All the comforts of home: house coats and loungewear
Bryson's opinion about fashion: "For anyone of a rational disposition, fashion is often nearly impossible to fathom. Throughout many periods of history -- perhaps most -- it can seem as if the whole impulse of fashion has been to look maximally ridiculous. If one can be maximally uncomfortable as well, the triumph was all the greater."
The exception of this, of course, is robes, chemises, lounge wear:
"Behind the scenes, however, things were a little spicier than we are sometimes led to suppose. Chemical dyes -- some of them quite rich and colorful -- became available in midcentury [the 1800s] and one of the first places they appeared was on underclothes, a matter that scandalized many since it raised the obvious question of for whose delight all that color was intended. The embroidery of underwear became similarly popular and identically scandalous...."
Of course, no one knows more about robes and negligees than these ladies....
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