Royals use of Furs

[dbawss1]

I've fallen down a rabbit-hole doing some research for a possible next story.

 

It appears that the royals of centuries past may have had fur fetishes and had the means to fully indulge them. Furs mostly before the 1900s were worn as lining or trimming but not on the outside. They lined everything from coats to capes to underwear and nightgowns.

 

They were also forbidding anyone but people of higher social status to wear furs.

 

Fur coverings like bedspreads, carpets and covers for seating were also used.

 

A few excerpts from Furs and Fur Garments:

"Philip the Long ordered himself a garment at Christmas, 1316, consisting of six pieces, furred with miniver, of which we have the following record : The honces, or sleeves were 356 skins The mantle 300 skins, The surcoat 226 skins, The upper, or overcoat 298 skins, The second overcoat, or waistcoat skins 120. 1300 total skins"

"Queen Semiramis brought back with her from her Indian expedition over 8,000 tiger skins, with which, doubtless, she carpeted the enormous palace which she constructed in the so-called Hanging Gardens."

"Nero, as his historian Suetonius narrates, usually sat upon an ivory throne, which stood upon the skin of an African lion, whose head' admirably stuffed (for the taxidermist's art is one of the oldest known), and looking as if alive, served the terrible tyrant as a footstool"

"At Christmas, 13 16, Philip the Long of France purchased an ermine cloak, which had cost the lives of thousands of animals. This is nothing, however, to the coronation robes of the later Czar of Russia, in the construction of which over 250,000 ermines were sacrificed. The Empress Catherine II.'s coronation robes cost 25,000 roubles, and were of richly embroidered velvet, lined with ermine and edged with sable. This Imperial lady was in the habit of presenting furs of great price to friendly sovereigns, and once sent a superb sable cloak to Voltaire, as a mark of her esteem. The coronation robes of Napoleon I. preserved at Notre Dame are also lined with costly ermine."

"It would probably be frivolous to claim the ‘first’ in the modern fur coat fashion field for the spectacular Marquise de Fontenay, a fashion leader of the days immediately after the French Revolution, who ‘liked to appear in her box at the opera clad only in a tiger skin as “Diana”’, as Pearl Binder records. Likewise there is probably more of sensation than of fashion news in various accounts of how in 1779 the Duchesse de Chartres appeared at a ball at the Paris Opera House ‘enveloppee dans un manteau de Zibeline a double fourrure. exterieure et interieure, avec traine de 2 metres au moins.’ "

 

From Fur in Dress:

"Dr Veale has extracted from the Public Record Office accounts details of the expenditure by Henry VIII of £166 for 80 sables with which to line a gown of damask and embroidered velvet and an unknown but presumably much larger sum for 350 sables for another lining."

"In referring to Sarah Bernhardt as a leader of fashion, Richard Davey was true to the trend of the time, for leading actresses had taken the place of royalty and nobility as leaders of fashion and the divine Sarah was foremost of them all. ‘Her delight in magnificent dress and outrageous conduct’ were prominent parts of the living legend that she continued to be throughout her life. Furs were prominent in her off-stage drama. Montcler described her in Dinah Samuel in 1882 ‘draped in a dress of cream brocade fastened with a large band of ermine . . . from the high lace collar, a la Marie Stuart, the supple body, swathed in the ermine-bordered brocade, drew undulating lines to her feet’. In 1892, when she lived in gorgeous extravagance, her horses and carriages included ‘the fairy-tale carriage, with its two chestnut horses, in which she would drive through Paris, muffled up in chinchilla, even in July’. In Brussels in the same year she drove in a cornflower-covered Victoria, ‘wrapped in delightful greyish furs and rugs’, for the battle of flowers. For a banquet in her home in 1896 she wore a white dress, trimmed with lace, embroidered in gold and bordered with chinchilla. Maurice Rostand ‘was long to remember those magic days of childhood when Sarah tossed her chinchilla coat to her favourite greyhound’. She attended a football match at Manchester undauntedly ‘clad from head to foot in white furs’ and for a reception in her honour at the Savoy in 1912 she wore a cloak of white satin and sable."

