Lord of the Rings: The Animated Musical | Frodo’s Wardrobe, Part 2

For the second essay in a two-part series on my interpretation of Frodo’s wardrobe, I focus on clothing worn in different types of weather, including coats, hats, boots, early sunglasses, and floral outfits. Besides comparing clothing from the Real World to the version I made for Middle-earth, I examine how technology and culture shaped what people wore.

Coats

During the early 19^th century, a popular type of wool overcoat was known as the carrick, garrick, or coachman’s coat. The defining feature of this coat, with examples of this design now held in the collections of the Met in New York City and the National Trust Collections of the United Kingdom, were its capelets or three to five extra layers of fabric around the neck and covering the shoulders. This lavish use of fabric drew criticism, especially towards men who liked this style of coat, and political cartoons of the time mocked those attempting to be fashionable. As much as I personally liked some versions of the design, hobbits were likely too practical to wear the a coat.

Around the same time, a more practical coat appeared on the market. In 1823, Scottish chemist Charles Macintosh discovered that India rubber, also known as latex, could be dissolved in a byproduct from burned coal. He used this new chemical to attach two layers of wool cloth, similar to the filling of an Oreo cookie. Instead of creating a tasty snack, he made waterproof fabric. Mere months after his invention, Macintosh was in the raincoat business. His brand continues to thrive as a seller of “rubberised outerwear”, although a “k” was added to the brand name at some point. This coat is a staple in British wardrobes. It was issued to soldiers in the British Army during World War I and II, becoming known as a “trench coat” because of the trench warfare, along with clothing British Railways workers until the 1980s.

As novel as this invention may seem, rubberized clothing is much older. When Spanish conquistadors colonized South America beginning in the 15^th century, Mexica or Aztecs already used rubber to waterproof their clothing and rubber balls in their games. As for the name, the term “India rubber” came from the products of a different plant found throughout Southeast Asia. Around 1788, the term replaced the word catouchou or caoutchouc that had arrived in English in 1744, and the material was originally used for pencil erasers to rub out mistakes.

Would hobbits have access to these materials? They did have coal, as Gandalf warned the dwarves that if they did not include Bilbo in their group, they could “go back to digging coal” (From “The Unexpected Party” in The Hobbit). In the Real World, rubber trees were originally from South America but grow well on farms in Southeast Asia and western Africa, while India rubber plants continue to grow in Southeast Asia but are no longer used for commercial rubber. However, these are still popular potted plants due to their durability. Mapping this to the politics of Middle-earth, hobbits might bring surplus grain and pipe-weed to Bree and trade for rubber and coal with Easterlings and Dwarves. This would allow them to create rubberized clothing; Mackintosh even sounds like a translated Stoors name.

Rain Hats and Rain Boots

Rain hats were of great importance to anyone working outside in dreary weather, a known plague to the British Isles. Scottish workers wore their blue bonnets, later known as tam-o’-shanters, when working on the docks beginning in the late medieval period. However, wool caps become wet and heavy in the rain. One solution was to wear clothing made of oilskin, which was waterproofed using linseed oil or a similar material. The term “oil-skin” dates from 1714, while its synonym “sou’wester” dates from 1836. The latter term can also mean a waterproof coat, similar to the Mackintosh. These hats were a dull gray when mass produced in coastal industrial areas like Boston, Massachusetts during the late 19^th century. Today, the hats be found in many colors, including sunny yellow. Since hobbits wore “chiefly green and yellow”, the yellow hat belonged in Frodo’s wardrobe.

To stay dry in the rain, wearing boots is an excellent choice. While boots were an ancient concept, rain boots were a new trend during the early 19^th century. The now-classic rain boot design was based on the Wellington boot, named after Arthur Wellesley, 1^st Duke of Wellington. This Wellington was immensely popular for leading the British to victory over Napoleon with a victory at Waterloo, and he received his title for this accomplishment. The name of the boot came by 1817, while a shortlist of other names included a hat, coat, baked steak dish, and a very big tree that Americans call a sequoia. A particularly good picture of Wellington wearing his military uniform and favorite boots currently hangs in the British Embassy in Vienna, Austria. These boots were made of calf skin by shoemaker George Hoby who became a celebrity in his own right.

