Bandage

Bandage (pronounced ban-dij)

(1) A strip of soft cloth or other material used to bind up a wound, sore, sprain etc, or as a protective compression device to prevent or limit injury.

(2) Anything used as a band or ligature.

(3) To bind or cover with a bandage; to put a bandage on a wound, sprain etc, or as a protective compression device to prevent or limit injury.

(4) In fashion, a type of dress, distinguished from similar styles by the use of knitted fabrics.

(5) Figuratively, by extension, a provisional or makeshift solution that provides insufficient coverage or relief (also as band-aid solution).

1590-1600: From the Middle English bandage (strip of soft cloth or other material used in binding wounds, stopping bleeding etc), from the sixteenth century French bandage, from the Old French bander (to bind), from bande (a strip).  The verb bandage (to dress a wound etc, with a bandage) dates from 1734 (and was implied in bandaging).  Bandage is the spelling in Danish, Dutch, German, English & Swedish but other languages localized the French including Norwegian Bokmål (bandasje) Polish (bandaż) & Turkish (bandaj).  The spelling in the constructed Esperanto is bandaĝo.  The noun bandager really does appear in first-aid manuals but bandagist (one who sells bandages) is now rare.  Other words used in similar vein include dressing, gauze, plaster, swathe, truss, compress, bind & wrap.  Bandage & bandaging are nouns & verbs, bandager & bandagist are nouns, bandaged is a verb & adjective and bandagelike is an adjective; the noun plural is bandages.

The noun compress, (in the surgical sense of "soft mass of linen or other cloth to press against some part of the body (with the aid of a bandage)”), as an adaptation from the earlier verb, evolved in the 1590s in parallel with bandage.  In earlier use, the noun ligament (band of tough tissue binding bones) was a late fourteenth century creation from the Latin ligamentum (a band, bandage, tie, ligature), from ligare (to bind, tie), from the primitive Indo-European root leig- (to tie, bind) and in the medical literature, ligamental, ligamentous & ligamentary still occasionally appear.  One technical term from medicine which seems extinct is the verb deligate (to bind up, bandage), noted since 1840 (and implied in deligated), from the Latin deligatus (bound fast), from deligare (to bind fast), the construct being de- (from the Latin dē-, from the preposition dē (of, from); the Old English æf- was a similar prefix) + ligare (to bind).  Under the Raj, the noun puttee (long strip of cloth wound round the lower leg as protection by soldiers) enjoyed a evolution in spelling typical of many words in British India, patawa in 1875, puttie by 1886 and the modern puttee finally (more or less) standardized by 1900).  The source was the Hindi patti (band, bandage) from the Sanskrit pattah (strip of cloth).  The noun fascia did have a brief career in medicine, being from the Latin fascia (a band, bandage, swathe, ribbon), derivative of fascis (bundle (which as fasces became a familiar form in the twentieth century)).  In English, the original use was in architecture, the anatomical application not noted until 1788 and it’s now also a familiar form in botany, music, astronomy and interior design, most obviously in cars.  The noun bandeau (headband), now much associated with revolutionaries (and in fashion the emulation) dates from 1706, from the French bandeau, from the twelfth century Old French bandel & bendel (bandage, binding), a diminutive of bande (a band, a strip).  As a style of women's top or bra, it was first described in 1968 and is distinguished from similar styles in being of a rectangular cut, the hems forming two horizontal lines above and below the breasts.

The bandage dress

Model Charlotte McKinney (b 1993) in red bodycon dress, 2018.  This one is not a true "bandage" because it's not constructed with the horizontal cuts of fabric (al la a wrapped bandage).

Although the motif of what is called the bandage dress is clearly identifiable in depictions of women pre-dating Antiquity, the creation of the modern commercial product is credited to the 1980s work of Tunisian couturier Azzedine Alaïa (1935-2017) but it is with French designer Hervé Peugnet’s (1957–2017) fashion house Hervé Léger that the style is now most associated.  The bandage dress is a specific interpretation of the earlier, figure-hugging bodycon dress, the name originally a contraction of "body conscious" which the industry would later morph into "body confidence" (a movement forgotten as soon as GLP-1 (glucagon-like peptide-1) appetite-suppressant drugs entered mainstream availability) in reaction to criticism and in Japan, they were marketed as ボディコン (bodikon), a spelling better suited to traditional pronunciation in Japanese.

