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Let's Bring Back Mourning Clothes
The New Republic ^ | October 26, 2014 | Hillary Kelly

Posted on 10/29/2014 6:40:35 AM PDT by C19fan

When Ellen Olenska—freshly back from Europe under a pall of ambiguous disgrace—invites Newland Archer to her home for the first time in Edith Wharton’s novel The Age of Innocence, she ignores the unwritten sartorial mandates and dons “a long robe of red velvet bordered about the chin and down the front with glossy black fur.” As a little girl, Ellen appeared to exhibit a similar disregard for convention, mourning her parents in wildly inappropriate clothing: “crimson merino and amber beads.” The gossips and busybodies who recall that childhood faux pas want to imply a provocative question About Ellen: Was the little girl even sorry that her parents had died? Because red is certainly not the color of sadness.

(Excerpt) Read more at newrepublic.com ...


TOPICS: History; Society
KEYWORDS: mourning; victorian
Article related to a new exhibit on Victorian/Edwardian mourning fashion at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
1 posted on 10/29/2014 6:40:35 AM PDT by C19fan
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To: C19fan

Too bad Edward Gorey’s not still alive to see that one!


2 posted on 10/29/2014 6:51:06 AM PDT by To Hell With Poverty (Ephesians 6:12 becomes more real to me with each news cycle.)
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To: C19fan

We have a family friend who dressed in black or dark blue for a year when her mother died. It was consistent with her chinese/filipino mourning traditions.

I think it’s a good idea. Americans expect people to shake off grief and move on quickly, but that’s not how it goes.


3 posted on 10/29/2014 7:11:34 AM PDT by married21 ( As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.)
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To: C19fan

Note the photos of FDR speaking before Congress on December 8, 1941. He is wearing a black arm band.


4 posted on 10/29/2014 7:18:08 AM PDT by The Great RJ
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To: C19fan
The Victorian traditions, on the other hand, continued for months and even years past internment.

INTERMENT, blast it!

That said, the author makes some excellent points. Mourning rituals were arbitrary and regimented, but the customs provided a public structure everyone could work with, rather than leaving individuals in the lurch.

What does one owe, in terms of public "grief," to a boyfriend (or girlfriend) who dies?

5 posted on 10/29/2014 7:36:20 AM PDT by Tax-chick (I am not tense. I am very, very alert.)
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To: C19fan

I’m all for the Merry Widow.


6 posted on 10/29/2014 8:20:23 AM PDT by Yo-Yo (Is the /sarc tag really necessary?)
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