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历史的针脚
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00:00It's thought that the portrait could have been painted as a tribute to Rose, who died that year.
00:04Charles is the Restoration King.
00:07This is absolutely crucial in terms of the way that he's dressing, the way that he chooses to present himself.
00:14His position is quite precarious, and he uses dress and fashion throughout his reign
00:20as a means of consolidating his power and sending particular political messages.
00:25I find this portrait really fascinating.
00:29He's dressed in a very similar way to the gardener.
00:32The king here is essentially saying, I am like you, but at the same time, you must kneel before me.
00:40So the way Charles is dressed here is really emblematic of a shift in the male silhouette.
00:46Now what's especially interesting is that this really came about as the product of political rivalry
00:52between two cousins who were also kings.
00:56So I'm really keen to investigate more about his dress, and especially about the way that
01:02Charles used his clothing to consolidate his political place.
01:12Given that this is such a rare portrait of Charles in plain, informal clothes,
01:17I'm really interested to find out from our historical tailor, Ninia, if there's more to this suit than meets the
01:22eye.
01:23So Charles II, Restoration King, the merry monarch himself, his suit here looks quite simple.
01:31Is it actually a sort of simple outfit?
01:34He is trying to do the man of the people simple suit look, but no, it won't surprise you to
01:39hear me say it isn't as simple as it looks.
01:42For a start, you can see all these black clusters around the waist of his britches and around the bottom
01:48of his britches there.
01:49Also at his cuffs here and the shoulder, they're loops of silk ribbon.
01:55They were called knots, and that would be yards and yards of silk ribbon.
01:58And they're completely without function.
02:00They're just added for the effect.
02:03And you can see all these buttons and buttonholes.
02:06I've counted them.
02:07There are more than 100 buttons that we have to source or make.
02:11That is fiddly work.
02:12It is fiddly, and it's time-consuming, even when you work quite quickly.
02:16And I'd say I could do a nice buttonhole in maybe five minutes.
02:20That's more than a day's work just doing buttonholes.
02:22Wow.
02:23Charles had a thing for encouraging the use of English cloth, but it was really the finest cloth, still very,
02:29very costly.
02:30And I think it's quite clear to see that the lining here, what the artist is trying to show, is
02:34that it's a silky fabric.
02:36I think it's what we call shot fabric today.
02:39So the threads going one way are one colour, and the threads going the other way are a different colour.
02:45And at the time, they called it changeable, because the colour changes.
02:49Like this sample here.
02:51You can see the yellow threads coming out there and the red there.
02:54It is, in fact, changeable.
02:56It is, in fact, changeable.
02:57Yeah.
02:57Even though this looks quite simple, it is still a display of wealth.
03:00It absolutely is.
03:01There's an awful lot of money being spent on that suit, even though it's not immediately obvious where it goes.
03:10While our suit might be more ornate than first glance would suggest, the suit Charles' brother, James II, wore for
03:16his wedding to Mary of Modena is definitely fit for a king.
03:22No longer on display to the public, it's held in storage at the V&A.
03:27But curator Susan North has allowed me to come along and have a look.
03:35It's absolutely incredible.
03:38I mean, the gold and silver embroidery here, I can just imagine it kind of glinting in the candlelight.
03:44It would have been an absolute spectacle.
03:47Yes, and you can see in areas like the inside of the cuff and under the arm where it's a
03:53bit more protected.
03:55That gives a sense of just how spectacular the suit would have looked when it was worn.
04:01I'm absolutely in love with this colour of the lining.
04:04It's very similar to the colour of the lining in the portrait that we're looking at.
04:08You can see almost a familial relationship, I think, between this and the clothes that Charles is wearing in the
04:16portrait.
04:17I love the amount of buttons that we've got going up here.
04:22It's very similar to what we're recreating and with these buttonholes as well.
04:27It's remarkable that they all survive.
04:30Very often on older garments, you know, they recycle the buttons into something else and they cut them off.
04:36It seems to me to embody some of the contradictions that we see in some of Charles's wardrobe at around
04:44this time as well.
04:45You've got the wool, but you've also got the extravagance of the embroidery.
04:50You've got this sort of much simpler, more workaday silhouette in a way.
04:54But then again, you've also got this really showy extravagance as well.
04:58The coat itself, of course, was never a fashionable garment.
05:03It was strictly utilitarian.
05:04What Charles does with the suit is he decrees that this is court dress.