"Fur was part of the orientalism in which Diaghilev rejoiced. Fur-trimmed everything, and contemporary references in women’s magazines in the years immediately preceding World War One record it as even being used to trim lingerie. According to one fashion publication ‘the dark, rich touch of fur is seen on practically every description of coat, and, indeed, on all garments - even to nightgowns and pyjamas. . . . Everything is fur-trimmed, from our hats and handbags to our lingerie. Lots of the newest crepe de Chine “undies” are edged with fur.’ Summer dresses as well as winter ones were fur-trimmed. There is a description of Daisy, Countess of Warwick, appearing at a garden party in 1912 in a summery dress and carrying a large muff of filmy white material trimmed with roses and bands of fur. Edwardian photographs frequently show large fur stoles draped over the arm, and Doris Langley Moore notes that furs were carried thus when there was no need for them; they were for display and for the embellishment of an outfit, not for warmth or protection."

 

From Ladies in Fur, 1900-1940

"The fur sector of the 1900 Exposition Universelle certainly contributed to its immense success; there was a real stampede for luxury. It was no accident that the sector was under the aegis of Mme. Paquin, the first woman to reach international fame in the world of fashion, who had presented on that very occasion, an extraordinary cloak style Princesse made of three hundred pieces of Canadian mink"

"The Russian Grunwaldt (who had the honour and all the publicity of receiving a visit from the Czar) exhibited a suit made of seventy-five pieces of white breitschwantz."

"In 1902 the late Queen Victoria’s furrier published in England a small volume entitled Sable and more Sable, intended for people who wore furs. Russ Winkler ran his shop in Edinburgh in elegant Princess Street; it boasted eleven departments and offered... everything imaginable made of fur; coats capes, every sort of item to go round the neck, hats, mittens, gloves, rugs, carpets, footwarmers. One is not surprised to find that there were furs for men which were absolutely the thing in those years, used both as a lining and as an outer garment. In fact the gentlemen, as soon as possible, edged his coat with sable; financiers and impresarios almost turned long haired fur into the symbol of their kind, and the appearance of the motor car unleashed a desire for the most ebullient and eye catching long haired ones, to the great joy and prolixity of the caricaturists"

"There were costumes de sportswoman, made with a hundred and seventy chinchilla skins, suits in moleskin with sable tippets, mink coats a peaux allongees - because already fur was being clipped and plucked - while Russian furs of considerable value were dyed the same colours as the clothes."

 

Fur in dress -- Ewing, Elizabeth -- 1981 -- London_ Batsford -- 0713417412 -- ff3dd0a47a4a450e366fc7991e28a0d7 -- Anna’s Archive.pdf fursfurgarments00daveuoft.pdf Ladies in furs, 1900-1940 -- Municchi, Anna -- 1992 -- Modena, Italy_ Zanfi -- 8886169299 -- b960338f75deec600719221c1d03490c -- Anna’s Archive.pdf

[dbawss1]

From The English Fur Trade in the later Middle Ages

"Marie de Savoie, seventeen-year-old daughter of Amedee VIII, Duke of Savoy, on her marriage to the Duke of Milan in 1426, wore a gown and mantle of white damask, brochie d’or Jin, elegantly finished with ermine, and one of the most gorgeous of the twelve furred gowns of the nineteen in her trousseau was of crimson cloth of gold furred with 618 sable skins. The Princess Philippa, daughter of Henry IV, on her marriage to the King of Denmark in 1406, wore a gown of white satin worked with velvet, heavily furred with ermine and minever. Of the fourteen gowns which the twelve-year-old princess took with her, all except three were furred, not excluding the blue mantle she was to wear on rainy days. Similarly her boots, slippers, bed-coverings, and the liveries of most of her escort were furred."

 

"what is certain is that Henry III bought skins of greywerk by the thousand; that on important occasions such as the Whitsun festival or his sister’s marriage he himself wore minever; and that when he gave robes to his family and friends they were lined with minever or gris.1 During the years 1285-8 an average of about 119,300 squirrel skins was bought each year for the use of Edward I and his household, with in addition only 66 ermine skins and 3,300 budge and lambskins. For a tournament, held in Windsor Park in 1278, £692. 2s. was spent in Paris on furs; of this sum all but £23. i8l was spent on minever, gris, and the cheaper varieties of northern squirrel. When the English Queen Philippa attended the great banquet given after the birth of her first-born son in 1330 she wore an outfit of five garments, embroidered with gold and lined with pured. or trimmed minever. At the French court a similar enthusiasm for vair and gris prevailed. Charles V liked his best robes furred with ermine, but thirty-four of the forty-two elaborate outfits he possessed in 1379 were lined with squirrel. One of his more elegant suits of tawny coloured silk, worked with a design of trees and birds, consisted of a matching cloak, surcote, and hat, all three of which were furred with minever."