The specific pair of Man boots that I used as a model for Stoor boots was made in England during the 1840s and is currently held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). These were likely among the last boots created in this style during the original trend. True Wellington boots reached the knee, while later variations reached the calf, and the ankle boot eventually took over. The knee-high boots were perceived to be extremely masculine, and proud boot owners wanted to wear these everywhere. Fashionista Beau Brummell led his followers in wearing the boot along with their drab suits and too-tight pants. (I wrote much about Brummell’s fashion choices while describing other outfits worn by “Wealthy Hobbits of the Late Third Age”.) Unfortunately for these early boots, the soles were designed for riding, not walking, and the overly enthusiastic owners often broke them, much to the chagrin of Hoby and other shoemakers.

The rubber boots in a modern wardrobe are gender-neutral and come in many delightful colors; mine are bright orange to match my orange raincoat. This style of boot was created by Hiram Hutchinson beginning in 1852. However, Charles Goodyear had discovered the process of “vulcanizing” rubber back in 1839, as he turned the soft and pliable material into something unaffected by cold and heat. The term “vulcanizing” came from the Roman god Vulcan, known as Hephaestus in Greek, who worked as a smith and invented machines for the other gods. Hutchinson thought the popular Wellington boot design would be the best option for his new product. He turned a French paper mill into a boot factory, steadily increased production until his workers made 5,000 pairs a day, and then expanded into other goods. The Hutchinson company now makes all kinds of vehicles. As for Goodyear, he was never able to defend his patent and died in debt. The Goodyear company established in 1898 was named after him but never associated with him or his family.

As for the name of these boots, this has changed greatly over the years. According to Google Ngram Viewer, the term “Wellington boot” was most popular from the time the term was coined until 1870. After that, “rubber boot” has been by far the most popular. However, the term “gumboot” has been rising in popularity since it was coined around the early 20^th century. As for my preferred term, “rain boot”, that is apparently the least popular variety.

Beside rain hats and rain boots, I designed a new rain umbrella. I will briefly note that since Sam is a reasonable hobbit, he would be sure to keep an umbrella handy so Mr. Frodo wouldn’t catch his death from cold while traipsing through the rain. I have already given a thorough explanation on umbrellas during “Anachronistic Gifts”, but it is worth remembering that I am interpreting the timeline of the Shire as running parallel to the late 18^th through late 19^th centuries in the Real World. During this time, umbrellas went from a woman’s fashion accessory to a practical rainy-day item; the folk of Hobbiton would take less issue with the umbrella than they would in the past.

Early Sunglasses

On sunny days, Frodo would protect his fair face with a hat and his bright eyes with early sunglasses. Other glasses will appear throughout my interpretation, mostly because I wear glasses and have strong opinions on them. The term “sunglasses” or “sun-glasses”, meaning spectacles with dark lenses to prevent sunlight from hurting one’s eyes, dates from 1878, although the modern concept of everyday people wearing them, as opposed to astronomers, dates from 1916. The reason for such a late origin of the term stems from the original use, not to block out sunlight but to aid “weak eyes” in reading, especially in the poor lighting conditions before electricity.

Famous writers of the post-medieval period were big fans of spectacles with green lenses. Our old friend Samuel Pepys was prescribed “greene spectacles” in 1666 by his friend Lord William Brouncker, an Anglo-Irish mathematician and the first president of the Royal Society of London. Great strides were made for glasses-wearers around 1752 when British optician James Ayscough created “frames with temples which were hinged… along the temples themselves”, also known as “double-hinged temples”. As a modern glasses-wearer, I would describe this as the part holding the lenses having an arm on each side that can fold up when I take them off for the night. The glasses arms did not tuck over the ear like modern glasses but instead went straight back, with a hole in the end of each arm to tie a string around and hold the glasses in place if needed.

