Walking On Sunshine

My new yellow wedges make me feel as if I'm "walking on sunshine" as the song goes--even though our spring weather hasn't quite peaked. I'm quite envious of the ladies I keep seeing elsewhere on the web with bare legs and nary a jacket or shiver in sight. Still, it was bright (if windy) this day and pulling out some new spring pieces seemed appropriate although I did get chilly. It's been such a crazy winter it definitely felt like temperatures suitable for bare legs would never come. More fascinating than my routine ramblings on weather and temperature: the muslin disease. I stumbled across this historical tidbit recently and have been a bit obsessed ever since: in the 1800s so many women perished from influenza credited to their lightweight dresses the illness was nicknamed the "muslin disease." There's more, the dresses weren't merely lightweight, it was also the fashion of the time in France for women to douse themselves in water before going out. Underneath their dresses they would wear pink stockings and lightweight slips, the combination of the garment with water rendered their gowns transparent. It's interesting because it also challenges how we remember history--prudish women covered to their ankles with bonnets in church, but walking around on a regular basis (and literally dying for fashion) in the vintage equivalent of a wet tee shirt.