What would a historical Dominatrix have worn?

With my upcoming appearance on Sky TV's series on the History of Sex, I was asked by the series producer to - if possible - dress in historical Dominatrix attire. The particular episode in which I'm appearing is on the 18th - 19th Century female flagellant Governesses and in particular Theresa Berkley who was famous in her time. However the request to dress in costume begs the question - just what would a historical Dominatrix have worn?

One of the main sources we have of the era, is the 1752 print "Flagellation" printed in England and in the Library of Congress USA collection. (Yes I know that's an intriguing provenance accession line as to how it made its way there.) 

The 1752 Flagellation print features a man walking in on the most remarkable scene of a grown man who has been made to write out lines and be punished by a woman in School-Mistress role as if he was a young, naughty boy, with a birch rod. Her attire is in line with what a regular School Mistress or Governess of the era would have worn, and quite understandably given she is roleplaying that profession to administer corporal punishment.

However it's plain from reading through textual sources of the era, that the craft profession of the era not only played the role of Governess or School Mistress - although this was the most common, but also of Step-Mother, Lady's Maid, Kept Mistress and additionally women who advertised by names referring to them being a Lady Judge, and so forth. All of which could have had attire or rather costume for the part.

The renderings of female flagellants, characters in erotica, feature skirts pulled up to expose leg, or clipped up to expose bush (out of scene - viewable only by the gaze of her client on a bent-over chair) in The Cully Flaug'd.

      

So this doesn't in of itself tell us what Theresa Berkley for example might have worn in her practice dedicated wholly to Domination, bondage and fetish practices.

The wonderful TV series Harlots (can you tell I'm a fan), featured the highly talented Kate Fleetwood playing the character of Nancy Birch. The costume team had her outfitted in a black tricorne hat, then known as a "cocked hat", and dark masculine coded attire and dark green stays corset. The hat and colours allowed her to stand out distinctively in role and identity as a specialist administrator of birch discipline and domination arts. The Georgian prostitute "harlots" of the series by contrast wore richly coloured robes à la française and robes à l'anglaise in lush and feminine-coded colours.

I believe the inspiration for Nancy Birch's costume with queered bending of masculine-feminine was a particular print titled "A Morning Frolic or Transmutation of the Sexes" (c1780). There you can see a woman in a trihorne hat with hands on hips and wearing a sword, while the man seated holds a fan "demurely" (say the British Museum) and with a wonderful frilly and ribboned bonnet. For those with an eye for detail, the book open on the floor is 'Ovid's Metamorphoses done into English', so we are here unequivocally by title of book and print - all about gender transformation. 

When I look into the historical prints of sex workers more broadly around the late 18th Century, by Carrington-Bowles and others, I see a lot of workers wearing colourful separates. Implied within this is of course class and cost of expensive dresses, and the versatility afforded by mix-and-match separates, and the attention-grab of bright colours. Yellow and deep pink and bright blue seem particularly popular. (Prints however were also hand-coloured and I have seen many of the same prints coloured completely differently.)

Working women of the era - maids and the like - often wore a skirt paired with a caraco jacket or other style of jacket, worn over stays (corset), petticoats and chemise.

A painting by Henry Robert Morland titled A Laundry Maid Ironing (c1765-82) features a maid in a caraco jacket cut by the elbows in length. This is a garment of practicality to movement, and indeed the maid is a character role frequently mentioned in historical flagellation texts.

Something about the caraco jacket - was calling to me. It was the attire of women who could move freely, the women who permeated these men's childhoods.

Henry Robert Morland A Laundry Maid Ironing (c1765-82) wearing a caraco jacket 

"Female flagellants" likewise needed to move - to birch, to tie up their clients securely, to torture, tease and tantalise them. While the cut at the elbow-length caraco also allows for kid gloves to be put on and removed with ease. 

TIME TRAVEL IN MIND

Theresa Berkley was operating in the 1820s, the so-called Regency when the dress lines changed remarkably, cut in a way that fell from the bust line down, reminiscent of Grecian imagined attire. (And the fashion didn't last for that long before it swung back considerably - in style.)

There is a satirical print by James Gillray print titled "Lady Termagant Tinglebum and the lovely flagellation", in which he adapted an earlier work adding watercolour and birch rods in her headpiece. Appropriately themed artwork on the wall behind depicting Lady Justice with birch rods, and Venus admiring her bottom, and the dress typical of the Regency style fashion arriving on the scene. 

But was Berkley in any case wearing attire of her era? The question is apt, because she was recreating the childhoods of her clients. And just as disciplinarian Mistresses today are often wearing attire reminiscent of the client's school teacher or powerful women from his childhood, I suspect Berkley was likely time-travelling.