These double-hinged glasses were popular across the water in America, as Thomas Jefferson had several pairs and worked with optician John McAllister of Philadelphia to keep them in shape. Replicas are now available at the Colonial Williamsburg gift shop, although the modern equivalent has “100% UV protection” according to the advertisement. Founding Fathers and their contemporaries would not have understood the damage of UV rays and likely damaged their eyes by wearing their own glasses outside, as these would shield them from visible light but not UV radiation. Accordingly, their pupils would have dilated to let in more light from behind darkened lenses, but this also let in damaging UV light.

As noted in the “Sunglasses” episode of Articles of Interest (Don’t forget that I reviewed this podcast back in February!), modern people should wear sunglasses whenever they go outside during the day, even if it seems cloudy or they are just going to the grocery store. If Frodo wore green-lens spectacles, he would have sustained some eye damage from UV rays, assuming that Middle-earth’s sunlight worked similarly to sunlight in the Real World. However, this was nothing in comparison to how being stabbed by a Ringwraith and falling from a cliff seemed to affect his vision.

Floral

Waistcoats embroidered with floral patterns were trendy throughout the post-medieval period until the mid-19^th century. Colorful designs that might strike modern people as feminine were instead viewed as masculine for their display of wealth; embroidery was time consuming and therefore expensive. However, the most lavish embroidery peaked in the late 18^th century, before the era of revolutions. Political revolutions in the United States and France made the wealthy elite hated rather than aspirational, while the industrial revolution made mass-produced floral patterns easier and cheaper to obtain.

Floral has a different perception in cultures outside the West. Traditional fabric from East Asian cultures may be decorated with peonies or chrysanthemums. While a wide range of garments across many ethnic groups exist, Western readers are most likely to be familiar with the term kimono, a robe from Japan. Historically, both men and women wore floral kimonos, to use the broadest definition of the term. Woodblock prints from antiquity through the early 20^th century showed government officials with blue floral garments and fierce samurai with colorful floral clothes, two of the most masculine professions of the era. However, as Western fashion influences Eastern culture, kimonos for men become less colorful.

Some men still wear flowery clothing. A trope found in manga, or Japanese comic books, goes against the trend, if with the goal of enticing young female readers. Bishōnen, also spelled bishounen, or “beautiful boys” are young male characters who look small and cute, rather than tough and masculine. The portrayal of such characters ranges from innocent schoolboy adventures to explicit same-sex scenarios even within the same series, which causes some real whiplash for first-time readers unaware of genre expectations. Eastern audiences tend to perceive the characters as androgynous or having both male and female characteristics, while Western audiences are more likely to perceive the characters as feminine. This may seem irrelevant to The Lord of the Rings until one considers the entire “race” of Elves, and that six of the nine members of the Fellowship are beardless young men with thoroughly described hair. Put a pin in this concept, as it will become relevant in future essays.

Back to floral clothing, with the hobbits’ love of flowers and dislike of revolutions, I speculate that they would have retained floral patterns in male clothing further along the fashion timeline and likely never remove them. Floral designs also make the wearer appear youthful, innocent, and cute, which hobbits used to their advantage when dealing with Big Folk. Frodo’s floral waistcoat would therefore be an appropriate garment for a hobbit of his status.

Conclusion

As a hobbit of means with an interest in fashion, Frodo would have maintained a large wardrobe with appropriate clothing for every occasion. His love of nature and tramping through the woods meant he was prepared to travel in all kinds of weather, from the mild winters of the Shire, the famous muddy season, pleasant spring, sunny summer, and crisp autumn. Due to his love of old things, and his devotion to Bilbo, much of his clothing was likely older, although he could afford to adopt technological trends if these were convenient. While modern Western readers may perceive some design choices as feminine, his historically supported outfits would have been considered gender neutral or masculine, along with a fitting display of his riches.