 

"When we examine the fur linings themselves the vast numbers of skins used in their manufacture immediately strikes us. Fur skins, particularly squirrel, are small, and often several hundred had to be bought to make even the lining of a single garment. A cote for King John of France required 366 skins, a houpplelande 686 skins; even slippers usually needed about two dozen skins of gris. Complete outfits or ‘robes’ used thousands of squirrel skins, as the cloak and hood or hat, and at least one of the garments worn indoors, were usually furred

 

"One of Henry IV’s most splendid outfits was a ‘robe’ of nine garments: two mantles, one tabard, two supertunics, one open and one closed, a short and a long kirtle, and a large and a small cap or hat. For this ‘robe’ nearly 12,000 squirrel and 80 ermine skins were used. Thus the great households bought squirrel skins in thousands at a time. A total of 79,220 skins of trimmed minever were sewn into furs to satisfy the needs of the royal household alone during the year 1344-5, and nearly half as many, 32,762, were used simply for the furring of the trousseau of Princess Philippa and the liveries of her escort.5 Another young princess for whom an extensive wardrobe was prepared was the widowed Queen Isabella, returning to France after the death of Richard II. The only touch of colour among the sombre clothes and furnishings was provided by the 45,722 grey and white squirrel skins and the 400 white lettice skins."

 

"When larger skins were more fashionable, great numbers were still required.7 Henry VI had the body of a new purple velvet gown lined with 250 backs of marten and the sleeves with 68 belly skins, and Henry VIII had 350 sable skins bought for a single gown of black satin. In this case it would be almost possible to reconstruct the gown, as sable skins were worked to a length of twelve inches and a width of three and a half, and 110 skins were to be used for the front, 130 for the back, 64 for the upper stock or breeches, 32 for the foresleeves, and 14 for the cape and collar.1 Counterpanes required many more skins, particularly when lined with squirrel. Edward Ill’s mother, Queen Isabella, had six lined with pured. minever, one containing 1,396 skins, and a red velvet keverchief lined with 700 bellies. And this was not unusual: a counterpane made for Edward III, of forty skins long and fifty-six wide, would have needed 2,240 skins."

 

"Fur linings for which several hundred squirrel skins were used demanded many hours of tedious and painstaking work. In addition to the tawing, seams by the thousand had to be stitched. Skins of pured minever were about 5^ inches long and 1J or 2 inches wide, and even to sew together the 120 skins usually put into a fur of minever of eight tiers involved the sewing of over 400 seams. It is unfortunately very rare to find figures from which labour costs, and the proportion of labour costs to total costs, may be estimated. We know that in 1406 the King’s Skinner was being paid at the rate of 20s. for the dressing and working of a thousand squirrel skins. These skins might have cost anything from £8 to £12.7 One skinner, however, from Bury St. Edmunds, has left us a more detailed bill. In 1466 he charged Sir John Howard, later to be Duke of Norfolk and Richard Ill’s Earl Marshal, £3. 8j. 9d. for 1,360 skins of minever and 82 skins of lettice and gris. These skins were dressed. Raw, they had probably cost about £3. He himself worked for nine days, at 4d. a day, on this fur, and his man for six days at 2d. a day, a total cost of 4s. Omitting the shilling tip added to the bill, labour costs accounted for about 17 per cent, of the cost of the fur. But although we cannot generalize from one bill—in the fourteenth century, for instance, the price of squirrel skins was far higher—we are left with a clear picture of the work involved in the making of furs.1 It is interesting to notice, although the figures are not strictly comparable, that twice as much had to be spent on wages of skinners as on those of tailors during the preparation of robes for the coronation of Richard III.2 It is little wonder that such close work throughout the long medieval working day—from dawn to dusk—led the Paris workers in vair to complain in 1319 that because ‘of the heavy work of their mistery, they succumb frequently to serious and long illnesses, so that they cannot work’. Thus they agreed to provide for the sick 3 sous a week, 3 sous for the week of their convalescence, and another 3 sous ‘to strengthen them’."

