The Victorian Foot Fad Inspired by a Horror Novel : Weird Fashion History

[@myersNOTmeyers]

With all this foot research in her search history, I'd hate to see the online ads Nicole gets now. Truly, an academic servant to the people.

[@silentlyjudgingyou]

OMG the horror, she took one for the team there.

[@katereid4167]

Oh I did not think of that and… ooooof thanks Nicole for taking this hit for us

[@leemasters3592]

Hopefully she used private browsing.

[@helenl3193]

😮 #ThoughtsandPrayers for poor Nicole!

[@lazyperfectionist3978]

thank the stars for adblockers

[@popejaimie]

Man, manic pixie dream girls are older than I thought

[@bustedkeaton]

​@spitt3640 but she does wear shoes. Shes got mens slippers on in the first scene.

[@floraposteschild4184]

It all started with pixies.

[@TryinaD]

@@bustedkeatonthose are oversized though

[@VultureSkins]

The moment she described what the woman was wearing, I thought the same thing!

[@lucakrokrowinkel9576]

The fuck does that even mean?

[@originofclothing]

I wonder if this craze partly led to our modern idea that Victorians thought ankles were scandalous and sexy???🤔

[@florindalucero3236]

I was going to say the same thing!

[@faameexplains1192]

Probably not. In reality, Victorians didn't actually think ankles themselves were sexy, it was more of a innuendo/meme. Almost like strip tease, the idea stems from the fact that ankles were almost always covered. So the ankle being revealed is... suggestive

[@originofclothing]

@@faameexplains1192 right…that’s exactly what I’m saying. Nowadays people have this idea that the Victorians were so prude and modest. But many people today miss all the nuances of the period. We know the sexy ankle thing is a myth, but what does the average person think when they see the dichotomy of modest clothing and then these kinds of inside jokes about feet and ankles? Have these fandom novelty items played into the myth?

[@hannahstraining7476]

According to Bernadette Banner, the "Victorians were scandalized by ankles" notion is a myth.

[@darthbee18]

After this video, it's hard for me to think otherwise 👀👀

[@Dom_Maretti]

So...while many people today may not know this story, its broad influence on the history of pop culture proves that it is more...than a footnote.

[@AuDHD_Mom]

I see what you did there, and it made me happy.

[@ZiggyWhiskerz]

HEYO!

[@greystorms9632]

Underrated comment.

[@donnakawana]

So amazing... I love this channel. I learn so much every time I watch! 🫵🏽🪨💗🫵🏽

[@NicholasS4000]

​@@greystorms9632What is underrated about it? Hehe.

[@ameliaroseillustrations]

✨Nicole should team up w/ Max Miller (Tasting History) and make the Victorian foot ice cream! That would be great! 😂😂✨

[@loscolores1324]

I they do 😊

[@ameliaroseillustrations]

@@loscolores1324 Did they? Where can I see that?

[@cypriennezed5640]

✨️ Manic Pixie Dream Trilby ✨️

[@helenl3193]

Manic Trilby Dream girl?

[@atinycrow]

Manic Pixie Dream Foot

[@ZethsCraftDesk]

Nicole really went, "I had to suffer psychic damage from finding all this out so now you're all gonna suffer with me." XD

[@JoaoPessoa86]

how has there not been a Tarantino version of this?

[@Rotten_Ralph]

That was my husband's question as well

[@helenl3193]

He always said he would only make 10 films - maybe it's all building up to a blood drenched Trilby remake

[@werelemur1138]

My first thought was "I know what Tarantino's next film will be."

[@JoaoPessoa86]

@@werelemur1138 it'll be his dramatic Oscar bait period piece

[@Ilovevintage77]

Omg my husband first response was to remark on Quentin tarentinos love of feet as well!! I didn’t know about that!

[@kirstenpaff8946]

Nicole has the look of someone who has seen things they can never unsee.

[@SuziQ.]

Now we all have that look.

[@IonIsFalling7217]

And here we were, reading “Lord of the Flies” in high school literature class.

[@Stephanie-hr9mk]

Most underrated comment I’ve ever seen

[@fioregiallo]

I had to read Tess of the Durbervilles in senior year. I couldn't do it. I would have much rather read Lord of the Flies lmaooo

[@Staptra]

Fun fact, here in Spain we have and ice cream called "frigopie" (frigofoot) that is the silhouette of a foot. It's strawberry flavored, and I don't think it has anything to do with Trilby, but I know that people outside the country find it funny/weird. Glad to know that people in the past were much more weird about feet than now (?)

