Was clothing a factor in selection of victims?

[curious]

I'm now less inclined to think costume was a factor. But not completely so. If that checked scarf was red and white, I might just tip the other way again. Was it? I can't find any conclusive mention of it being so.

Hi, Ausgirl:
Like you, I've wondered about the importance of the red scarves/handkerchiefs and what color Liz Stride's happened to be. However, there was no mention of Polly Nichols wearing a scarf that I saw, and her coat was a reddish brown ulster instead of black like the others.

Don't know if the victims' clothing - black coat and hat - made them targets or if that was just what nearly all the women wore during the Victorian era.

I've wondered IF Astrakhan did exist about the exchange with Kelly regarding the handkerchief. It sounds like a script from a spy flick:

He comes up to her and says something in her ear. Code perhaps.

She then replies about losing her handkerchief, code again, and he whips out the red hanky as proof that he is her contact.

Very theatricial.

But those red scarves/handkerchiefs are intriguing tidbits.

curious

[curious]

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.

Ausgirl, I have pondered exactly the same thing -- his killing his mother over and over.

The age of the victims compared to the age of he men last seen with them seem to make that a possibility -- except for Mary Kelly, and she would have been younger than the murderer.

But I can imagine from your visual: a little boy watching a woman in a black hat and long coat leaving, perhaps wearing a red scarf, and leaving him behind forever . . .

just a thought.

But if these murders were about killing "mother" then that seems to leave Mary Kelly out, don't you think?

curious

[Ausgirl]

Not if age was less a factor than general outward appearance - the clothes themselves being the 'fetish' rather than the woman. Stride was thin, Eddowes wasn't - there seems to be great variation in height and weight among the other victims. But all of them wore a black coat and bonnet.

Mary Kelly went out, as we've discussed in another thread, in her 'respectable' attire earlier in the evening - black bonnet and coat, the same items found burned in the fire at the murder scene.

While we're flinging suppositions about (and I don't see anything wrong with that, unless one starts claiming said supposition to be irrefutable fact) - the Ripper could have stalked her back home when she went to change. And even, rather than not resembling the Ripper's idealised victim (mother, or lover ), Kelly might have resembled her more closely and thus warranted the effort of stalking. Maybe she was not entirely alone that evening, until after she got back home the second time?

Another poster has pointed out that the garb was quite common for the era. But that doesn't really preclude that it could have been a fetish in combination with red accessories. And yes, the red scarves are intriguing. If Astrakhan -is- a fabrication (I'm admittedly dubious) I find it interesting that the red hanky was mentioned so very specifically in that statement.

As an aside: Sickert (who I do not think was the Ripper) seems to have picked up on the red scarf as symbolically significant, also, as they appear in several of his darker paintings, including 'Jack the Ripper's Bedroom'. Quite off-topic: Sickert also painted a bowl of violets, on the wall above which is a bright red smear which gives the impression of blood - echoes of Kelly's song that night?

[Rubyretro]

she got back home the second time?

And yes, the red scarves are intriguing. If Astrakhan -is- a fabrication (I'm admittedly dubious) I find it interesting that the red hanky was mentioned so very specifically in that statement.

I think that A-man's red hanky was invented specifically because Lawende had described his suspect as wearing a red kerchief. In otherwords it was a big hint that the fictitious A Man should be the no 1 suspect for killing Kelly.

[Bridewell]

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 realise that this post was a little whimsical, but don't most researchers agree that the victims were first strangled and then mutilated. On that basis the killer would have not need to reveal the contents of his small parcel until the actual murder was accomplished. As for the suggestion that the knife used would be too big to fit in a small parcel - the parcel seen on Berner Street (by Pc Smith?) was not particularly small - and some knives fold / lock.

As for the clothing, I can seen a practical reason for choosing a victim who was wearing a red neck scarf, as well as a fetishistic one inasmuch as blood staining would be less obvious. I agree with you, Ausgirl, that the frequent mention of a red neck scarf may be more than coincidence. I'm wondering if the low class prostitutes who had to walk the streets wore them as a signal of some kind meaning one of the following:
"I'm on the game"
"I'm available"
"I'm menstruating".
I've never seen any reference to that so, as it's only just occurred to me, I probably need to research that myself. If I find anything of interest I'll post it.

[Bridewell]

Prostitutes Wearing Identifying Clothing

I
I've just found this on another site (not Ripper-related):

"The late middle ages in Europe created even more dilemma, especially regarding sumptuary laws for prostitutes. To be more specific, every city had different costume restrictions. There were so many that one could not know them all. For instance; Zurich, Switzerland in 1319 prostitutes had to wear a red cap; Mainz, Germany in 1403 prostitutes were forbidden to wear belts and veils; Vienna, Austria, fourteenth Century prostitutes had to wear a yellow cloth under their arm, and they were not allowed to wear silk or fur; 1417 in Basel, Switzerland prostitutes had to wear a had with yellow balls on it; and in Hamburg, Germany they had to wear a red hat with very large wings on each side. These hats wear so large that even in a crowd a man could easily spot the "unrespectable women." On the image, (“Huren Tour”) one can see replications of a typical outfit worn by prostitutes in Hamburg, during the late middle ages. The purpose of these restriction were to spot a prostitute quicker, to discriminate against her, but it helped potential customers to find them quicker. Either way, it worked." (My italics)

I know we're not talking about the Middle Ages, but this shows that, at certain times and places, prostitutes did wear identifying clothing. It seems unlikely that this would be the case without the police knowing about it - but who's to say that they didn't?

