This 18th-Century Woman Owned 100 Gowns!

[@hrani]

Barbara Johnson, in the 18th century: I'm going to make a dress historian *so happy*

[@SibylleLeon]

I actually found the graph interesting - I love numbers and figures, as long as I don't have to, you know, do any actual math! But to find out these - well, numbers, from times past, makes it a lot more tangible how people would have lived and what their wardrobes might have looked like. Thank you for this! What a treasure trove Barbara Johnson's album is ❤

[@christinareynolds8179]

I never wrote a fashion diary such as Barbra Johnson, but now that I sew perhaps I should. I worked at a thrift store so acquiring new garments is affordable and easy. Before I started sewing. I owned 134 dresses and skirts combined. I have since reedonated all of those and I now own twenty two dresses or skirts, two coats, and a few blouses.

[@asiabryant207]

I have quite a number of garments. I've been meaning to inventory every item I have and then track what I wear for a couple of months after I saw Emily Snee do the same. I'd feel I would learn a lot about the kind of things I ACTUALLY wear vs the things I would like to wear .

[@TheGabygael]

i am almost done doing a big cleanup and decluttering of my bedroom, i'm coming out of a rut so for the first time 99% of my wardrobe was/is dirty laundry. I expected to have the most articles of all of my family (i have several different styles that all require their own wardrobe, and now i impliment feminine, vintage and historical articles of clothing , and i always feel swamped with laundry) turns out the biggest part of my wardrobe, including bedsheets and some towels, fits into 5 well packed small laundry baskets, i have estimated it to be 10 loads of laundry (i have a 3kg capacity machine, which is really small) so i expect to be able to wash my entire wardrobe within a week (fingers crossed)

[@bekabell1]

Currently, I have 6 good dresses and two blouses and skirts, with 4 'house dresses' which are just good dresses which are worn, patched and stained.

[@katebenson1784]

How were her records found? Were they given to her family after her death and they kept them or was it discovered in a box at auction with other books? Enjoyed this video.

[@ymfg9004]

Thank you Serena for this fascinating video. 💖 What a wonderful woman Barbara Johnson was to allow us all an insight into the dress culture of her time through her journal. Your videos are a joy to watch. Informative and relaxing they are a wonderful oasis to escape to on a busy day. Best wishes for your channel and career. xx

[@lucyj8204]

I went and counted. My wardrobe gets a thorough and regular destash. Still I have 103 garments in it, of which around 21 are handmade by me, though some of those are separates so you'd need to combine two or three to make an outfit. The idea of having one new outfit per year means a very different attitude to clothing. Thanks! This video was very interesting and definitely thought-provoking.

[@karinbaird2499]

Yes please, would love to hear more.

[@zenosAnalytic]

this is Wonderful, and I'd LOVE to hear about more stories like this ^v^

[@azuradawn5683]

This was so incredibly interesting! I realize there aren't likely to be too many people who catalogued their entire life's fashion in this way, but it would be lovely to hear similar stories about the clothing lives of other people from different times/places in history?

[@jamesonstalanthasyu]

Whenever I go to England, I do a run through any second hand book shops. Soooooo many deals and hidden gems. This looks interesting, I'll have to add it to my list to look for.

[@robintheparttimesewer6798]

I love to hear anything you want to tell us about any of these women. That was really interesting. Even the math!!

[@Rhejcka]

Thenk you for the really interesting Video, I would love to hear more about the women from your book :)

[@debcarroll8192]

This was absolutely fascinating! Thank you for introducing me to this record.

[@MaineCoonMama18]

I actually went and counted my clothes out of curiosity (I left out undergarments, socks & pajamas). 150 pieces, and that's after I've done some serious purging of my clothing.

[@christinh6933]

I really enjoyed this video and would love for you to do more about the other women in your book!

[@BethAge95]

Such a treasure for dress historians! Very interesting to hear about and to click trough the scan! I think I probably own more than 120 pieces of clothing right now (if not counting underwear and socks probably still more than 80). Most second hand or self made, but still a huge amount compared to most people in history.

[@manicantsettleonausername6789]

This was absolutely fascinating

[@tradminus]

Dear historians of the future ;) Excluding underwear and pyjamas, I own 55 pieces of clothing, most of which are secondhand or made by my incredibly talented mother. :)

[@dunkel429]

I’d love a video talking about the cost of her items. I’m fascinated by how different the price of clothing was back then.

