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
@@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?
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 (?)
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 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
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!
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.
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?
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.
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!
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.
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.)
😂 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.
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!
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. 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.
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!
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?
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?
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!
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 RUclips channel 😉
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
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”.
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.
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!
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.
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.
@@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.
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.
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.
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 🎉
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.
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.
RUclips 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
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?
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!
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.
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.
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!
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?😊
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
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
Thank you guiding us down this particular rabbit hole. I'm reminded of the "One foot in the grave" (UK sit-com) Christmas special where a couple is asked to identify a vanished friend via a severed foot - the foot that shows up is, unlike Trilby's, not at all attractive.
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.
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.
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. :)
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...
Love your channel Nicole! You always include citations and photos of real articles/advertisements etc., unlike some channels that claim to be historical.
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.
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!
I’m so glad that Msr. DuMaurier’s book made pedicures a popular thing. Apparently I celebrated “Trilby” last week when I went and got a pedicure. My feet are definitely not Trilby beautiful, but it sure felt good!
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?
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!
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
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.
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😆
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.
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.
@@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?
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.
I knew what a Trilby hat style is, but the story of that name was Svengali (hypnotist) causes girl Trilby to become an accomplished opera singer. *?? This is the first I've heard of foot fetish in the story. Rather bizarre!!! 😆
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.
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.
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)
I feel like this is one of those things that I've never heard about, yet now that I've been informed, I'm going to come upon several "Trilby" references in the near future.
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.
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.
OMG the horror, she took one for the team there.
Oh I did not think of that and… ooooof thanks Nicole for taking this hit for us
Hopefully she used private browsing.
😮 #ThoughtsandPrayers for poor Nicole!
thank the stars for adblockers
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.
I see what you did there, and it made me happy.
HEYO!
I wonder if this craze partly led to our modern idea that Victorians thought ankles were scandalous and sexy???🤔
I was going to say the same thing!
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
@@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?
According to Bernadette Banner, the "Victorians were scandalized by ankles" notion is a myth.
After this video, it's hard for me to think otherwise 👀👀
Man, manic pixie dream girls are older than I thought
@spitt3640 but she does wear shoes. Shes got mens slippers on in the first scene.
It all started with pixies.
@@bustedkeatonthose are oversized though
Nicole really went, "I had to suffer psychic damage from finding all this out so now you're all gonna suffer with me." XD
✨Nicole should team up w/ Max Miller (Tasting History) and make the Victorian foot ice cream! That would be great! 😂😂✨
And here we were, reading “Lord of the Flies” in high school literature class.
Most underrated comment I’ve ever seen
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
Nicole has the look of someone who has seen things they can never unsee.
Now we all have that look.
how has there not been a Tarantino version of this?
That was my husband's question as well
He always said he would only make 10 films - maybe it's all building up to a blood drenched Trilby remake
My first thought was "I know what Tarantino's next film will be."
@@werelemur1138 it'll be his dramatic Oscar bait period piece
Omg my husband first response was to remark on Quentin tarentinos love of feet as well!! I didn’t know about that!
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 (?)
In the UK we had ‘freaky feet’ ice cream in the 80s!
@@donny2223 haha, I think our frigopie is from the 80s too!
It was Funny Feet in the North East, sometimes the big toe had a chocolate cap 🙂
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!
Same! I also knew people in the Victorian era were pretty weird, but I never imaged this.
@@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
✨️ Manic Pixie Dream Trilby ✨️
Manic Trilby Dream girl?
Manic Pixie Dream Foot
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.
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!
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.
That sounds amazing!
This is a poem
It is decreed by the gods that we must always yearn for what we cannot have...for you, beautiful feet, for me slender hips.
Google "David Duchovny feet". That man is sexy down to his toes!
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?
Oh my gosh, yes! I thought of that reference as well! 😂
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.
Oh, fandoms existed. Fandoms were rabid. The Sherlock Holmes fandom was legendary!
@@jennypaxton8159 That's so cool ! I associate fandoms with the internet, which might be stupid.
@@gracie9658 Nah, fandoms are heavily internet-centric today, so it makes sense! I kind of love how universal fandoms are, though.
There is a reason why the book it’s forgotten, i’ve read it and it’s shockingly bad. 😂
Footbinding took place for centuries in China.
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!
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.
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.)
😂 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.
Love this - your facial expressions through a lot of it are “I CANNOT believe I’m actually talking about this on a video” 😂
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!
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.
Didn’t they call John Derek a Svengali? I always thought it meant an attractive and powerful man who influenced (?) a younger woman.
@@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.
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!
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?
"With fruit leather toenails." Just no 😖
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?
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!
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 RUclips channel 😉
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
13:43 Facinating, how you theorize a possible connection between the novel and pointy toed shoes going out of fashion!
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”.