[Bridewell]

This is from "Night Women" by Edwidge Danticat:

"The narrator, a twenty-five-year-old Haitian prostitute, provides a first-person account of a night in her life as a night woman. It is a hot tropical night, the time of day she most dreads but must endure in order to live. She has just put her young son to bed in her tiny one-room house, with only a curtain separating his “bedroom” from her place of business. She has let him wear, as usual, his Sunday clothes in bed, along with her blood-red scarf, worn in the daytime to tempt suitors"

[Bridewell]

Lady in Red

Also this (admittedly from Wikipedia):

"The identification of Mary Mary Magdalene as prostitute and adulteress is perpetuated by much Western medieval Christian art. In many such depictions, Mary Magdalene is shown as having long hair which she wears down over her shoulders, while other women follow contemporary standards of propriety by hiding their hair beneath headdresses or kerchiefs. The Magdalene's hair may be rendered as red, while the other women of the New Testament in these same depictions ordinarily have dark hair beneath a scarf."

In the Book of Revelation the colour scarlet is associated with the Whore of Babylon, usually considered a reference to Rome and her Empire, hence the expression "scarlet woman" for one of what the Victorians delightfully termed "easy virtue". Red (or at least scarlet) seems to have been associated with prostitution for at least 2,000 years. Are we looking at someone who sees his crimes as justified by a perverse interpretation of scripture?

[Malcolm X]

try ST MARY MATFELON which is ST MARYS Whitechapel

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St_Mary_Matfelon

The first church erected on the spot after it ceased to be a chapel of ease of Stepney parish, was dedicated to St. Mary Matfelon; a name which has given birth to many conjectures respecting its signification, but which is probably derived from the Hebrew word Matfel, which signifies both a woman lately delivered of a son, and a woman carrying her infant son; either of which significations is applicable to the Virgin Mary and her holy babe.

There is an occult link between all these murders and Mary Matfelon and it's also strongly anti-semetic, but i think if this was the case, then JTR would have given us far stronger hints of this, but he didn't, all he described is a very posh Jew, and i can not find a link in history to this LA DE DA Jew, or even the name George Hutchinson.

finally for this to work, you need 7 victims to match the 7 heads of the ``BEAST`` of Armageddon, even so it's still very interesting, because MJK heart is missing and this is very important too

[Malcolm X]

AS YOU SAY, this could be JTR interpreting the book of Revelations, but unfortunately he hasn't given us a strong enough clue, only little bits of this and that

[Sherlock Holmes]

It is my belief that clothing was somewhat of a factor in the selection of his victims (I'm not sure why yet though)

Mr Holmes

[Phil H]

Mr Holmes, you wrote:

It is my belief that clothing was somewhat of a factor in the selection of his victims (I'm not sure why yet though)

Is that not rather a case of setting out a theory and then seeking the facts to justify it? should we not work the other way around?

What is the basis of your "belief"? (I'd be more than happy to discuss it as an intuition, a feeling, or whatever? We can all have that indefinable sense that something might be so - but in my experience it usually rests on something tangible, if one analyses one's feelings.

I personally find it difficult to detect any particular garment that links the five canonicals. Indeed, my mental image of them - MJK perhaps apart - is of a drab and dreary greyness in which - dark top coat apart -individual items were probably indistinguishable.

Years ago I pondered the question of bonnets - Polly Nichols had a new one, so did Frances Coles, but then MJK was said not to wear hats, so that strand of thinking led nowhere.

IF, and I think these days it is an important "if" the five canonicals were killed by the same hand, I think we need to look elsewhere. To me, the common denominator (Kelly apart again) is that they were unfortunates, drunk, alone, wandering the streets (Nichols, Chapman and Eddowes - to some degree -at least) and easy prey. But then I would add Mckenzie to that list. And that is the other problem with "linking" hypotheses - how many potential victims does one include?

I suppose one could take a matrix, list each victim, each itm of clothing, and cross check whether there was any one VISIBLE item of clothing in common.

Phil H

[richardnunweek]

Hello Phil.
Don't forget Mary Kelly was allegedly dressed in a coat and 'bonnet' when seen by Mrs Prater 9pm 8th, so we cannot discount that theory.
Regards Richard.

[Nemo]

I recall speculating about the colour red on the victims

Stride had a red flower on her jacket and I suppose with Kelly that you would have to go with Astrakhan man giving her a red hanky

IIRC I was speculating that Polly Nichols as first victim was wearing a reddish brown Ulster, similar to one owned by William Bury's wife

He also had red curtains in his rooms in Scotland

I thought that Nichols might have reminded him of his wife and that the colour red might have meant something to him

It was also mentioned that such flashes of red might have indicated that the woman was a prostitute, but I don't recall that being confirmed

[Sally]

I recall speculating about the colour red on the victims

Let us not forget that Mr Astrakhan had a red seal ring....