PastImperfect: Motoring attireA few years ago I did some illustrated talks in primary schools about early motoring. One slide always caught the attention of even the most disinterested child. This was a picture of an early motorist wrapped in a wool coat, with gauntlets, face mask and a combination cap and goggles.
This last item was a cap that had a hidden pair of goggles which folded down over the eyes when required. Beside this intrepid motorist in the picture was his dog, also wearing a similar cap and goggles.
Small wonder that these children were fascinated by this photograph, for the variations in early motoring attire were many and often bizarre.
By 1902 or thereabouts, the needs of motorists were becoming better understood, and thus motoring clothing became both more practical and considerably more elegant.
Most bizarre, however, were the many differing styles of goggles and associated headgear. "Sirdar", writing in The Autocar, stated "Goggles (nasty ugly word, that) must be worn in summer, unless one fancies an eyeful of dust from a passing car, or being nearly blinded by the impact of a reckless bluebottle, or suicidal gnats and similar winged fry of the air."
Lord Montagu's The Car magazine stated to its female society readers "the utter futility of ordinary head-gear while rushing through the air at 30 miles an hour. Bonnet pins are utterly inadequate; huge veils tied over the face and neck are the ruination to the hat underneath it. No; we most certainly are in need of an entirely new form of head-gear for the purpose of motoring . . . "
Many firms attempted to supply this market, including several names that are still around today.
The well-established English sporting tailors Hoare and Sons offered a cloak with "telescopic" snorkel-like half-sleeves which projected out of the garment. With wind-tight cuffs, these arms could be retracted back inside the garment when the occupier was not driving.
And it wasn't just British suppliers who produced outlandish designs for motoring attire: Henriques of Copenhagen and Saks of New York were just some of the other respected tailoring firms who catered for the proper dressing of early motorists.
But it was Baron De Zuylen who made the most practical assessment of motorist's needs when he suggested a coat made of rough fur with the hairs on the outside.
"It is found that, in addition to the heat-retaining qualities of the fur, such coats have the advantage of readily shooting off rain and of drying very quickly after a shower. They are provided with very high collars, which in cold weather are turned up, and almost surround the head."
Most motorists - male motorists at least - came to agree with the baron, and coats such as he described became the most popular form of outer clothing for early motorists.
However, they were hardly stylish and not at all liked by lady motorists, of which there were a surprising number.
For them a wide variety of much more stylish fur coats were produced which must have put several animal populations in danger of extinction as baby seal fur, Abyssinian monkey, Russian wolf, civet-cat and muskrat coats were all highly sought after.