[@donny2223]

In the UK we had ‘freaky feet’ ice cream in the 80s!

[@Staptra]

@@donny2223 haha, I think our frigopie is from the 80s too!

[@deanteasdale8261]

It was Funny Feet in the North East, sometimes the big toe had a chocolate cap 🙂

[@TheSkatersmum]

​​@@deanteasdale8261yes funny feet in south east and south UK too

[@michellecornum5856]

I'm surprised. Not by the feet or the novel, but by what she's wearing. I picked up Butterick 4954 and was captivated by the jacket and the striped skirt. (Mine is a dark blue jacket with a gold and white striped skirt.) Trilby lives on!

[@janettechapple1782]

I made that jacket for my daughter to wear in a horse riding showing class along with a full skirt. It’s gorgeous.

[@notallwhowanderarelost4797]

Wow! I knew of Trilby hats and what it means when someone is called “a Svengali” but had no idea where the terms came from, much less that they were connected to each other or to feet 🦶📖😂 Thanks for bringing us weird history!

[@sharimeline3077]

Same! I also knew people in the Victorian era were pretty weird, but I never imaged this.

[@hexonyou]

@@sharimeline3077 honestly I think a lot of people underestimate how weird humanity has always been lol. There's a lot of paving over that in the mainstream narrative of history, but you scratch the surface and the weird has always been going strong

[@KSilverlode]

This makes me think of Gilbert and Sullivan's Mikado with Katisha telling people that her left elbow is "a miracle of loveliness" that people come miles to see! But that came out in 1885. So I wonder if both Trilby (horror) and the Mikado(satire) are offshoots of some culture-wide admiration of random body parts coming out of Aestheticism?

[@pipermcpickles5283]

Oh my gosh, yes! I thought of that reference as well! 😂

[@samaraisnt]

It sounds like a clear and obvious joke lol.

[@KSilverlode]

@@samaraisnt Oh, the Mikado reference is definitely a joke. It's just that G&S were constantly skewering cultural fads, so it may have been lampooning an obsession with beauty in other odd body parts that wasn't meant as a joke, if you follow me.

[@ByGaslight]

I read about this in the dictionary of fads when I was in middle school and no one believed me about the foot ice cream.

[@samaraisnt]

Justice for ByGaslight! Fitting name!

[@11orana]

Years ago, at a folklife festival, I met a man who was a foot model for artists and many commercial advertisements. That was the first time I head the phrase "Trilby feet." He went barefoot as often as possible to show off his attributes. His beautiful feet were definitely enviable for me, since I have RA. One year he showed up at an event for older ladies and we felt very sad, because our feet were so twisted and arthritic and his were so beautiful.

[@AngryTheatreMaker]

That sounds amazing!

[@theowatson791]

This is a poem

[@hannahstraining7476]

It is decreed by the gods that we must always yearn for what we cannot have...for you, beautiful feet, for me slender hips.

[@YochevedDesigns]

Google "David Duchovny feet". That man is sexy down to his toes!

[@samaraisnt]

@hannahstraining7476 Wow…I have wide shapely hips and think thin hips are very unwomanly and awful. I actually wish my hips were wider! Do people say “Monroe would be more beautiful if she just had…thin narrow hips.” I feel like shapely curved hips are the only constant female beauty ideal for the past-1000 years? lol.

[@katereid4167]

Love this - your facial expressions through a lot of it are “I CANNOT believe I’m actually talking about this on a video” 😂

[@florindalucero3236]

Can’t help but notice the remarkable similarity between the Svengali, and Rasputin, both in character, and look. I wonder if Rasputin took inspiration from Trilby.

[@adaddinsane]

Nah, just straight anti-Semitism. They were evil, therefore they were drawn a certain way at that time. But we're over that now, aren't we. Aren't we? (Oh wait, Rowling's goblins - no, we haven't gotten over it yet.)

[@roxita7097]

😂 highly unlikely since he was a peasant, and barely literate. Rasputin just looks like a typical mystic monk or holy man. That was the look he was going for ( he was not a monk). Svengali was clearly inspired by horrible anti semitic troupes, that was the common look of what people thought a nefarious influence looked like back in the day. They illustrators did not invent it.

