Was clothing a factor in selection of victims?

[Ausgirl]

It occurred to me as I was browsing the victim's information pages that were a few things the canonical victims (as well as Tabram and Coles) had in common, as far as clothing went. I suspect this is mainly due to the current fashion of the times, but it did get my attention so:

"Polly" Nichols - black straw bonnet trimmed with black velvet - reddish brown coat
Annie Chapman - no bonnet, long black jacket - neckerchief with red border
Elizabeth Stride - black crepe bonnet and long, black jacket
Catherine Eddowes - black straw bonnet and black jacket - red silk cloth worn around neck
Mary Kelly - no jacket or bonnet - red shawl and red handkerchief
Martha Tabram - black bonnet, long black jacket
Frances Coles - had just purchased a new black crepe bonnet

Sorry if this is one of those very obvious things that's been discussed a lot. I did do a search for similar threads and didn't find any.

Oh - and like a true noob, I have of course posted this in entirely the wrong forum. I meant to post it under 'Victims' but multiple open windows apparently confused me. Sorry, mods.

[bolo]

Hi Ausgirl,

welcome to the forums.

In my opinion, the victims' clothes were the norm in their social class, there are no similarities that stand out as far as I can tell. Many of them wore Bonnets because they were relatively cheap compared to more elaborate hats and it was fashionable (sometimes even imperative) to wear headgear at that time, but again, I can see nothing unusual here.

Regards,

Boris

[Phil H]

Ausgirl, can I add my sincere welcome to Casebook.

Like Boris, I doubt whether what they wore was very relevant to "Jack's " choice of victim.

Almost certainly all the women were wearing hand me down's or "second" (probably eighth!!) hand clothes. In some cases there is evidence of that - Nichols' petticoats had a workshouse stamp, as I recall. Eddowes appears to have been wearing every item she possessed!

I used to worry (about 40 years ago!) at the idea that Polly Nichols' new bonnet, of which she appears to have been so proud when talking to Emily Holland, was a "clue"? Had the Ripper given it to her, for instance? I eventually came to discount that. BUT, one of the later victims - Coles? - also had a new bonnet, with the old pinned under her dress (I think). So was there a link or was it just coincidence?

Fashionable clothing would have been utterly out of the reach of these unfortunate women. So what they wore would have been "in fashion" (i.e. new) some years before. The well-worn, long, "ulsters" (overcoats), etc would have been chosen for warmth. Hat's were de rigeur in the period (and for many years afterwards) - my grandmother (born c1884) ALWAYS put on her hat before going outdoors even in the late 1970s! Kelly was noted because she did not always wear a hat.

To conclude, I very much doubt that the womens' attire is of any relevance - except that it sometimes seems to have prevented the killer doing all that he wished.

Phil

Phil

[bolo]

Hello Phil,

I used to worry (about 40 years ago!) at the idea that Polly Nichols' new bonnet, of which she appears to have been so proud when talking to Emily Holland, was a "clue"? Had the Ripper given it to her, for instance? I eventually came to discount that. BUT, one of the later victims - Coles? - also had a new bonnet, with the old pinned under her dress (I think). So was there a link or was it just coincidence?

I've pondered on this as well. If the murderer had given something to his victims that could have been used as a sign or signal to recognize them later on as it has been suggested by some authors (Knight was one of them if I am not mistaken), a Bonnet or any other bread-and-butter piece of LVP clothing would have been a bad choice.

Likewise, the idea that the murderer may have tried to lull his victims with little gifts does not sound too plausible to me either. They all lived in poverty so they probably were not too particular about their clients, there was no need to lull them to follow you to a dark spot.

Regards,

Boris

[Ausgirl]

Thank you, Bolo and Phil for the kind welcome.

I wasn't so much meaning the bonnets, coats and scarves themselves, but the particular combination of style and colour. Red scarves and kerchiefs worn about the throat feature a bit - I noticed that men seen around a couple of the victims prior to the murders had red kerchiefs (Mary Kelly was given one). Too, several victims had the "black bonnet, long black coat" combo as well as the red around their throats.

My (admittedly very little bit so far) of research really hasn't helped in ascertaining whether that combo was very common or not as street wear at the time. It probably was, but the scarf thing sticks out so I figured - why not.

edit: I didn't note that Polly had a new bonnet, too; thanks Phil. Elizabeth Stride, now I go back over things, had a silk 'checked neck scarf' on - I wonder if it was red and white? I noted too that men seen with Stride and Kelly were carrying 'small parcels' in their left hands.

[Phil H]

Some writers have implied that the "small parcels" contained "Jack's" knives.

For my part I've never been able to visualise him, saying - "Hang on a minute, don't move while I get this string undone...oh F**K the knot won't untie!... I'll just be a moment, dearie...!"

Somehow it doesn't seem practical.

I'd advise that you be careful about some of the descriptions you're relying on. The man with MJK who is said to have given her the red bandana or whatever, may never have existed. He's often referred to as "Astrakhan man" on here, and it is possible he was no more than a figment of Hutchinson's imagination - given the overly-detailed description and oddities about how he is said to have been dressed.

Also, would a scarf have been visible in daily wear under a coat - maybe with a turned up collar? Inventories of clothing are one thing, but on Eddowes (as an example) some items could have been buried under layers of others.

Sickert is said to have had an obsession with a red handkerchief... but there are so many explanations for that, that I no longer speculate on it as a clue.

Phil

[Ausgirl]

Phil - my thoughts precisely on the parcels, which are also described as 'small'. I just now am looking at a steak knife used at dinner, and the dimensions of even that might allow for it to be put in a 'small parcel' - but the blade on it isn't very long nor is the knife all that sturdy. A larger knife possibly would not have made for a 'small' parcel. And yes - the unpackaging seems rather unfeasible, considering how very quickly some of the crimes take place. More things to read up on (on the very long list of such..)!