Model Kate Upton (b 1992) in bandage dress, 2011.  Quite how the predominate color should be described will divide opinion.  Most would probably settle on “purplish-gray” although something like “dusky plum-grey” would appeal to those in the marketing department; it could be called “mauve” but usually that implies a lighter hue.  This one is a genuine “bandage”, distinguished by being built from form-hugging horizontal sections of fabric.

What distinguished bandage from bodycon was the fabric, the former made not with anything woven, engineered instead to compress using machine-knitted material, the completed panels left uncut and assembled to created the finished item.  Bandage dresses thus, although truly suitable for only one body type, because of the compression effect of the knitted fabric, do (slightly) extend the parameters of the silhouette which can be accommodated while still being aesthetically successful whereas bodycon dresses made from fabrics which merely cling rather than smooth out imperfections rely on an ideally formed frame.  For that reason, the jocular slang “body compression” was sometimes used to describe this sub-set of the bodycon, the bandage dress working like externally worn shapewear, corset-like in effect if not quite an actual exoskeleton.

Lindsay Lohan (b 1986) in bodycon dress with fishnet stockings, 2008.  Visually, this one is a bit of a hybrid because, although not built-up with fabric layers, the "bandage-look is emulated with stitched-folds.  When worn by someone with a flawless figure, the "corrective" tricks of the bandage construction are not demanded.  

Hervé Léger in 1992 first displayed the bandage dresses which would come to be the style’s definitive look; instantly popular, they were a red-carpet staple well into the twenty-first century.  Still a big seller, the bandage dress in 2015 migrated, via the twittersphere, from the fashion section to the front page when the comments of Patrick Couderc (b 1961, then managing director of Hervé Léger's British distributor, MJH Fashion), were published.  In an interview with the Daily Mail on Sunday, Mr Couderc made it clear he’d prefer it if some women would avoid buying Hervé Léger’s most famous creation, those on the proscribed list including lesbians, those beyond a certain age and anyone with a less than ideal silhouette.

There was an element of classism too in his critique as he lamented the growing popularity of the bandage dress, too many now seen on the wrong-shaped customers and worse still, they were often cheap knock-offs of the £1,300 (US$1600) originals and thus increasingly associated with reality TV stars and those working in hair salons.  Admitting dryly “you can be a victim of your success”, his comments seemed to echo those reported earlier in the century by the distributers of a high-end cognac and the Maybach, Daimler-Benz’s ill-fated mistake in thinking what was needed was a brand above Mercedes-Benz which, for almost a century, had been good enough for presidents, popes and potentates.  Then the complaint had been that drink and car were finding favor with hip-hop & rap stars and this most interpreted as an expression of concern the association with people of color might “cheapen the brand”.  Mr Couderc didn’t comment on skin color but told The Mail he refuses to give free dresses to celebrities if they are “judged to lack sufficient class”.

Clearly a student of the interplay of sociology and economics, he allowed his mind to wander wide, recalling that he’d “...never go out to dinner if she’s not wearing tights.  I think hosiery is something which is very magical in my world and I’m veering off into complete poetry now.  But it’s a social statement because in the 1980s, the difference between someone who was wearing tights and someone who was not was very significant.”  Clearly nostalgic for a time when the poor were less inclined to get ideas above their station, he added that then, “...whoever was wearing tights was working in a private office in a bank in St James’s and whoever was not wearing tights was coming to work as a shampooist in a High Street hairdresser, commuting from Croydon.  We were living in a time where the distinction between the two social strata was much more significant than today”.  How he must long for that vanished, pre-1945 world, when folk from Croydon were deferential to their betters.

Actor Salma Hayek (b 1966) in lavender bandage dress, 1998.