[@imogenx9145]

As someone with a lifelong foot phobia, this was a tough watch but interesting!

[@ethanhayward2424]

We are complete opposites 🤙😎

[@walquirp13]

How do you deal with your own foot if you have foot phobia? Honest question.

[@imogenx9145]

@@walquirp13 quickly and with lots of hand washing afterwards

[@ethanhayward2424]

@@imogenx9145 so it’s more of a being grossed out type of thing? At least you don’t have foot fungus!?

[@imogenx9145]

@ethanhayward2424 it's a very intense disgust that makes me want to puke just thinking about them. Painting toes at least makes me feel they are less disgusting.

[@gracie9658]

This is honestly one of the funniest things I've ever heard of. The fact that this story was so popular and influencial yet few people seem to know about it. The disturbing fascination people have with feet is not a new thing I see. I also did not think that fandoms existed in the 19th century. Thank you Nicole for doing all the weird research and introducing us to this truly fascinating tale.

[@jennypaxton8159]

Oh, fandoms existed. Fandoms were rabid. The Sherlock Holmes fandom was legendary!

[@gracie9658]

@@jennypaxton8159 That's so cool ! I associate fandoms with the internet, which might be stupid.

[@jennypaxton8159]

@@gracie9658 Nah, fandoms are heavily internet-centric today, so it makes sense! I kind of love how universal fandoms are, though.

[@roxita7097]

There is a reason why the book it’s forgotten, i’ve read it and it’s shockingly bad. 😂

[@aaabbb8812]

Footbinding took place for centuries in China.

[@heidikleiber7703]

I had a cat named Trilby, although I knew nothing of the character. She was blue grey with white on one upper lip, her chest, belly, and of course, her feet.

[@user-ju9kf3ud5e]

Found an article in my home paper saying that female models were walking away from the profession because they felt that Trilby degraded it. Also, a Baltimore company sold Trilby chewing gum. :) This was a really interesting video!

[@michellebyrom6551]

As I watched, I couldn't push away the memory of Her Pretty Foot scene in La Bohême. Looked it up, written around 1893-95. I wonder who influenced who?

[@Trassel242]

I knew of Trilby hats, and I have heard the term “Svengali” before, but I didn’t know a thing about this story/play/pop culture phenomenon. One thing that’s interesting about a lot of these very old books etc is that while they may seem clichéd today, at the time, they were often (well, sometimes) groundbreaking and the first ones to do whatever it is we consider so typical of stories these days. I had no idea that Svengali was supposed to be some kind of anti-Semitic character, the name always struck me as some strange joke (?) combining a common-at-the-time Swedish name, Sven, with the word Bengali, for some kind of Swedish-Indian character. I thought it was some kind of joke about “foreign music producers influencing our music” or something.

[@SuziQ.]

Didn’t they call John Derek a Svengali? I always thought it meant an attractive and powerful man who influenced (?) a younger woman.

[@Trassel242]

@@SuziQ. I don’t know who John Derek is, but if it’s from an Anglophone context, I probably haven’t heard of it. It’s a term I have found used in the occasional newspaper article about, say, The Beatles if the journalist who wrote it was old enough to assume that that’s a good reference point that people can still relate to. It’s like making a Groucho Marx reference: most people these days will maybe find it vaguely familiar because they’ve seen it referenced in some other bit of media, but nothing beyond that.

[@beauwilliamson3628]

Svengali in the book is one of the most gifted musicians in Europe, but because of hard core prejudice, can't get the success he deserves. He becomes bitter against the society that refuses to give him his due, and tries to take revenge (in some way) by hypnotizing Trillby into being a puppet to his talent. (not to say that his description, and other comments in the book are not pretty racist, but I would guess the author would not have thought himself anti-semetic).

[@frenchfriar]

I just took a quick look, and I didnt find an antique foot shaped ice cream mold, sadly, but I did find one example of a pewter woman's shoe ice cream mold. And modern foot-shaoed ice cream molds are still being sold! I think that's just the funniest thing ever. It would be so easy to make a nice silicon mold of some lady foot model's foot to make ice cream from today, I'm almost surprised that it's not a thing. I'm not that into feet, but I love novelty, and having an ice cream foot on the dessert table would definitely spark a conversation. With fruit leather toenails. I know, I'm going to the *special* hell for that one. What a fascinating bit of forgotten history this was!