If we take the 1820s era, and assume her clients were for example some in their 40s and 50s, she would then be spending some time in her sessions - travelling back to evoke the era (or fantasy remembrance transfigured) of 1780s and 1790s.  

CONJECTURE & PERSONAL COMFORT

Conjecture is "an opinion or conclusion formed on the basis of incomplete information", and that is exactly what I am being forced to do in my role here. There are no known images of Theresa Berkley and her attire is not described.  Furthermore, I have to be comfortable myself in whatever I wear and the spirit with which I approach the assignment brief, and in my own skin and embodiment. (Including a body that has changed through having a baby and cancer surgery.)

I imagine I may well be about to get pilloried by the historians watching History channel, and I prepare myself for the future tweets on how I got it "wrong", however... I am instinctively drawn to rendering her in a black caraco jacket. Of her taking the familiar 18th Century working woman's caraco jacket and transfiguring it in darkness. For it is not actually "replicated reality" that She is after. It is the captive dreams and fear-arousal response evoked by and transfigured from the past.  

Many clients had French governesses, the texts mention. The revolutionary style was bringing in black, and was pushing deliberately against and opposed to the royal Marie Antoinette style pinks and other hues. Somehow I feel she would anachronistically conjoin these. The dark with light, the revolutionary with the royal, the colour of death and mourning with the colour of rose flower and life, the masculine with the feminine, paired together. 

AN INSPIRATION BOARD OF IMAGES:

As I began pasting inspiration from myriad sources: portraits, women, fashion, maids, governesses, kept mistresses, only a small sample below, I was intuitively picking and plucking. You can see perhaps my progress, to get to my final costume.

MY FINAL COSTUME ELEMENTS CHOSEN - READY TO WEAR

I began with a stays corset made by local Australian corset maker, Kirgis Creations, enabling me to buy it and try it for fit, before flying off to UK. Thankfully fit - it did. This component doesn't get seen unless Theresa Berkley stripped off some top layers, although that scenario plausible in that she was a documented "switch". (Adopting submissive receiving role at times for her clients, although predominantly in Dominant specialization.) An 18th Century chemise was made by SMiddletonCostume in the UK and I loved and chose it for the lace detailing around neckline and sleeves - correct to historical images. An underskirt petticoat and apron from HedonisticCostumes in the UK (although I may not wear the apron on the day - I'll see). These underpinnings along with the bum roll are so important to achieve the underlying shape of the era. 

The black silk and gold-trimmed caraco jacket, and pink silk stomacher detailing and silk skirt - are from Inna Tiourine, a historical costumer based in Hamburg, Germany. Inna studied history and grew up with a grandmother working at tailoring school where she went daily, and in later life became absorbed with historical costumes. Her contribution is the part you will actually "see", and I'm so appreciative of her input back-and-forth with me as we decided on the gold-trimmed caraco jacket and pink skirt.

Anne O Nomis's historical costume pieces on their way to London.

 

The 18th Century chamber slippers were ordered from Paulo Italian shoes in custom viola (purple) leather, and to be paired with black silk Georgian stockings which go above the knees and are secured with a ribbon.  

The key is Georgian antique, bought on ebay; as was a "lot" of antique pocket watches listed cheaply and which I snapped up to pick out one of most appropriate or just personally preferred (to be honest). Time to a Dominatrix is money, and time is appointments. So time - and time travel - matters.

The black Georgian watch strings to me were that exquisite "needed" detail, from Sign of the Gray Horse in the USA. Replica and genuine antique brass ones can also be readily found. Not only historically accurate, but visually they will bring the black down into the pink. For anyone interested in reading more on Georgian watch chains (and equipages and chatelains), there is also an article at the Pragmatic Costumer here.

Fashion plate 1787 with woman wearing double watch chains

We filmed the shoot on 22nd November 2022 at the Freud Museum London, and here's a sneak-peak of what my Theresa Berkley costume looked like - all put together.

 

  

Behind the scenes: UK celebrity Amanda Holden and Anne O Nomis on the recreated set of Theresa Berkley's salon at the Freud Museum, for Sky TV history channel's Sex: A Bonkers History.

I've written up another blog post on the hat for Theresa Berkley with mini birch rod - taking the reader on a journey through historical millinery, which you can read here; 

and a separate blog post on the equipment of a 19th Century female flagellant Dominatrix - which you can read about here. 

(Including photos of the Berkley Horse, cat-o'-nine-tails, battledores, birch rods, botanicals, gloves etc)