05:11Now, you'd never show up in court wearing your ordinary riding coat.
05:17I mean, you just wouldn't do that.
05:18So if you're going to take what is a utilitarian garment and make it court dress,
05:24well, you have to bling it up a bit.
05:32Charles's finances were tightly controlled by Parliament.
05:35So while his clothes may have been made from the most luxurious fabrics, there was no room for waste.
05:41So these britches don't fit on the width of this cloth.
05:46I'm going to do what's called piecing, which is where the excess of the pattern is folded back.
05:52And it means we're going to have an additional seam.
05:56But that's very period.
05:58Even the king is waste not want not.
06:01It was seven years apprenticeship, and then you'd have to work as a journeyman,
06:05and then you would essentially have to do an exam.
06:08And a lot of tailors specialised in particular garments, so they only made coats or they only made britches.
06:14So I do often think when we're doing these sorts of reconstructions that the period tailor would just find it
06:20absolutely laughable
06:21that we attempt to do so many different things.
06:25I probably wouldn't qualify in the period tailor size.
06:29And I'm a woman.
06:31I mean, how ridiculous is that?
06:34No, tailors were almost definitely men.
06:38I'm leaving quite small gaps between the patterns, because the seam allowance can actually be very small.
06:45The smaller amount of seam allowance you have, the less wasteful this process is going to be.
06:50And the happier the king will be.
07:03So these just get backstitched on with linen thread, and the matching silk thread is saved for things that matter,
07:13like buttonholes and sewing on trims, things that really show.
07:15So it breaks quite easily as you sew it through the fabric.
07:20The friction of that action wears away at it quite quickly.
07:22So what you have to do is run it through a block of wax,
07:26and that smooths down all the hairy fibres,
07:29and enables the thread to slide through the fabric easier.
07:38So you can see it will have this strange extra seam on the side,
07:44which is odd to the modern eye often.
07:47But when it's nicely pressed flat, you'll disappear into the coat and be barely noticeable.
07:53And I think all these funny extra seams make it more interesting for garment, personally,
07:59because they are there on the original ones.
08:05Charles II had lived through civil war, exile, and the abolition of the monarchy.
08:10More than any other English king, he understood the powerful political message the monarch's clothes conveyed,
08:17so most of the time chose to be painted in classical dress or armour.
08:21I'm keen to find out from historian Rebecca Redil how Charles navigated the tightrope
08:26between re-establishing the monarchy and separating himself from the excesses that had contributed to its fall.
08:35So here we can see Charles II in a way that is much more typical of how he liked to
08:41be represented.
08:42How important was it that he sort of transmitted this very regal style?
08:47Well, he had a really difficult balancing act,
08:50because on the one hand, he had been invited back as a monarch,
08:54so he wanted to project this image of monarchy and kingship.
08:59But then, on the other hand, he was very aware that his father, Charles I,
09:03had been executed for being too extravagant in his style and tastes,
09:10and also being a little bit remote from the people and aloof in some respects.
09:15So how did Charles II try to distance himself and his image from his father?
09:21By not actually being that extravagant on a day-to-day basis,
09:25the clothes that he wore were pretty sensible, the colours weren't loud.
09:30It was only when it came to the ceremonial occasions that he really upped the ante,
09:34as did the rest of the court.
09:35And this is where we get these fantastic accounts from Samuel Pepys
09:38about people being clad in silver, gold,
09:41him not being able to look at the court because it was hurting his eyes too much.
09:44The other thing to bear in mind as well was Charles II grew up,
09:49spent his teenage years in disguise, going from various city to city across the continent.
09:54He mixed with all and sundry.
09:56He was more of a relatable man than his father anyway.
10:01So it's a real tightrope that he's walking, isn't it?
10:04Yes, it is. Very much so.
10:12Charles had spent time at the French court while this man, Louis XIV,
10:18was establishing it as the centre of fashion, an idea that still persists today.
10:23Charles envied Louis' wealth, his style and his absolute power.
10:28And Louis fully understood the relationship between political power and the spectacle of fashion.
10:33There's no doubt that Charles was influenced by his cousin's sartorial splendor.
10:40Despite his careful manipulation of his public image,
10:44Charles II's court with its French tastes was still considered profligate.
10:48The public's antipathy was intensified by three disastrous events.
10:53War, plague and in 1666 the Great Fire,
10:57an event which many blamed on the French.
10:59So on the 7th of October 1666 Charles issued a declaration
11:05that his court would reject French fashions and create an English style.