[@helenl3193]

There's definitely a foot-shape ice cream lolly you could get in parts of Europe about 15 years ago - my then bf + his brother were entrusted with a beach supply run and got them for his sister, who had a real phobia, and I - who realised I'd been misusing the term, I don't like feet and thought it was a mean trick but she literally dropped the packet and was traumatised. They were all in their late 20s, but I guess some sibling teasing stuff you just don't grow out of?

[@wendylorimer5663]

"With fruit leather toenails." Just no 😖

[@noexpensespentstudios]

Was the trilby hat a women's hat to begin with, or co-opted into Trilby's outfit? If it started out as a women's style to later become a men's hat that seems to be unusual in itself since normally fashion styles seem to get adopted the other way.

[@beth12svist]

I was wondering the same thing!

[@NicoleRudolph]

It's close to the type of hat found in traditional dress in the Bavarian region of Germany or Austria. It has a lot of names, but wasn't so much a "fashion" item until the 1890s. I've seen it first with women's wear- common with suits and sportswear like bicycling ensembles. It just used a lot of various names until that point!

[@ihnatko]

Thanks for this video! I finally understand a reference I came across years ago, while researching a fin de siècle artist's model. She was described as "the very embodiment of Trilby" in contemporary accounts. When I read that phrase, I did a quick search, clocked that Trilby was a fictional artist's model, thought "yeah, that makes sense" and thought no more about it. How interesting to learn that Trilbymania was a certified Thing!

[@CassiBlack]

I love how you can see how disturbed this research left Nichole, even before she gets to the foot shaped ice cream molds. I bet her targeted adds are going to be quite interesting for a while after this one!

[@Trassel242]

If you’re looking for ideas for future videos, how about a very Swedish turn-of-the-century story? It’s the true story about the “circus princess” Elvira Madigan and her rich husband, who fell in love with her because of her beauty on stage and who hastily eloped with her on a whirlwind honeymoon over in Denmark, and tragically as their love could not be, they both decided to die together, like Romeo and Juliet. Except the real story was not as romantic or sentimental at all. Ingmar Bergman made a film out of the popular romanticised idea of this event, and that version is what most people will think is the “truth of Elvira Madigan”.

[@Stephanie-hr9mk]

I love how people really never change

[@SuziQ.]

It’s pretty depressing. We’ve been to the moon, yet someone will pay to look at jacked up, Only Fans feet.

[@FernBlackwood1995]

​@@SuziQ. That's far more funny than depressing, as someone diagnosed with chronic melancholic depression.

[@kitkat8231]

I’d call it dark humor​@@FernBlackwood1995

[@Ambivlaent]

KZbin reels brought me here and I was NOT disappointed! So fascinating, and you can see all the research that was put into the making of this video ❤ loved it

[@darthbee18]

Bah Gawd, Du Maurier really be like "I have foot fetish and I'll make it everyone's problem" 😏😈🔥

[@Menuki]

Before the internet, how else would you find like minded individuals to share your passion

[@thewol7534]

Is Trilby's author any relation to Daphne duMarier? She was kind of into obsessions too.

[@shroomyk]

I was wondering too! Apparently George is Daphne's grandfather.

[@marthaschwartz5031]

He was. Also, George's daughter, Sylvia, married Arthur Llewelyn Davies and their sons were the inspiration for J. M. Barrie's Peter Pan. George's first novel was Peter Ibbotson that was adapted as a play, movie, and an opera.

[@Leslie-zn9ly]

7:54 “…Trilby, the pretty heroine of Du Maurier’s,”- The article intro had me wondering this as well

[@hollingsworth_hound]

It's so interesting the way something like a novel can take the world by storm and actually cause a noticeable change in society then be completely forgotten by subsequent generations. Another such instance was Little Lord Fauntleroy, which is credited with popularizing the name Cedric (itself coined by Walter Scott in Ivanhoe, another literary sensation) as well as the archetypal little-boy outfits we associate with the late 19th century: the curly golden locks, short pants, flouncy bowtie, etc.

[@RCZeta919]

That's such a wild story! Also WHAT a strong look. Catch me cosplaying Trilby this summer too.

