Dolls representing the Bampton side (date unknown), including a musician figure with tiny fiddle, probably supposed to be William ‘Jinky’ Wells!! Alice, the Society Archivist at Cecil Sharp House, dug these out for me when I visited. Photograph courtesy of the English Folk Dance and Song Society.

However, as I began to discover, tracing the stories of these somewhat peripheral items of costume allows a history of the Morris in Oxfordshire and a handful of remarkable characters to emerge. Shoes, actually, contributed to the decline of Morris dancing in the 1800s: Morris dancers were low-waged labourers who danced to supplement their income; following economic hardship in the first half of the nineteenth century, audiences no longer gave much money and “it got like begging”, as one old Morris dancer recalled. The dancers could no longer afford to buy shoes that they danced through regularly, since they “weren’t ‘patternised’ enough”.

Hats, lasting longer, tell a multitude of stories. Sides adopted styles of headwear largely based on availability: a type that each man had access to. At Eynsham during the 1930s the men wore ANZAC hats; at Headington Quarry cricket caps have been continuously worn. During the revivals (around the turn of the nineteenth century and again in the late twentieth century) top hats, in particular, suggested ‘tradition’. The revived Eynsham side of the 1980s chose top hats stuck with pheasant feathers in tribute to a famous forebear, Edward ’Feathers’ Russell.

Feathers Russell of Eynsham painted by William Nicholson in around 1901

[See image gallery at blogs.ashmolean.org]

Headington Quarry Morris Dancers threatening Doctor Who in 1971

Once a basic uniformity is established, however, hats are often altered and decorated, displaying individuality. Hats, like other garments, are worn in and worn out, handed down, adapted. Joe Marns’ hat, at the Vale and Downland Museum, is an autobiographical, battle-worn object covered with mementoes and insignia. Being particularly customisable, hats are adorned with flowers at Whitsun, studded with badges marking festivals danced at or affiliations to clubs or political views, bedecked with ribbons, pimped up with diamante, and, regularly, soused in beer from an upturned glass.

Eynsham Morris dancer, photographed by Suzy Prior. Image © Suzy Prior.

Women's Straw hat, early 20th century, worn on Langley Farm Leafield. OXCMS:1979.111.5

A few weeks ago the improvements to the documentation of hats at the Museums Resource Centre began.  Twenty Five hats were moved into the textile store photographed from specific angles and measured.  All information has now been added to the modes database.

The movement of the hats has sparked the imagination of staff and volunteers a like, “What was that hat worn for?” they ask, “I wonder who would have worn that” and then the conversation progressed “I used to wear hats all the time I don’t do that anymore, I should start wearing a hat again” Lots of sighing and excitement has been generated, bodes well for the future exhibitions.

 This week the rest of the hats arrived inside the Textile Store.

Cloche straw hat with purple silk ribbon decoration, 20th century. OXCMS:1964.5599

 

When we arrived we were warmly welcomed and shown the objects.  Unfortunately, the bowler hat and Elizabethan shoe are on display and unlikely to be lent to us.  The gold shoes were stunning, if a bit crackled with the passing of time, but they were worn by a bride in a village just outside Oxfordshire, so we are unable to justify using them for this project.  Very frustrating as there was photo of the bride too!!  Sam and I asked if we could have a glance at the other objects, mostly shoes that had been taken to the shoe repair section of a department store called Copes in Thame and never collected.  We were expecting a lot of boring, worn out shoes but to our joy there were some wonderful 1920s and 30s women’s shoes and a mixture of men and women’s Victorian and Edwardian boots and shoes.

Some of the early C20th shoes had beautiful details and fit perfectly with the collection at the Museum Resource Centre (MRC), where most of the objects will come from for this exhibition.  I want to have a section in the exhibition which mimics an early C20th shop front, showing these beautiful shoes off with shiny signs that say cheesy things like Comfort and Style, what every woman wants.

Some of the shoes at MRC (click to scroll through)  [See image gallery at blogs.ashmolean.org]

Shopping and advertising have a huge part to play in how we feel about the garments we wear.  Sometimes it’s really hard to put your finger on what it is exactly that makes you want/desire that pair of shoes or that hat or any other garment for that matter.  This is what I’m most interested in and somehow I want this to come across in this section of the exhibition.   I was speaking to a friend recently about his hat.  I asked him why he wore it and he couldn’t articulate the reason, it just made him feel better.   Better about himself?  Better than other people?  I didn’t push the questioning that far!  Although we can’t say this in words, we all know this feeling.  We all have some item of clothing that whenever we wear it we feel, well, just better.

Thame Museum – http://www.thamemuseum.org/index.html

Aimee and I spent the other day at the Museums Resource Centre looking at our shoe collection.  We discovered a massive hoard of parts of leather shoes found in a ditch at the Oxford Castle, a great project for an archaeological research group to explore at some point in the future.  Then we rediscovered this child’s shoe found in a Late Roman Well at Barton Court Farm, Abingdon.  Only 13.5cm long and 6cm wide it is the right shoe, with moccasin style vamp, a stitched on sole and stiched with thongs.  This lovely objects was conserved in 2000.  A historic treatment possibly with excessive amounts of neats foot oil had left the shoe as a sticky dark mass (see attached image).  This sticky treatment was painstakingly removed with Alcosol D70 (white spirit substitute) and then the shoe parts were reconstructed with dyed japanese tissue and silk crepline.