11:10And this was the long vest worn with a knee-length coat.
11:13This gave the male silhouette a much leaner appearance,
11:17a complete change from the more triangular doublet and hose.
11:21Now because of this and his championing of the vest,
11:25Charles II is credited with creating the three-piece suit.
11:29What's unusual in fashion history is that we can place this innovation to its exact date.
11:34And it's all thanks to Samuel Pepys.
11:388th of October 1666.
11:41The King hath yesterday in council declared his resolution for setting a fashion for clothes.
11:46It will be a vest.
11:48I know not well how, but it is to teach the nobility thrift.
11:53Sadly for Charles, according to Pepys,
11:56Louis thought so little of his cousin's vests that he dressed his servants in them.
12:28So have there been any particular challenges so far?
12:31No, it's fairly straightforward.
12:32We're really doing the preparation now to actually begin the epic button-holing.
12:37And so how many people would have worked on the original outfit?
12:41I think, yes, he would have had probably a journeyman tailor working with him as well.
12:47So the King's tailor is a master tailor.
12:49He's the one that would have cut out all of the pattern pieces
12:51and decided where the pieces were going and all of that.
12:55He would have then handed it to his journeyman tailor.
12:57So let's say that's Harriet for Jonah and Taylor for today.
13:00She's doing the actual putting the pieces together once it's been cut.
13:04And then we'd have an apprentice.
13:05That can be Hannah, isn't it?
13:07So Hannah's got to a stage in her apprenticeship
13:09where she's allowed to put some of the pieces together,
13:12but we've given her the linings rather than the expensive top fabric.
13:17So would you like to try a working button-hole?
13:19I would.
13:20I would like to try very much.
13:21Great.
13:21What you need to do is use this button-hole cut.
13:25Wow.
13:26Okay.
13:27So you hold that on there, kind of upside like this,
13:30like this, following the line like that,
13:33and then you're just going to tap it smartly with the hammer.
13:36Wow.
13:37This is a little more tool-heavy than I was expecting.
13:41Okay.
13:43Oh.
13:45There you go.
13:48Perfect.
13:48Lovely.
13:49So then,
13:51you take the needle and thread.
13:53So we're going to put the needle through the slit.
13:56Take it all the way through,
13:57so they're not still going through to the back.
13:59Yeah.
14:00And then we're going to go back in,
14:02and we're going to come up just beside
14:04where that thread was coming out.
14:06Right.
14:07Yeah.
14:07That's it.
14:08And before you take the needle all the way through,
14:10you're going to loop your thread around the end of your needle,
14:13and this is what makes the button-hole stitch.
14:15And pull it back towards yourself,
14:17so you don't get too much retangle.
14:19And what should happen,
14:20pull it back towards the edge of the hole.
14:22That's it.
14:23And that's made your first little button-hole knot.
14:26Great.
14:26And you keep going until you get all the way to the end of the slit.
14:33Okay.
14:33I feel like it's going to take me a lot longer than five minutes.
14:37Well, it will, yes.
14:37This is why Taylor's had apprenticeships of seven years,
14:42because there's so many things like that
14:44that you've really got to perfect the art of
14:46before you'd be allowed to get anywhere near the king's coat.
14:49What's incredible is that we're looking at these tiny details,
14:52of which there are hundreds on this garment.
14:56And, I mean, the amount of work and time
14:58that goes into just these tiny details is immense, isn't it?
15:02All that's involved is mere hours of labour.
15:05Mere hours of labour.
15:06And so you're telling me that this,
15:08that, you know, I'm killing myself over here,
15:11is actually unskilled labour.
15:13Essentially, it is, really.
15:14It's not worth an awful lot.
15:16It's a shame.
15:18So, I think I'm really coming up to the end of this buttonhole.
15:23I've just been finishing the last edge.
15:28If you lay it down on the surface,
15:31then we can slip it off.
15:34So, let's have a look.
15:35Okay.
15:37I think I might have accidentally...
15:40Yeah, I'm not sure your button's going to go through there.
15:43Shall I see?
15:44Shall I have a go?
15:45Okay, let's see.
15:45Ooh, is it going to go?
15:49Just about.
15:50It's fine, just about.
15:53It's not complicated, but it is very fiddly.
15:56You have to be very dexterous, don't you?
15:59You do.
16:00And there's still an awful lot of hours' work,
16:02even in an apparently very simple suit.
16:04Yeah, hours and hours.