 

"The more extravagant rested their heads on hedesheets of ermine covered with a linen cloth, and even had bedhangings trimmed with fur.2 Princess Philippa’s set of hangings or curtains for her bed must have been magnificent, with the coverchief pour chief de lit made of cloth of gold of Cyprus, embroidered with falcons, and furred with minever. Just how closely medieval men and women liked to snuggle down in furs in bed we do not know, but one or two hints suggest that even sleeping in fur was not unknown, although it must surely have been unusual. Marie de Savoie included in her trousseau ‘une raube a petites manches et ung mantel long pour couchier’, both of which were to be lined with grey squirrel, and she presumably slept in the short-sleeved gown"

The English fur trade in the later Middle Ages -- Veale, Elspeth M -- 1966 -- Oxford_ Clarendon P_ -- 0a08ed769eac3f3c8f7f0791a937988f -- Anna’s Archive.pdf

[ChicagoFurFan]

On 8/29/2024 at 1:22 AM, dbawss1 said:

I've fallen down a rabbit-hole doing some research for a possible next story.

 

It appears that the royals of centuries past may have had fur fetishes and had the means to fully indulge them. Furs mostly before the 1900s were worn as lining or trimming but not on the outside. They lined everything from coats to capes to underwear and nightgowns.

 

They were also forbidding anyone but people of higher social status to wear furs.

 

Fur coverings like bedspreads, carpets and covers for seating were also used.

 

A few excerpts from Furs and Fur Garments:

"Philip the Long ordered himself a garment at Christmas, 1316, consisting of six pieces, furred with miniver, of which we have the following record : The honces, or sleeves were 356 skins The mantle 300 skins, The surcoat 226 skins, The upper, or overcoat 298 skins, The second overcoat, or waistcoat skins 120. 1300 total skins"

"Queen Semiramis brought back with her from her Indian expedition over 8,000 tiger skins, with which, doubtless, she carpeted the enormous palace which she constructed in the so-called Hanging Gardens."

"Nero, as his historian Suetonius narrates, usually sat upon an ivory throne, which stood upon the skin of an African lion, whose head' admirably stuffed (for the taxidermist's art is one of the oldest known), and looking as if alive, served the terrible tyrant as a footstool"

"At Christmas, 13 16, Philip the Long of France purchased an ermine cloak, which had cost the lives of thousands of animals. This is nothing, however, to the coronation robes of the later Czar of Russia, in the construction of which over 250,000 ermines were sacrificed. The Empress Catherine II.'s coronation robes cost 25,000 roubles, and were of richly embroidered velvet, lined with ermine and edged with sable. This Imperial lady was in the habit of presenting furs of great price to friendly sovereigns, and once sent a superb sable cloak to Voltaire, as a mark of her esteem. The coronation robes of Napoleon I. preserved at Notre Dame are also lined with costly ermine."

"It would probably be frivolous to claim the ‘first’ in the modern fur coat fashion field for the spectacular Marquise de Fontenay, a fashion leader of the days immediately after the French Revolution, who ‘liked to appear in her box at the opera clad only in a tiger skin as “Diana”’, as Pearl Binder records. Likewise there is probably more of sensation than of fashion news in various accounts of how in 1779 the Duchesse de Chartres appeared at a ball at the Paris Opera House ‘enveloppee dans un manteau de Zibeline a double fourrure. exterieure et interieure, avec traine de 2 metres au moins.’ "

 

From Fur in Dress:

"Dr Veale has extracted from the Public Record Office accounts details of the expenditure by Henry VIII of £166 for 80 sables with which to line a gown of damask and embroidered velvet and an unknown but presumably much larger sum for 350 sables for another lining."