[@indiabilly]

I have zero interest in feet under normal circumstances and yet I’m fascinated and love every bit of this, thank you for teaching me something I never thought I needed to know! Xx

[@TimoteoDeBaum]

Trilby/Svengali sounds like a modern Cinderella fairy tale for the 20s 😂 what a funny and dramatic story, I can see this being retold again in our 2020s. We love a good rags to riches story and a good twist 🎉

[@SuziQ.]

Not unlike Pygmalion and My Fair Lady, but with a foot fetish?

[@bananahpolkadot]

KZbin shorts brought me here, and I was not disappointed!!! Great video!!

[@JadyLester]

Fantastic! I had never read the book but have been peripherally curious about Trilby for... a couple of decades now. I joined an Austin Powers fan club under the name of Trilby Liselotte, Triple Agent. I just liked the name. To know about her cult following and where Svengali came from is a delight to me. I too would've wanted to be a bohemian artist's muse.

[@hannahstraining7476]

As always, a fascinating ride! While the Trilby craze may seem ridiculous to us, imagine how some of our recent crazes will seem a hundred years from now. For instance, many people pay hundreds of dollars for pre-ripped and torn jeans. Imagine what Nicole's great granddaughter will be saying about that on her KZbin channel 😉

[@LPanne_Stitches]

History is wild. I had to check that today's date wasn't april first.

[@Algrenion]

the shame in me as my little obsessive history brain slowly opened a new window and started searching for Trilbyana merchandise before the video was even over...

[@RandallChase1]

This is the original fandom story. It’s like the popularity of vampires after Twilight, wizards after Harry Potter, everything involving Star Wars or Star Trek. All that said, very interesting story!!

[@aprilgreen2006]

There is a person in my area that was on the tv, when I was younger, and another guy took over when the original left. He is known as Svengoolie, which I do believe the original person who was Svengoolie derived his name from Svengali. Now Rich Coz who is the now Svengoolie they both play the old horror movies and some of the goofy ones and so on. I have always wondered where his name came from and now, I know. Thank you for this tidbit of history.

[@solayange]

I took a 19th century theatre class in uni and we discussed trilby, that just awakened a memory… but the aspect i wasnt familiar with was the superfan aspect… is trilby the first fandom? Does anyone know more about this?

[@NicoleRudolph]

From what I saw it wasn't the first fandom, but it was the first with merchandise and on such a wide sweeping level. In some ways, it's the first that resembles our modern version of it!

[@acecat2798]

I didn't think we could get worse than foot ice cream, but then we had to bring eugenics in. Rare sentences.

[@Eneri-z9v]

My deepest inner child question 🙋‍♀️, has anyone ever made a Miss Mary Mack black dress 👗 with silver buttons? What year was Miss Mary Mack based in? Was she of European ancestry or was she of African ancestry?😊

[@rickwrites2612]

I read it was either A performer in Ephraim Williams circus who performed with elephants. Or a reference to the ship the USS Merrimack , black with silver rivets., civil war era

[@nightembergrl]

Did this correlate with the span of the 1800s that Bobs got popular for a short spell? I remember a video mentioned for like a year or two short hair was really popular and Trilby had short hair.

[@NicoleRudolph]

This is a few years after the fad (and a bit longer style), but would possibly help explain when short hair bobs arrived a decade or so later and was just this style!

[@AnnaMorimoto]

13:43 Facinating, how you theorize a possible connection between the novel and pointy toed shoes going out of fashion!

[@MWPNW]

Well, if ice cream was molded into asparagus, fish and a multitude of other things, why not feet?

[@cherylrosbak4092]

I'm pleasantly surprised to see women with Morton's Toe in those photos of beautiful feet. Many people now think it's unbearably ugly. This is all fascinating. I might have to dig up the text of the book.

[@anonymousperson4214]

They do? I've always thought they were really pretty

[@cherylrosbak4092]

@@anonymousperson4214 Yup. I've seen them called monkey toes. I've been told I shouldn't wear sandals, which is ridiculous.

[@tabithavanderpool418]

Morton's toe?

[@rickwrites2612]

I thought they were just normal variation, maybe even more common, certainly not more or less pretty on its own.

[@ZipplyZane]

@@tabithavanderpool418 Second toe appears longer than your big toe. I sorta have it, but my second toe usually curls up just a bit so they seem the same size.

[@niamhfox9559]

The long version of why Twitch doesn't let anyone show their feet on stream.