Roman shoe, shiney from historic conservation treatment and before removal of historic treatment and reconstruction

Romano-British child shoe found in a Late Roman well at Barton Court Farm, Abingdon

This often happens with museum objects.  A name becomes attached to something and it takes on a whole other level of meaning, even if the association is debatable.  These are the objects that you are likely to remember and tell people about after your visit.  And so their
ability to captivate is perpetuated.  I would love to find more hats and shoes like this.  A case full of personal objects belonging to the great and the good would be wonderful.
Imagine their collective power!

Something else that has got me thinking was an article I read in “Shoes: A History from Sandals to Sneakers” which was about military footwear.  What struck me was the
contrast between the wonderfully flamboyant hats which I had seen at the Soldiers of Oxfordshire Museum and the woefully inadequate boots that soldiers were issued with right up until the First World War.  Of course their superiors had beautifully crafted, handmade boots, which matched their dapper headwear but neglecting to provide sufficient boots left the army weak and many battles lost.  Can you imagine how useless and unshod army would be?  By some accounts the boots were so badly made that they fell apart after one day of marching.  Some sham mass production techniques used clay in the soles to add weight and therefore the illusion of quality.  These boots also fell apart at the first contact with water.   And despite huge improvements in production by the beginning of the C20th, we’ve all heard of trench foot suffered by soldiers during the First World War.  That’s all rather gruesome to imagine.

If you want to read more the book’s full details are below.  I have been referring to this book a lot through my research as all the essays are fantastic.  Well worth a look.

Shoes: A History from Sandals to Sneakers edited by Giorgio Riello and Peter McNeil, published in 2006 by Berg, Oxford and New York.  ISBN-13 978 1 84520 443 3  or  ISBN-10 1 84520 443 3

Unpacking my Grandfather by Penny Boxall

The jackets – all but his best – the slacks
and braces were displaced, one way
and another. The shirts were immaterial.

We used the old shot tweed
for lagging, a waxed coat for a play –
it stood for something we could name,

a useful byword anyone could catch.
The semaphore of his ties was sunk
with him, though the waders stand

absurdly upright, jammed with husks,
animals hedging their bets at the first frost.
The brogues are under a fence of coats, paired

in two ready steps. Above them
his hat hangs like an afterthought,
as if he’s wandered through the open

doors into the half-lit film of evening
and will be back for it, given time.
It’s shaped to him, stained with a forgotten

weight of rain and curdled smoke.
Of all his things this is the last,
when even the shoes have broken

their step, upped and left. Even on
the hook it is firm, it is full to the brim.

For more information see their website:  http://www.didcotrailwaycentre.org.uk/visitor_information/gws.html

I’m sure that the excitement of being in control of a huge, powerful engine hurtling through the countryside is something that all enthusiasts dream of, young and old.   And the mark of the driver is of course the hat.  I wonder how many scaled down,
train driver’s dressing up costumes there are.  In the Witney and District Museum there is a child’s bus conductor’s uniform complete with hat. Not quite the same fan base but I think our next visit might have to be to see this.  This all reminds me of my favourite programme when I was a child which I was excited to find out was one of Sam’s favourites too.  What I am about to share with you will date Sam and I to a particular decade!  Do you remember this?  “And as if by magic, the shopkeeper appeared!”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0bSH_XFWMs

(If you haven’t got 12 minutes to watch this then skip to about 1.45 for the costume shop action!)

So, I wanted to find out what they had in terms of headwear and footwear and I can tell you that it is all about the headwear.  They must have at least 100 hats, helmets and caps judging by a brief look at their database.  What I found the most visually interesting were the wonderful spike helmets, busbys with huge plumes and quirky shakos.  Stanley my guide was very knowledgeable about how they were all influenced by the styles of other countries.  Spiked helmets were of course a German idea, the busby was inspired by the Hungarians and shakos, particularly the high ones, were stolen from the French.  He backed this up with his expert knowledge of when these countries were seen as powerful and it was at this time that the English stole their fashions.  Again this comes back to the idea of transformation that I touched on in my last post.  Did the soldiers of the time use these new hats as a way of inspiring them to be more successful in their battles?   Just like a Native American puts feathers in his headdress to become as wise and powerful as the eagle, it is a little bit of magic!

The SOFO website has most of their objects on so please search here if you want to see examples of the headwear I’ve mentioned.

http://www.sofo.org.uk/research-centre/collection

I have also spent much of my time with my nose stuck in a book. My favourite topic at the moment is related to magic.  I’m exploring the way that a top hat makes a man in a suit become a gentleman and the bride’s veil changes a girl into a woman.  Headwear transforms a person and very publically declares the wearer’s new status, often with rigidly set rules particularly in military, legal, religious and educational structures.  Footwear makes a different kind of change on a person, more personal and intimate.  In fairy tales and stories footwear often reveals the true nature of a person, and sometimes this results in a gruesome demise.  I’m thinking here, of course, of Hans Christian Andersen’s The Red Shoes.

I’m also preoccupied with trying to understand why we want new things.  Shopping for shoes fulfils a deep desire, admittedly for some more than others!  But why?  What drives us to want new things to adorn ourselves?  Why do beautiful shoes bewitch us?  I came across a wonderful idea in the Journal of Material Culture that could go some way to explain it.  “Parallels can be drawn between magic and enchantment of advertising campaigns… and the belief in the magic of objects such as amulets and charms…” (Jude Hill The Story of the Amulet, 2007).  I will definitely be discussing this with staff at the PRM over coffee next week.  I’m sure we can find some shoe related, magic objects.