I love how people really never change
It’s pretty depressing. We’ve been to the moon, yet someone will pay to look at jacked up, Only Fans feet.
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.
I was wondering the same thing!
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!
As someone with a lifelong foot phobia, this was a tough watch but interesting!
That's such a wild story! Also WHAT a strong look. Catch me cosplaying Trilby this summer too.
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.
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.
They do? I've always thought they were really pretty
@@anonymousperson4214 Yup. I've seen them called monkey toes. I've been told I shouldn't wear sandals, which is ridiculous.
Morton's toe?
I thought they were just normal variation, maybe even more common, certainly not more or less pretty on its own.
@@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.
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.
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.
Bah Gawd, Du Maurier really be like "I have foot fetish and I'll make it everyone's problem" 😏😈🔥
Before the internet, how else would you find like minded individuals to share your passion
History is wild. I had to check that today's date wasn't april first.
I didn't think we could get worse than foot ice cream, but then we had to bring eugenics in.
Rare sentences.
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 🎉
Not unlike Pygmalion and My Fair Lady, but with a foot fetish?
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.
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.
Nevermind the feet, your hair, especially the flame detail, is spectacular! Wow, wow, wow!
RUclips shorts brought me here, and I was not disappointed!!! Great video!!
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.
RUclips 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
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?
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!
Is Trilby's author any relation to Daphne duMarier? She was kind of into obsessions too.
I was wondering too! Apparently George is Daphne's grandfather.
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.
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.
I had know idea but I can’t wait to tell everybody that a Victorian novel is why they get their pedicures😂
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!
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?😊
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
The long version of why Twitch doesn't let anyone show their feet on stream.
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
"just have a couple myself" I snorted 😂
Thank you for all your hard work following the footprints Trilby has left through history.
Thank you guiding us down this particular rabbit hole. I'm reminded of the "One foot in the grave" (UK sit-com) Christmas special where a couple is asked to identify a vanished friend via a severed foot - the foot that shows up is, unlike Trilby's, not at all attractive.
Who would think they would print this foot fetish weirdness. The Victorians were sooooo pervy. Thanks for this though - I had no idea!
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.
@@hannahstraining7476you took a light hearted comment too seriously. Foot fetishists arent oppressed 😂 find another avenue for your outrage
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.
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. :)
Perfect Nicole content! History, feet/shoes, a bit of cosplay.
15:14 Walking barefoot at the beach is a bit of a pedicure itself. Sand is an effective exfoliant.
I'd seen one of these foot shaped pipes a long time ago and was so confused by it. Thanks for explaining it.
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...
Thanks you for dragging us down this rabbit hole. What a delight!
Love your channel Nicole! You always include citations and photos of real articles/advertisements etc., unlike some channels that claim to be historical.
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.
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!
"So you too could have foot-shaped ice cream from your favorite novel" clearly damaged Nicole as much as it did me.
Well, if ice cream was molded into asparagus, fish and a multitude of other things, why not feet?
I’m so glad that Msr. DuMaurier’s book made pedicures a popular thing. Apparently I celebrated “Trilby” last week when I went and got a pedicure. My feet are definitely not Trilby beautiful, but it sure felt good!
Why has this become one of my humorous comfort videos. I'm confused.
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?
And now I know the history of my favorite hat. Thank you
Sometimes history takes a weird bend. Great research and storytelling. 😊😊
Thank you, Nicole! This was truly fascinating
You can still get foot-shaped ice cream in the UK! Pink ice-cream lollies called Funny Feet.
I really need a pedi...
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!
Oh, new video! .... What the what now? 😂
I love niche topics like that! Very interesting! Thanks. ❤❤❤
This was very enjoyable.Thank you.👏
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
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.
So interesting! I'd never heard of Trilby before, and I thought I was old enough to have heard it all by now 😅
Same here, which is probably why modern adaptations call in Svengali, who I have heard of.
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😆
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.
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.
@@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?
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.
I am sure lots of men notice, but they say nothing, because someone will be like; “OMG eeeww he’s into feet!”
I knew what a Trilby hat style is, but the story of that name was Svengali (hypnotist) causes girl Trilby to become an accomplished opera singer.
*?? This is the first I've heard of foot fetish in the story.
Rather bizarre!!! 😆
Happy to go down a rabbit hole
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.
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.
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)
I love your blouse - especially with your jacket! Its like its own jewelry piece!
i would love to see a video about salome from you!!!
Ok but this was fascinating
manic pixie dream feet
I feel like this is one of those things that I've never heard about, yet now that I've been informed, I'm going to come upon several "Trilby" references in the near future.
I do so enjoy an interesting rabbit hole!
Thank you! 🦶😂
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.
i just love that there are so many odd things to be learned.
this is so fascinating omg
Well that was weird! Fascinating but weird! Thanks for the weird look at history!
Fascinating and entertaining video! Thank you for all this fun and odd information! 😆