[@SnapshotOfASoul]

15:43 A high instep and arch being signs of good breeding is hilarious to me. I have those and I have nothing but inheirited health issues. It also makes it an utter nightmare to find shoes because, as a result, my toes point somewhat into the air, not dissimilar to a Barbie foot.

[@rubysilver3299]

I have feet like that, and I usually buy Rieker shoes.

[@HelenFerguson-b1g]

Rhodope and her sandal as an old version of Cinderella reminds me that lovely shoes and feet are not a new thing in human history.

[@myyoutubeaccount2780]

Stories like these make me wonder what iconic books of my generation will be remembered and which will be forgotten, It's hard to imagine books like harry potter ever getting forgotten. Some books are very dear to me like the warrior cat books and I hope they are remembered. And then some books like Divergent and those other ripoff books that I think will be forgotten.

[@chamberswagner2010]

I love this bit of weird and wild history! Thank you for taking us down this rabbit hole. I had heard of a trilby hat but none of the rest of this. Wild!

[@nondisclosureable]

Thank you for all your hard work following the footprints Trilby has left through history.

[@grannyt6819]

Nevermind the feet, your hair, especially the flame detail, is spectacular! Wow, wow, wow!

[@ushere5791]

wow--what a fascinating rabbit-hole you jumped down, nicole!! i had always wondered why some hats were called trilbies and why some pipes had foot-shaped bowls...! thank you for taking us on this wild ride, and please share the rest of your researches with us when you can. :)

[@woodspriteful]

Thanks you for dragging us down this rabbit hole. What a delight!

[@bellablue5285]

I still don't understand the foot thing (neither hate nor particularly like them, just have a couple myself), but for some reason I'm surprised that it was a thing that far back. Trend of the time I suppose 😅 This was weirdly fascinating, interesting rabbit hole to fall down

[@ultimateskillchain]

"just have a couple myself" I snorted 😂

[@TheodoraBrass]

Thinking of the 60’s and 70’s and how popular the footprint symbol became. Right up there with the peace sign and the smiley face! Linda Ronstadt leaned in to the bohemian folk aesthetic and often performed barefoot on stage.

[@jaimeanita5501]

When I was a kid , the ice cream trucks had an ice cream on a stick that was strawberry and foot shaped with a gum ball in the big toe; surely this is why, I think they still have them.

[@blindknitter]

I've had those....

[@justinanovak8040]

Love your channel Nicole! You always include citations and photos of real articles/advertisements etc., unlike some channels that claim to be historical.

[@sheleavitt06]

I had know idea but I can’t wait to tell everybody that a Victorian novel is why they get their pedicures😂

[@carribreckenridge2856]

I came here from the reel. Keep em coming, it works!

[@acecat2798]

"So you too could have foot-shaped ice cream from your favorite novel" clearly damaged Nicole as much as it did me.

[@sybildisobedience9969]

I lost a lot of channels I used to follow, but now I feel complete again! I don’t know if you’re a professor, or the nature of your research is part of arch/anfhro or continuity, or museum, or just personal interest, but whatever it is that inspires you which you generously share with us, it’s brilliant, you’re brilliant. Thank you so much!!!

[@999Lumen]

Who would think they would print this foot fetish weirdness. The Victorians were sooooo pervy. Thanks for this though - I had no idea!

[@hannahstraining7476]

No need to be judgmental. Foot fetishists cause no harm. The neuroscientist Vilayanur Ramachandran suggests that the part of the brain that processes the sensation people get from feet is next to the area that perceives genital stimulation, which may account for some people's foot fetishes.

[@eeveum]

@@hannahstraining7476you took a light hearted comment too seriously. Foot fetishists arent oppressed 😂 find another avenue for your outrage

[@FernBlackwood1995]

​@@eeveum They told you a scientific fact, try reading.

[@marionleblanc8580]

Ok, I checked and in fact, George du Maurier is indeed Daphne's (of Rebecca fame) grand father.

