In times gone by, getting brand new clothes was a special
event. It is therefore no surprise that several superstitions have grown up
around clothing, particularly where new clothes are concerned.
Money in pockets
Good luck could be added to clothes by placing money in
pockets. In 19th century Britain a tailor would put a halfpenny (old
money!) in each pocket of a man’s new suit. Some tailors went further and added
another halfpenny to the second pocket, yet another to the third, and so on.
Presumably this was done by tailors who limited the number of pockets they put
in their suits!
Another tradition was that a boy who was given a new suit
would, when wearing it for the first time, visit all his neighbours, each of
whom would give him money for his pockets. The neighbours had to be careful
which pocket they put the money in, though, because if someone put the money in
the left pocket they would always be short of money themselves. It was just as
well that getting new suits was not something that happened very often,
otherwise the whole neighbourhood would soon have been short of cash!
How to avoid bad luck
Bad luck would follow you if you treated your clothes the
wrong way, whether new or old. In the days when shirts had tails, it was
important not to iron the tail. This was not just to save time, given that the
tail was always tucked away out of sight anyway, but ironing the tail meant
that you were ironing money away.
It was also important not to try mending your clothes while
you were wearing them. This had nothing to with the probability of sticking
yourself with a needle but it was back to money again. You would never grow
rich if you did so, apparently!
If the hem of a jacket or a lady’s dress was accidentally
turned up, that meant that a letter was on its way. However, it was important
to let the hem sort itself out – it you tidied it yourself the letter would not
arrive after all!
It was good luck to accidentally put an item of clothing on
inside-out, but you had to leave it as it was for the whole day, otherwise your
good luck would disappear.
However, it was bad luck to catch a skirt in a doorway, and
not only because you might tear it. Letting your clothes get gnawed by rats was
the worst luck of all, because that indicated that somebody close to you would
soon die.
Should that event come to pass, you would of course need to
wear mourning clothes, but it was important to get rid them as soon as the
mourning period was over. It was also vital not to wear mourning clothes unless
you were actually in mourning.
There was so much to remember if you wanted to stay rich,
lucky and alive!
© John Welford
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