Too, I did sort of squint at the 'astrakhan' description - such vivid and minute detail seemed rather odd to me and raised the question in my mind - if it isn't true, why would he be so very specific? Which has bumped Hutchinson up to top of that reading list, now. And Sickert, too, thanks for that info.

As for visibility, though - I think a kerchief would likely have been one item, aside from a hat or coat, that would have been clearly visible, being wrapped or tied around the throat as they were.

[bolo]

Conceiling one or more knives is no problem at all so there's no need for a parcel or bag in my eyes.

About the visibility of red handkerchiefs, this has been recently discussed if I remember correctly. Some people have serious doubts wether a red handkerchief could have been clearly visible in the dim and orange-tinted gaslights of the epoch. In 1888, they still used simple open flames with a quite low luminosity so I tend to agree with them.

[Supe]

Bolo,

Issue 2 (June 2010) of Casebook Examiner carried an article, "A Red Rose?" by Stewart P. Evans in which he demonstrated that, based on spectral examination, the color red was quite discernible under Victorian gas lamps.

Don.

[Ausgirl]

Bolo - I tend to agree with you also, re the concealing of knives. Interesting, about the street lights, I'll have a look for that thread (edit: thanks, Supe, for your addition). I have found a few similar discussions by searching for 'handkerchief', so that's been useful so far for reading up. Again, apologies if I'm scouring old ground. I'll make better use of the search function in future.

As I can't amend the original post, I'll add here (it being a noob's excited discovery of well known facts) that Mary Kelly -was- earlier on the night of her murder wearing a black jacket and (a possibly black crepe) bonnet, too, both of which were burned in her fire grate. Again maybe nothing - but it does perhaps hint a little bit to a fixation on those items of clothing, in particular.

[bolo]

Don,

thanks for the tip, I will have a look at the Examiner article.

Regards,

Boris

[Heinrich]

I'm not an expert on sexual fetishes but it is my understanding that where clothing is a issue, rather that killing people for wearing black bonnets it is probably more likely that he would just steal them for personal use.

[Ausgirl]

Heinrich, -if- (and I admit it may be a stretch, but one worth looking at, I think, considering the similarities) clothing was indeed a factor in victim selection, I am not so sure sexual fetish about the items is necessarily the reason behind it.

I think the Ripper's 'fetish' was moreso mutilation - he killed quickly, and took far more time on post-mortem (or near enough) mutilation, which seems to me then to be the whole point of the murders, and thus a reasonable candidate for a possible fetish - where the sexual gratification a 'fetish' triggers was achieved later, with whatever trophies he took, as he maybe 'relived' the mutilation in his mind.

I was more thinking of the clothing as being a 'trigger' for the victim gaining the Ripper's attention. If, for whatever reason, the idealised victim in his mind when he fantasised (it's not unreasonable to suppose he did fantasise, most serial killers do) about killing was a woman in a black coat and bonnet wearing a red scarf, then any available victim who fit that ideal, more or less, would draw his attention and become a focus as a potential target. And here, I really go out on a limb with supposition to add that if his obvious rage at women (and possible mother-fixation, re the uterus excision) stemmed from a woman who habitually wore such items, he might have therefore been symbolically killing the same woman over and again. So that specific combination of items could have been a focus for targeting his rage, rather than a means of satisfying his sexual drives, and so they were not removed (as organs were). Maybe.

Edit (I always have these johnny-come-lately afterthoughts..) to add: and that would possibly go toward the reason for the burned bonnet and jacket in Mary Kelly's case. Having had gained the time to 'properly' play out his fantasy of destruction of a woman who more or less fit his ideal (during which he literally defaces her, removing her individual identity) he completes the destruction by obliterating the very symbols that made her attractive as a victim in the first place - the symbols of the woman he is really raging against.

[Archaic]

Hello Ausgirl, and welcome to Casebook.

I agree with what the other posters have said. I just wanted to add that black was the commonest clothing color in the Victorian era, especially among the working class.

Working-class people typically wore black or brown clothing because it was the most practical. Dark clothing hid stains much better than did lighter-colored clothing. In order to wash laundry one needed both a few spare pennies and a change of clothing to wear while one's other outfit was washed and dried, a labor-intensive process which took many hours. Jack the Ripper's victims were impoverished. Mary Kelly had some kind of a wash-tub of her own, but the other victims didn't.

Neckerchiefs were popular among working class people because they were a cheap way to add a splash of color, keep the neck warm, and protect the collar of one's clothes from being stained by sweat and grime. Neckerchiefs were also small and easy to wash.

Brightly-colored fabric used the more expensive aniline dyes, so cost more than black fabric. The brighter dyes were rather harsh on the fabric, so brightly colored fabrics tended to deteriorate more quickly. (Of course, if you could afford to replace them this wasn't a problem.)

Black clothing was also very plentiful because it was socially-required wearing for those observing the long periods of mourning so frequently required in the 19th C. After having to be swathed in all-black clothing from head to toe for 6 months or a year or even longer, women who could afford a change of wardrobe were glad to be rid of their black mourning clothing, and it often ended up at second-hand shops.

As a collector of antique clothing I can also state that the commonest color of Victorian-era clothing still in existence is black.

Best regards,
Archaic

[bolo]

Ausgirl,

in re: The charred remains of a Bonnet (?) in MJK's fireplace:

Some dark or black Bonnets were made of straw and treated with flammable colours/tars, it could have been used as some sort of igniter or tinder to light a larger fire.

Boris