While out with Sandy at the Royal Ontario Museum on Friday night, we wandered across a display of rooms, and things that European people of eighteenth and nineteenth centuries would have had in these rooms.
One of these rooms held things that a woman would have; among them, a sewing box, a writing desk, and a chatelaine. A chatelaine was an object that hooked onto one's belt and held a number of useful household tools and devices. They originated back in France, and would have included things like keys (for doors, larders, and some chests that contained valuables), maybe a box with a sewing needle and some thread and a thimble, maybe some small scissors, maybe a little container to hold a scrap of paper and a small lead pencil, maybe a household seal. For examples of the various items that would be hung from the chatelaine, see this antiques seller's page.
Seeing the chatelaine reminded me of a 3D model I started back in 1993 of a chatelaine for modern times.
Wow, the digital age has changed since then. The Apple Newton was announced that year. It never sold as well as one could have hoped, but it laid the foundations for the almost ubiquitous PDAs that are now available. There was no such thing as all these little USB memory sticks or postage-sized cards that hold gigabytes of data for cameras or Secure Digital (SD) cards that can hold pictures, music, or other data. Cell phones were really really big and heavy.
But seeing that chatelaine, and remembering my attempts at documenting it then (I was trying to do it entirely in 3D: believe me, getting the chains to render at that time was a feat!), I want to create one now... digitally, of course. I'm probably going to use a combination of techniques, and wed 3D with some Photoshopping.
But -- women -- what would you put on a chatelaine these days? Would you have different ones? One for work, one for home, one for a night out on the town?
What would you put on it? Let me know and I'll piece together a feminist chatelaine.
...pat.