16:05I mean, who'd have thought that a suit fit for a king
16:08would take so much work?
16:09I guess it's kind of obvious when you think about it.
16:12Yeah.
16:17Charles II's wardrobe accounts are held at the National Archives
16:20and provide a fascinating insight into his carefully constructed image.
16:32Looking at the actual accounts of Charles II's wardrobe is quite a strange feeling, really.
16:39It's really exciting seeing all of this stuff,
16:41how, you know, the detail that it's been documented.
16:43This was clearly something quite important that money was being spent on.
16:48And actually seeing it here in this glorious handwriting
16:51is really amazing.
16:53It feels quite special.
16:59So some of the first orders that we can see in the account book,
17:03unsurprisingly, are for his coronation robes of purple velvet
17:07lined with powdered ermine and laced with embroidered gold lace
17:14and is really about creating a spectacle of power.
17:18This is what a king looks like.
17:20These accounts show that Charles loved clothes,
17:23ordering on average between 30 and 40 new suits a year.
17:27However, while his cousin Louis XIV might have been able to parade around
17:31in diamond-covered coats,
17:33Charles knew he had neither the money nor the political clout for power dressing.
17:38We see a lot of plain cuts,
17:40a lot of muted colours as well,
17:43especially grey.
17:44And also this one I particularly like,
17:47which is references to sad colour.
17:54So the vest first makes its appearance in the accounts in 1666.
18:00And we see it numerous times here.
18:04For making His Majesty a purple cloth coat, hose and vest.
18:08We see vest really starting to feature throughout.
18:12However, while Charles was really proclaiming this as an English style,
18:18what he didn't mention so much at court
18:22was that this was actually an order to his French tailor, Claude Sorceau.
18:29So Claude Sorceau is quite an important character here.
18:32He was Charles' tailor when Charles was in exile.
18:36Charles brought him back to England when the monarchy was reinstated
18:40and he remained his tailor for the next 10 years.
18:44So this really shows that although Charles was very keen
18:48on promoting English fashions,
18:51he couldn't fully escape the influence of French style.
18:56For me, the most telling and poignant entry
18:59of the wardrobe accounts is the very first.
19:01What's interesting about this is that despite these accounts
19:05starting in 1660, the year of Charles' restoration to the throne,
19:10they're stated as being in the 13th and 14th year of his reign.
19:15So what we're seeing here is the reign of Charles II
19:18being dated right back to the time that his father was executed.
19:24So all of those intervening years have just been written out of this history.
19:34Despite only being at the start of their sartorial journey,
19:37it's easy to recognise the vest and coat introduced by Charles II
19:41as the forerunners of today's waistcoat and jackets.
19:46The britches, however, are another matter.
19:52These are his britches.
19:53They have a waistband.
19:54It's going to have a button at the front.
19:57And at the back, there's a little gap.
19:59So on the waistband, there'll be some eyelets.
20:02So he can sort of put weight on and let the back out of it
20:05for a bit of ease, but he can't get smaller.
20:09At the moment, I'm putting in some gathering cords
20:12so that we can draw them up into the waistband.
20:15If I pull this one, this form of gathering is now called cartridge pleating.
20:23It forms the sort of folds that you can imagine on a cartridge belt.
20:27It's just like where you put the cartridges in.
20:31But these aren't going to fit high on the waist.
20:33They're going to be quite low slung.
20:36If you look at the painting, there's a whole abundance of shirt
20:39hanging out over the top.
20:40He really does give the impression of someone who has, you know,
20:44he's got his coat open, he's got the shirt out
20:47and the britches are sort of hanging low.
20:48It's really very, very like he's undressing.
20:52Yeah, a very sort of sensual look
20:56compared to the sort of slightly more buttoned up clothes of other eras.
21:01They might look a little bit short compared to trousers these days
21:04and obviously quite vulnerably loose.
21:07But he would have had a pair of drawers underneath, linen drawers.
21:11And they were drawn in around the leg a bit more snugly.
21:14So there wouldn't have been anything inadvertent being displayed.
21:20I think that side of things was kept for private matters.
21:28He was a bit free with his private matters.
21:31Have you either miscounted or done one extra?
21:34Well, then that's just there.
21:36So is it worth pinning on, say, 16 or just on one front?
21:41Yeah.
21:45They look really nice.
21:47Already?
21:48They do.
21:50They do.
21:56Aww.
21:56Look at that.
21:59That is gorgeous.
