7 thoughts on “SNARK WEEK: Unnecessary Straps

    1. I went to see it in theatres with friends when it came out and even as a bunch of preteens who were mostly there to look at all the cute guys in the cast, I remember us giggling over how ridiculous it was she was going into battle in what amounted to a strappy leather crop top (with bonus random leather strings) with her stomach fully exposed.

  1. In the, like, fourth picture, the one of Fernando of Austria: yes, the pistol holsters are attached to his saddle, not to him.

    A lot of the images of soldiers: one strap over the shoulder to carry their ammunition box (same with the “bag” for the woman on the barricades—that “bag” is an ammo pouch). If there’s a strap over the opposite shoulder, it’s usually to support a sword or bayonet scabbard that sits on the opposite hip to their ammo box. Sometimes the second strap (or cord) is supporting a haversack, a bag soldiers carried food in, or a canteen for water.

    The sashes worn by a lot of the figures in the 17th to early 18th century images are either to show their rank if they were officers (because there were no such things as uniforms to make that clear) or to show even just what army they were in because, again, no uniforms. Sashes for the latter were less common because handing those out to tens of thousands of soldiers was $$$. Usually armies wore what was called a “field sign”, maybe a piece of paper or some leaves stuck in your hatband. The compromise became a coloured ribbon to show what side you were on, sometimes made into a rosette called a cockade, which continued in use way after armies adopted uniforms, right into the 20th century.

    And sometimes people are wearing belts under their coat. In the painting of John Campbell of the Bank, for instance, he’s wearing a wide baldric (almost certainly leather) to carry his broadsword as well as a belt that’s covered by his waistcoat, from which his sporran and his dirk are hanging.

  2. It’s like pouches (and straps) in comics in the 90s. Ridiculous looking, overdone, and something we haven’t fully gotten away from. But apparently they looked cool?

  3. I LOVE IT when y’all bust out the red arrows!!!! It just makes everything so much more hilarious!!! That said, I LOVED The Three Musketeers TV with all its WTF-ishness!!

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