[@merror-fx8cn]

Interesting thing: if you're in the European lit + culture arm of Jewish Studies (or a Jewish-Studies oriented Euro lit track) you can absolutely spend a lot of time dealing with the cultural history of antisemitic stereotypes as both pervasive cultural tendencies and fads. And this brings two of them together in a way I hadn't thought about! Trilby is a really notable landmark book in the cultural history of Anglophone literary antisemitism- the character of Svengali codified a number of ambient tropes about the pernicious, lascivious Jewish seducer using music to seduce gentiles, and as with any text where there is a very prominently stereotyped Jewish villain, sets up the sympathetic gentile characters as exemplary contrast- where Svengali is subtle, duplicitous and scheming, and thus cowardly, Taffy, Little Billee, et al are forthright and brave, etc. This brings me to thing two: another persistent cultural topic in European antisemitism- and Jewish anxieties about self-image- was the notion that Jews were uniquely prone to problems of gait, fallen arches, and other foot issues. There's a fantastic body of writing by Sander Gilman on the cultural history of this especially in German literature, but this was a deep anxiety in the 19th century that had a lot of very weird cultural knock-on effects. I have known both of these things for almost two decades- this was a huge focus of mine at university and has been a research topic I've been circling ever since, because it neatly ties fin-de-siècle literature, disability studies, and Jewish studies together. But what hadn't occurred to me, but now seems really obvious, especially if I think about this through the Gilman essay on Freud and Gravida as about a foot fetish as displaced anxiety about assimilation: Trilby's omnipresent, shapely bare feet are, it follows, a manifestation of her healthy gentility, her specific beauty as a non-Jew, that makes her vulnerable to the wicked Svengali. So du Maurier's apparent foot fetish, which he then memetically imparted to the rest of the Anglophone world, can be read as another weird thing about race. Which, I guess, forget it Jake, it's physiognomy in the 19th Century 🤷

[@lisahoshowsky4251]

I had this on my watch later list but I just saw your short and decided I needed to bump it up in the queue😅😂 the foot themed merch weirded me out but intrigued me too much to not learn more😆

[@medutz]

Thank you, Nicole! This was truly fascinating

[@javierballester5176]

I just wanted to say, you did a great job with your short! It drew my attention enough to want to watch the full video!! Keep up the good work!

[@Alunaevergreen]

THANK YOU for doing the REAL WORK! 🙏🙏🙏. I have been researching this era for 15 years and have NEVER come across this. Riveting damn it. Riveting.

[@dawnkindnesscountsmost5991]

15:14 Walking barefoot at the beach is a bit of a pedicure itself. Sand is an effective exfoliant.

[@Metal_Maxine]

You can still get foot-shaped ice cream in the UK! Pink ice-cream lollies called Funny Feet.

[@CarrieMtn]

There is a road in my town called Trilby. I did a Quick Look up to see where the name had come from, and I discovered there was a popular hat called a Trilby worn by the rat pack. I’m glad to know it might be something even more interesting.

[@wontputmynamehere]

Your videos are so calming and interesting, they make for a great late-night binge-watching session. My rabbits really love the piano intro of your videos too: their ears perk up every time. Is it a custom-made intro, or is it part of a larger piece?

[@deliasl4021]

This shows you that humans have been humans all along. With fashions, fabs etc

[@DawnOldham]

I found this a fascinating subject! I love "weird history" points in time where trends come and go and we learn the back stories behind them! Thank you for choosing this subject. On another topic, I'm so happy to see how much your channel has grown! You are as You Tube treasure!

[@dawnkindnesscountsmost5991]

2:41 Was the only time Jodie Foster portrayed a wholesome character in the 70s, on _The Courtship of Eddie's Father?_ Ms. Foster played Eddie's friend, Joey (I think short for Josephine). I love her work, but Hollywood really had a thing for sexualizing _young_ teenage girls in the 70s.

[@sewthernbelle]

She was mostly harmless in the Disney movie candleshoe. She played a teenage con artist, but she ends up basically getting adopted by this sweet old lady and helps her butler David Niven find an ancestor’s Pirate gold.

[@ElementalWhispers]

She was in the original Freaky Friday which was a children's film. The sexualization of Foster partly caused the assassination attempt on President Ronald Reagan (which sounds like a weird conspiracy but is 100% true)

[@JaimeTanner-b2i]

She was very, very good at that sort of role. Most teen actresses either wouldn't touch the part or didn't fully understand those parts. JF was, and is, hyper-intelligent and super observant. She understood how to play that kind of thing and, especially after her performance as Iris in Taxi Driver, she was quite famous for it. It was fairly ironic because Jodie was not, as a young teen, an overly attractive or feminine-looking child, though she did grow up to be a very attractive woman.

[@elizabethclaiborne6461]

Perfect Nicole content! History, feet/shoes, a bit of cosplay.