[@persnicketypotato]

I haven't counted, but it's definitely over 150 total garments. Probably several dozen dresses, a dozen skirts, a couple dozen shirts, many pairs of shoes, and all manner of accompanying undergarments. I also had no idea that 1/3 of early modern women stayed single! Do you have any recommendations on further reading on this and its causes?

[@WantedVisual]

The "How many garments do you own" gives me flashbacks to work training as an insurance claims adjuster. People think of the big, valuable things when taking out home content insurance and you have to explain, no, it's *all the things in your house* you have to declare the value of if you don't want us to estimate. Your worn out sleep T-shirt has value, as do all the cereal spoons in the kitchen and the framed poster you hung up in the living room to cover a stain on the wall. If your house burns down to its foundations, you might remember all the expensive things, but will you remember things like how much underwear was lost? How many jeans, exactly, you own? The tip given (that no one except for the criminally wealthy listens to) is to take photos of your house at least once a year, including the contents of cupboards and drawers and boxes, then store them someplace that isn't your house. Now I'm wondering if some of our clients keep them longer than we would, and if these will be used by historians.

[@InThisEssayIWill...]

I own.. a LOT of clothes. Though literally all of them are second hand.(undergarments and socks excluded) I am a chronic thrifter and have been my whole life, so while my wardrobe looks expensive it's most definitely a small fraction of what it would have cost new.

[@allangradus1917]

Where can one purchase the yellow silk of the dress in the background?

[@SerenaDyer]

I'm afraid this was from my stash!

[@mariebray9831]

I have 12 dresses, 9 that are wearable, two are too small and one is very worn out and faded. About the same number, about a dozen, trousers and skirts, about half are the wrong size for me at the moment. Unfortunately it's very hard to make modern clothes larger, but I have made some things smaller so they fit me well.

[@brittanybehny926]

I counted once and had over 50 dresses (majority 2nd hand)... I forget my counts on everything else 😅

[@catherineleslie-faye4302]

I'm often given clothes that I either give away or part out to make clothes for myself. I pickup both old garments and fabrics from secondhand stores for making garments. I do buy new clothes mainly underwear hats and shoes. I'm 8 months into a Shabby Banshee Project where I take clothes that I have and recut them into Victorian Georgian and Elizabethan styles... this because modern clothes don't fit me and I have grown tired of modern fast fashions. I have lost in floods at least two clothing diaries... I suppose at almost 62 I could make another clothing diary but right now it is mostly in photos somewhere in the computer cloud. I probably have 30 complete outfits that fit me not counting my renfaire garments and anothe 50 to 70 outfits in various stages of mending or refitting totes. It usially takes me one short sleeved blouse and two yards of fabric to make a puffy sleeved blouse and if I add two parted out skirts to it I get one long sleeved undergown from it.. so that is three garments and two yards of fabric to make one gown. Sorry about the long post. I'm a textile nerd who clearly needs to buy your book...

[@mariehavlickova4702]

❤❤❤❤

[@sarahr8311]

Woman, making about $18.50 per hour working in healthcare 3pr work pants 2 work skirts 2 pr "grubby" pants 2pr regular pants 4pr shorts 9pr nice leggings 5pr workout pants/ leggings 3 skirts 8 workout shirts 3 sports bras 2 work dresses 12 work shirts 6 regular wear dresses 4 "occasion" dresses A bunch of costume stuff that I'm not counting 4 pairs wool socks 5 pairs slipper socks >12 pairs normal or knee socks 14 pairs everyday underwear 8 pairs cute underwear 4 bras 2 "good" bras 8 camis/undershirts 5 fleeces About 6 prs of pjs With the exception of socks and underwear, almost everything was purchased second-hand or something I made. Some things have been mended, but only stuff like new buttons or repairing a seam, no major patches. This was more than I thought I had, and I guess I won't be shopping for a bit. 😂

[@Noel.Chmielowiec]