"In referring to Sarah Bernhardt as a leader of fashion, Richard Davey was true to the trend of the time, for leading actresses had taken the place of royalty and nobility as leaders of fashion and the divine Sarah was foremost of them all. ‘Her delight in magnificent dress and outrageous conduct’ were prominent parts of the living legend that she continued to be throughout her life. Furs were prominent in her off-stage drama. Montcler described her in Dinah Samuel in 1882 ‘draped in a dress of cream brocade fastened with a large band of ermine . . . from the high lace collar, a la Marie Stuart, the supple body, swathed in the ermine-bordered brocade, drew undulating lines to her feet’. In 1892, when she lived in gorgeous extravagance, her horses and carriages included ‘the fairy-tale carriage, with its two chestnut horses, in which she would drive through Paris, muffled up in chinchilla, even in July’. In Brussels in the same year she drove in a cornflower-covered Victoria, ‘wrapped in delightful greyish furs and rugs’, for the battle of flowers. For a banquet in her home in 1896 she wore a white dress, trimmed with lace, embroidered in gold and bordered with chinchilla. Maurice Rostand ‘was long to remember those magic days of childhood when Sarah tossed her chinchilla coat to her favourite greyhound’. She attended a football match at Manchester undauntedly ‘clad from head to foot in white furs’ and for a reception in her honour at the Savoy in 1912 she wore a cloak of white satin and sable."

"Fur was part of the orientalism in which Diaghilev rejoiced. Fur-trimmed everything, and contemporary references in women’s magazines in the years immediately preceding World War One record it as even being used to trim lingerie. According to one fashion publication ‘the dark, rich touch of fur is seen on practically every description of coat, and, indeed, on all garments - even to nightgowns and pyjamas. . . . Everything is fur-trimmed, from our hats and handbags to our lingerie. Lots of the newest crepe de Chine “undies” are edged with fur.’ Summer dresses as well as winter ones were fur-trimmed. There is a description of Daisy, Countess of Warwick, appearing at a garden party in 1912 in a summery dress and carrying a large muff of filmy white material trimmed with roses and bands of fur. Edwardian photographs frequently show large fur stoles draped over the arm, and Doris Langley Moore notes that furs were carried thus when there was no need for them; they were for display and for the embellishment of an outfit, not for warmth or protection."

 

From Ladies in Fur, 1900-1940

"The fur sector of the 1900 Exposition Universelle certainly contributed to its immense success; there was a real stampede for luxury. It was no accident that the sector was under the aegis of Mme. Paquin, the first woman to reach international fame in the world of fashion, who had presented on that very occasion, an extraordinary cloak style Princesse made of three hundred pieces of Canadian mink"

"The Russian Grunwaldt (who had the honour and all the publicity of receiving a visit from the Czar) exhibited a suit made of seventy-five pieces of white breitschwantz."

"In 1902 the late Queen Victoria’s furrier published in England a small volume entitled Sable and more Sable, intended for people who wore furs. Russ Winkler ran his shop in Edinburgh in elegant Princess Street; it boasted eleven departments and offered... everything imaginable made of fur; coats capes, every sort of item to go round the neck, hats, mittens, gloves, rugs, carpets, footwarmers. One is not surprised to find that there were furs for men which were absolutely the thing in those years, used both as a lining and as an outer garment. In fact the gentlemen, as soon as possible, edged his coat with sable; financiers and impresarios almost turned long haired fur into the symbol of their kind, and the appearance of the motor car unleashed a desire for the most ebullient and eye catching long haired ones, to the great joy and prolixity of the caricaturists"

"There were costumes de sportswoman, made with a hundred and seventy chinchilla skins, suits in moleskin with sable tippets, mink coats a peaux allongees - because already fur was being clipped and plucked - while Russian furs of considerable value were dyed the same colours as the clothes."

 

Fur in dress -- Ewing, Elizabeth -- 1981 -- London_ Batsford -- 0713417412 -- ff3dd0a47a4a450e366fc7991e28a0d7 -- Anna’s Archive.pdf 15.26 MB · 12 downloads fursfurgarments00daveuoft.pdf 7.12 MB · 9 downloads Ladies in furs, 1900-1940 -- Municchi, Anna -- 1992 -- Modena, Italy_ Zanfi -- 8886169299 -- b960338f75deec600719221c1d03490c -- Anna’s Archive.pdf 25.69 MB · 15 downloads

 

“Queen Semiramis brought back with her from her Indian expedition over 8,000 tiger skins, with which, doubtless, she carpeted the enormous palace which she constructed in the so-called Hanging Gardens."

sounds like a queen I’d follow!

[LeComte]

On 8/29/2024 at 7:22 AM, dbawss1 said:

I've fallen down a rabbit-hole doing some research for a possible next story.

Sounds like a fun rabbit hole. Although maybe more an ermine hole. Thanks!

[paul2809]

Queen elizebeth had a 10foot long silver fox fur boa in an older picture that i saw along time ago....