[@hollieBlu303]

How am i subscribed to you but NEVER germt updates?!?! 😮 I didn't even know I was following! Fascinating video! Thank you! Im going to update my notifications and make sure i check in here! Superb😊👌

[@mrbudodan]

I love the link to the Trilby hat. Thank you. It was all very interesting.

[@Zeldur]

As someone who wears trilby hats any time I leave the house, it is very funny knowing that the origin started as far away as you can from the hat on the body

[@cathleenc6943]

I'd seen one of these foot shaped pipes a long time ago and was so confused by it. Thanks for explaining it.

[@sabrinal.nelson6714]

I’m wondering if the foot in the Monty Python opening credits was a tribute to Trilby?

[@charmcitytoe]

Nice one. As a moderator of one of those "large Celebrity Foot" sites, I did read Trilby as a young man, having heard about it through the grapevine. I've always felt there was more to it than just a "fringe" aspect. Perhaps recognizing it was not exactly "proper etiquette (if I should capitalize that; please let me know. As I did just finish watching your video on Victorian Etiquette. Not to mention the seemingly closed state of footwear of the time. Good stuff!

[@My_mid-victorian_crisis]

And now I know the history of my favorite hat. Thank you

[@b.w.22]

Thank you for this wonderful and interesting video essay! The odd thing to me is not so much the foot fad, but how this seemingly simple story managed to grip the entire English-speaking world (or so it seems). I guess I’ve got a new, useless side-quest to follow, trying to understand the cultural mileu which made this story and its characters so enormously fascinating to the people of its time.

[@beauwilliamson3628]

they are coming to the end of the Victorian age and getting tired of litterature that is overly moralistic, showing 'not what is, but what should be'. The nearest example of a culture that was more 'free' was Paris and Berlin in the 1850s/1860s, so a lot of novels came out around this time with stories of the bohemian artists who lived in a less restrictive age. Kind of like how kids in the 1980s might have idolized the hippies they heard so much about. Trillby is one of the more readable of the genre.

[@b.w.22]

@@beauwilliamson3628 - Ah, thank you so much for that insight.

[@raraavis7782]

You know when people say: 'I was born in the wrong era'? Yeah, for the first time, I feel like that 😆 I have perfect feet like that (and perfectly pedicured at that) and seriously, no one cares. Not men, not random onlookers either, when I wear sandals in sommer. It's really depressing, when you have that one feature, that's really special and beautiful and it's just not in fashion.

[@NicoleRudolph]

My bigger search has been trying to look at the rise and fall of feet. Now a days it's so common that people really dislike them, no matter the "quality", and I've been curious how that changed! They were SO obsessed in the 19th century.

[@raraavis7782]

@@NicoleRudolph Oh, that would be fascinating! I never knew about this historic shoe craze, never mind why they fell out of favor later on. I mean, I guess I could see them losing importance, simply because so much more of the body became visible in the later half of the 20th century. But when and why did the 'eeeewwh' factor come in?

[@autumnatic]

Feet are inherently ew because they are the part of the body that can't avoid touching everything dirty on the ground. Not actually terribly dirty if you wear shoes, but they sweat inside shoes too and get an odor no other body part has.@@raraavis7782 But thanks to modern technology and opinions, there has never been a better time in history than now to cash in on "appreciation" of feet if you're willing to show them off, and people like me who are violently repulsed by them are in the minority.

[@jusportel]

I am sure lots of men notice, but they say nothing, because someone will be like; “OMG eeeww he’s into feet!”

[@Lityia]

I see the thought you put into your videos and appreciate it a lot.

[@MrAdeuhtyr]

Across, not acrossed. I had so much fun watching this video

[@heighbeut99]

manic pixie dream feet

[@maryjordan7649]

Sometimes history takes a weird bend. Great research and storytelling. 😊😊

[@TheGypsyVanners]

I love your blouse - especially with your jacket! Its like its own jewelry piece!

[@SavannahBurdick]

Fascinating and entertaining video! Thank you for all this fun and odd information! 😆

[@laurenloertscher1319]

Why has this become one of my humorous comfort videos. I'm confused.

[@BeagleLove13]

Decades ago I worked with a lovely woman named Trilby she was named after a grandmother so I assume the name was pulled from this book. She used to drive her holiday cards to Trilby Florida to mail them for the Trikby postmark. (I live in the Tampa area so it wasn’t that far away.)