

My point? Research gets done and books get written within the world view of the authors. They write what they care about and what they know.
All of these books are written by people within their worldview.
Those on top, see progress one way. 
Those on the bottom, see it another.
So...Second Skin.
There's a lot in this book to annoy me, and it's going to get revisited to make points about how we think about clothes and culture now. Because our perspective has changed, will continue to change, should change to reflect the views of people who have been left out of the academic conversation. It's a big world and we gotta share it.

Second Skin posits that European clothing is cut to fit the body more closely than the kimono style so it can fit under armor.

Uh, probably not. Not everybody wore armor. Happy Etruscan?

Also, just because you didn't find needles doesn't mean they didn't sew

https://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-other-artifacts/stone-age-clothing-0013137

(This website is full of pop ups and click bait. Please use caution navigating it.)

This article goes back and forth on the time line and interrupts itself and contradicts itself - ARE THERE NO EDITORS?

But it's got some great photos, once you get down there.

"But what about the cold climates, ice ages, and the passing centuries? That’s when the first proper clothing items begin to appear. One interesting study of the common louse shows us that it split to a distinct form of the body louse around 170,000 years ago, which gives us a critical insight into the early development of clothing."

And then we never mention the louse again, but they tell us just as much about human habitation as gravesites and weapons.

Ah, my friend Otzi. He's all over this website.

Are we sure he wore short sleeved clothes? Check out that farmer tan.

This has the rest of it. Our boy was wearing altered clothes.

https://www.ancient-origins.net/artifacts-other-artifacts/5300-year-old-otzi-iceman-was-wearing-clothing-five-separate-animal-020953