On Tuesday evening I went to the Royal Geographical Society to hear Sir Ranulph Fiennes give a talk on Scott of the Antarctic. Its particular purpose was to raise money for the hut Scott stayed in so that it can be preserved for the future. Ran Fiennes is a brilliant after dinner speaker because he has such passion for the subjects he believes in, and that gentleness and decency he exudes is the reason he is a hero for so many of us. He is incidentally, off to try to climb Everest again at the age of 63, and I wish him the very best of luck.
It was fascinating to see the equipment, displayed by the RGS, that was worn by Scott and his team, as well as to learn about the food they ate which had to be lugged across the ice in bulky tins. All the old reliable names were there: Bovril, Colman's Mustard and Cadbury's, and I was amused to see that Scott wore a Rolex watch, long before the world was fashion conscious.
The RGS has a magnificent history, having been involved since 1830 with so many discoveries and expeditions, but in this modern age we sometimes forget the service they gave.
It was fascinating to see the equipment, displayed by the RGS, that was worn by Scott and his team, as well as to learn about the food they ate which had to be lugged across the ice in bulky tins. All the old reliable names were there: Bovril, Colman's Mustard and Cadbury's, and I was amused to see that Scott wore a Rolex watch, long before the world was fashion conscious.
The RGS has a magnificent history, having been involved since 1830 with so many discoveries and expeditions, but in this modern age we sometimes forget the service they gave.
15 Comments:
Are you sure the world wasn't fashion conscious in the late Victorian-Edwardian period? My own feeling is that it was far more fashion conscious than we are today, pathologically so in fact.
Richard - no... I have pictures of my great-grandparents and they wore just any old thing. And their hair!
Also, can you really picture Oscar Wilde, say, in some stonking great Rolex? I think not.
Fashion consciousness began in nineteen sixty-three (which was rather late for me).
Certainly, the fashion-conscious artists of the Edwardian era discovered ever new themes in the movement, colour and inherent pathos of bride dresses, ball-gowns, knickerbockers, hats, dress shirts and jewellery etc. Whether these were exponents of haute couture, or of booted and spurred pantaloon pants, black tailcoats brandishing their whips, prettily dressed porcelain dolls, or merely concerning the art of millinery, the onlooker is always intrigued by the expression of a highly specialised and subjective relationship between class and fashion.
In certain post-Victorian circles sartorial fitness became almost an article of faith, with academic painters concerned to dignify portrait appearances as much as relate sartorial achievements in approving, polished colours and contours.
Without a doubt, as a period prone to exhibit human behaviour, social mores and repressed sexuality it is surely unarguable that the Edwardians are far superior to our contemporary version of the same thing, what, with women adopting men's behaviour and the most extreme types of masculinity jostling with the most perfect sartorial bad taste.. ?!
Dreamy
Scott's journey ended in disaster because they didn't taken enough calories with them. In the end, it was Bovril, Colman's Mustard and Cadbury's that got them into trouble whereas any brand of no-name meat would have been better. That's the problem with Rolexes - when the going gets tough, you can't eat them.
If only a promised mention of Rolex watches had been enough to get Dwaine Chambers there. He might have learnt a thing or two.
One example to show that there was a global fashion consciousness from the Victorian period . . . In 1846, Henry Colburn in London published a book by Mary Margaret Stanley Egerton Wilton, Lady of rank, called "The Book of Costume: Or, Annals of Fashion, from the earliest Period to the Present Time." The introduction begins:
Dress, considered merely as a covering for the body, and as a means of promoting warmth, needs no explanation. In the early ages, it was simple as the manners of the people who invented it. Leaves, feathers, and skins, formed the clothing of our first parents. As civilization gradually spread over the world, and as the invention and genius of man found means to change a raw hide into leather, the wool of sheep into cloth, the web of a worm into silk, flax and cotton into linen; to extract from herbs, flowers, woods, minerals, and insects, dyes and colours that vie with the rainbow in richness and variety; mankind gave way to the caprices of vanity; they quitted the simple garments of their forefathers, and gradually gave themselves up to an almost incredible degree of luxury and extravagance in the adornment of their persons.
Yours,
Rus
I loved visiting the Scott Polar Institute when I lived in Cambridge. I suppose its been themed and ruined now.
Fashion consciousness in 1890-1910 was defined by Edward, Prince of Wales and later King Edward VII. Anything he wore or did was instantly copied by London society- indeed, he was a huge influence on Parisian fashion. He also introduced the fashon of drinking coffee after dinner, a bad move in my view.
I have all those names in my kitchen right now, Cadbury, Colman and Bovril - its a funny old world!
There's nothing wrong with drinking coffee after dinner, quite the pick-me-up if a beautiful woman is across the table. I suspect Richard needs some lessons in true romance. I believe Edward also introduced the practice of a full roast Sunday lunch with all the trimmings, a pleasant legacy to leave. So, in a way, he may be responsible for Tesco's 1.99 chicken. Thus do our legacies have unintended and entirely unimagined consequences.
“Pick-me-up” I hear you say. I beg your pardon, sir, but the worst thing is being told to be patient when waiting for a man to be passionate...
Selena Dreamy wrote: the worst thing is being told to be patient when waiting for a man to be passionate...
Ah but Selena you really can't judge every man by Richard. You knew when you set your cap at him that he had a penchant for falling asleep half-way through meals, and surely we all remember that time in our early post-uni days in Lewisham when Richard nodded over head first into a plate of Baked Alaska. Incidentally, did you know that Baked Alaska was invented at Delmonico's in New York (or so Delmonico's like to claim), a restaurant favoured by Edward Prince of Wales when over there. I expect Scott would have like its hot yet icy deliciousness too. Connections, connections.
My grandmother had a Rolex, and a less style-conscious woman you'd be hard pressed to find. I think my grandfather gave it to her in the 1930s, for some reason - feeling guilty perhaps. I wonder if the Scott Rolex was still working...
I read somewhere, (any sentence starting with that phrase suggests some vague urban myth; but I sincerely hope this is true)that Scott's remains have never been retrieved from the Ice Cap.
That said, because the Polar Ice Cap is magnetic, the ever-moving plot of ice that the great man's tent is located, is actually thought to have reached his final intended destination on a number of occasions...............
To complete the ambition, no matter how; a touching thought.............
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