22:01You can imagine him follicking round.
22:03Yeah.
22:06They are merry britches, aren't they?
22:08Yeah.
22:09You see, that's the joy of it, isn't it?
22:10That even though there are original garments that we can look at
22:13when you make something and it's got its freshness about it,
22:16it's really exciting and it is slightly different,
22:19but bounce back in the king.
22:27I initially chose this suit because I was fascinated by its simplicity.
22:32But as I've learned was often the case with Charles II,
22:35there's much more to it than meets the eye.
22:38Worn on the body, clothes change from lifeless fabric
22:41into a potent means of communication.
22:44I cannot wait to find out what I can learn from taking a walk
22:48in the king's new clothes.
23:09Oh, look at that.
23:12That is amazing.
23:14That is so good.
23:16You've got this real sort of elegance in the arms
23:19and then these gorgeous cuffs here.
23:24And then these just sit so low down.
23:28It seems really unnatural.
23:30So you've got, obviously, I knew you had all of this volume here,
23:32but it's just kind of the contrast between the two
23:37is quite an odd feeling.
23:39We don't sort of associate this with a men's silhouette,
23:43especially with a king's silhouette.
23:45But it just feels...
23:48And we expect men to be more built up around the shoulders
23:52than they were then.
23:53Exactly, yeah.
23:54And today, the whole point of tailoring,
23:56you know, Savile Row style tailoring,
23:58is to create that broad sort of triangular torso
24:01that we associate with very manly men
24:05and sort of epitome of the sort of classical masculine ideal.
24:08And you'd never want to emphasise your hip area.
24:09No.
24:11It's all about narrow hips.
24:13Yeah.
24:13You seem quite comfortable there.
24:15Yeah.
24:16I think I would have been very comfortable there.
24:19I think I'd be comfortable wearing this today.
24:22I love it.
24:23You could quite happily kind of lounge about in it.
24:26And I guess that's kind of the point.
24:28That's brilliant.
24:30It's the posing.
24:31You can stand still in that and look amazing
24:34as long as you just open up
24:35and have a bit of lining on show.
24:37But that's the effect that it has on you,
24:39like feeling these different proportions,
24:41feeling the fabrics, feeling the clothes on you,
24:44actually makes you stand
24:46like we used to see people stand in that time.
24:53It's a very exciting feeling.
24:55Clothes want to be worn a certain way, don't they?
24:57Yeah, exactly.
24:59And the effect that they have on the stance
25:01and the way that they look,
25:02it's kind of, yeah, living history.
25:04I'm particularly enjoying seeing the flash
25:07of the little rows of buttons
25:08when you turn around
25:10because they're just so sweet, aren't they?
25:13And Hannah, all those ribbons just look great, don't they?
25:16I know.
25:16It's so bizarre to have seen them in a massive black pile
25:20and then to all of a sudden see them flowing.
25:23You can imagine just all the movement in there.
25:26It's amazing.
25:27I think it's less silly
25:29because those britches on their own are,
25:31they're a very silly garment.
25:33Yes.
25:34But with the outfit, they make sense.
25:37Yes, they do.
25:38On the body.
25:38It's really nice.
25:40It makes me feel very elegant.
25:42Well, you look very elegant.
25:43It makes me feel very graceful.
25:44Mm-hmm.
25:52Seeing the outfit of Charles II made up
25:56kind of blew my mind.
25:58When we went to see the portrait,
26:00it's in a very dark room
26:02and it can't be lit too harshly
26:04because everything's very old.
26:05It's also been above the fireplace for a long time.
26:08So it looks very dark
26:10and it's difficult to see the detail.
26:14So I was initially just bowled over
26:16by really how bright it is.
26:19It just looks exquisite.
26:20And also how you can really see the different details.
26:24You can really see the silk bows.
26:26You can really see the lining.
26:28It just looks incredibly elegant.
26:31We're moving towards a point today in men's fashion
26:34where gender binaries are really being broken down.
26:37So we actually see some contemporary designers
26:41designing outfits not a million miles away from this
26:44or certainly taking on these ideas
26:46around decoration, around frippery, I guess.
26:51So it's almost like we've come full circle
26:53right back to Charles II in Restoration England.
27:04In a moment, the bright and dark sides
27:07of Ford's daggling dream.
27:09We're opening time Joyce over
27:11Oh, this is Dad drove F
27:12In a moment, the memory of herself
27:13But I'm really looking forward to her
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