I think there is quite possibility that both the lowest and highest classes had the most garments. Lowest - because they were used, hand me downs and they were destroyed after said time and highest to show wealth. Even today we can see something like that, less earning people mostly wear cheaper stuff that gets destroyed easily or hand me downs and rich people wear things once to show wealth. But even in the middle there is such difference. My best friend and I earn similar amounts (I earn even less) and my wardrobe is like a 1/4 of her stuff. I can close eyes and almost everything fits and she has to find things that work with the garment she wants to wear. She also wears cheaper fast fashion stuff and I make my skirts, buy secondhand or better quality things, because my idea of fashion stopped in Edwardian era (well maybe with the exception of 70s and some 90s fashions). She wears what's trendy. We look like complete opposites 😂

[@avivagodfrey]

I've been trying to lose weight, so I've gotten rid of a lot of clothes and haven't bought new things. My wearable garments are probably less than 20 in number. I may double that if I count too-small clothes that I've kept for years and years so I could shrink into them. ovo;; Right now my focus is on making my own clothes and collecting quality goods with the standard "I want my stuff to outlive me." XD

[@peggyreinhold886]

Hm, for so many years, without the early childhood it is not really a big number of gowns. Of course not all women woudn't have this many gowns, but I can emagine that others would have had a lot more. I really and truly sat down and thought about the dresses and outfits I had/have since I was a toddler and, almost without counting trousers, I came to 119 dresses and this is only what I remember. Okay two wedding gowns, the christening dress when I was four, the two dresses for the confirmation, cocktail and evening dresses or dresses for special occashions like pregnancy are easier to remember than every day clothings. Next to these normal gowns/dresses/outfits I also have sewn 24 historical gowns over the years with a focus on 1860-1895. I'm pretty sure that I could enlarge the number when I would look through old photographs. Because I'm 70 now there is no one I could ask for more informations. Many greetings from Germany ❤

[@ZiggyWhiskerz]

Lily library? Like Eli Lily? I'm a Hoosier born, raised, and still living and I've never heard of that. 🤔

[@SerenaDyer]

libraries.indiana.edu/lilly-library

[@ZiggyWhiskerz]

@@SerenaDyer OOOOOOOOOOOOOH!!! The one at IU Bloomington!!!! Gotcha gotcha gotcha! Pretty down there. The Dali Lama has a tibetan shop next to the uni. Really nifty. Anyway, thank you. I forgot about that. 😅.

[@chrish2277]

An olde-world instagram for the ladies own pleasure.

[@michellecornum5856]

I have sixty skirts that I made. I have more than that if you add the ones I didn't make.

[@carolharper1241]

I only have 8 pairs of shirts to bras to pants. And like 18 pairs of socks... Dats it 🤷‍♀️

[@BeeKool__113]

I probably have 130 articles in my wardrobe...Maybe? Could be less or even more. Rough estimate. I thrift a lot. I have at least 30 dresses.

[@kristenrock7783]

I am so happy you are making more videos. And yes, I would love to hear more about these amazing women that you have written about.🪡💗💗

[@SusanForeman1963]

I probably own more than 100 garments. Are we counting socks and underwear as garments? If not it's probably more like 80.

[@argusfleibeit1165]

I never heard that statistic before, that 1/3 of women never married. And we make a big deal nowadays when many women prefer not to marry, or have children married or not.

[@lazygardens]

It's interesting that she was reusing an account book from the 1740s that appears to be in French.

[@SerenaDyer]

We do know who the original owner of the account book was, but haven't traced the link to Johnson!

[@lazygardens]

@@SerenaDyer I hope you figure it out.

[@saulemaroussault6343]

Non binary person here (it might be relevant, i don’t know) I own like 10 pairs of pants (including ones to go hiking or for gardening) 4 pairs of shorts/shorter legged pants, maybe 20 tshirts, a dozen of shirts, 8 long-sleeved medium warmth tops, 20 or so pairs of socks, 20 or so underpants, 6 sweaters/hoodies/cardigans, 3 neck warming things, a raincoat, 2 winter jackets, 3 pairs of shoes. And a bunch of worn out clothes to sleep, that I will probably mend into oblivion (they are so confortable) Spread like this it sounds like a lot, but I don’t think it’s that much ? It’s probably average ?

[@donnanobel514]

WHAT? Her daughter and sons???? And she was NOT married?????

[@bekabell1]

Jane was her mother. The daughter was Barbara, and there were brothers.

[@donnanobel514]

​@@bekabell1 foreign language and I listen with just half an ear while... sewing :-/

[@fashionkiller5052]

Own 300 wear 10 lol