The attitude was hardly unique in the industry, Abercrombie & Fitch early in the century re-built into a highly profitable company using a model former CEO Mike Jeffries (b 1944) described in a 2006 interview as “exclusionary” noting their clothes were a product in which “a lot of people don’t belong and they can’t belong.”  That really wasn’t an unusual business model but it was rare for a CEO so bluntly to state the obvious and, when the comments were published in 2013, Mr Jeffries issued a apology saying "We are completely opposed to any discrimination, bullying, derogatory characterizations or other anti-social behavior based on race, gender, body type or other individual characteristics".  Also controversial was a later comment, attributed in 2013 to (an unnamed) Abercrombie and Fitch district manager.  It’s said the person being interviewed requested anonymity so the statements have never been verified but it was reported that when asked how the company responds to non-profits asking for donations of discontinued clothing to be given to the poor and homeless, the reply was “Abercrombie and Fitch doesn’t want to create the image that just anybody, poor people, can wear their clothing. Only people of a certain stature are able to purchase and wear the company name”, to which he added they would rather “burn the clothes” than risk them being seen on the backs of the poor.  Again, while rarely discussed, the practice of destroying rather than discounting or giving away unsold or discontinued items is widespread in the industry.  In 2024, Mr Jefferies was indicted in the US on criminal charges of sex trafficking and interstate prostitution of young men.  In 2025, a judge accepted a motion filed by the prosecution and defense saying Mr Jeffries was suffering from advanced dementia and Alzheimer's disease and was thus not competent to stand trial.  After a period of assessment in hospital at the FMC (Federal Medical Center), in November 2025 he was released from custody but, surprising some, within a month prosecutors informed the court Mr Jeffries had been re-assessed after treatment and was now fit to stand trial; in August 2026 this was accepted by the court and a hearing date is expected soon to be announced.

Speaking at Hervé Léger’s boutique in Knightsbridge, Central London, the like-minded Mr Couderc wasn’t entirely lacking in empathy, noting “You women have a lot of problems. You will lose the plot.  You will come and you will put a dress on and you’ll be in front of the mirror, like, ‘Argh, I’m so fat’”.  “Yes, you have a 12th of an inch around your stomach, it’s not really a disaster, and what you’re not noticing is that your cleavage is about two inches too low because you are 55 and it’s time that you should not display everything like you’re 23.”  At this point he did concede the particular virtue of the bandage dress was it could in such cases “provide useful support” but that didn’t mean he approved.

How a Hervé Léger bandage dress should hang.

He’d clearly thought about things, his advice to lesbians (presumably young or old) that “if you’re a committed lesbian and you are wearing trousers all your life, you won’t want to buy a Léger dress.  Lesbians would want to be rather butch and leisurely.”  Warming to the topic, he went on to say “voluptuous” women (most drawing the inference he meant "not slender") and those with “very prominent hips and a very flat chest” should wear something else, adding the handy hint that women must not wear underwear that was too small, because “the knicker line cuts through the flesh and goes through the other side of the dress” thereby creating the dreaded VPL “visible panty line.”

Hervé Léger’s Moscow store.

Quite what he thought the reaction to his comments would be isn’t recorded but while his views may not much have changed since the 1980s, much of the rest of the world now has the means to respond en masse and what should have been the foreseen twitterstorm (X used to be called Twitter) quickly gathered, the hashtags  #boycottherveleger & #wecanwearwhateverthefuckwewant soon trending.  Doubtlessly fearing the "righteous wrath and indignation" of blood-thirsty lesbians, those not slender, chav shampooists and women of a certain age, Max Azria’s (1949-2019) BCBGMAXAZRIA Group (that in 1998 had acquired Hervé Léger), went immediately into crisis management mode, issuing a statement saying they were “...shocked and appalled by Patrick Couderc’s comments made in the Mail on Sunday.  BCBGMAXAZRIA Group is working in concert with MJH Fashion, the London-based licensee of the Herve Leger brand, to investigate and establish appropriate next steps. The statements made by Mr Couderc are not a reflection of Herve Leger by Max Azria or MJH Fashion ideals or sentiments.”  The Herve Leger by Max Azria brand celebrates sensuality, glamour and femininity without discrimination.”  Less than 24 hours later, MJH Fashion confirmed Mr Couderc was no longer employed by the company.  Max Azria (1949–2019) in 2016 ended his connection with BCBGMAXAZRIA and its associated companies and in 2017 the group filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, the intellectual property rights and assets later acquired by the Marquee Brands division of the Global Brands Group.  Bandage dresses remain popular.

Vanity

Vanity (pronounced van-i-tee)

(1) An excessive pride in one's appearance, qualities, abilities, achievements, etc; character or quality of being vain; conceit.

(2) An instance or display of this quality or feeling.

(3) Something about which one is vain or excessively proud.

(4) Lack of real value; hollowness; worthlessness.

(5) Something worthless, trivial, or pointless.

(6) A small case, usually used for make-up items.

(7) A usually small dressing table used to apply makeup, preen, and coif hair. Normally quite low and similar to a desk, with drawers and one or more mirrors on top; often paired with a bench or stool to sit upon.

(8) A type of bathroom fitting, usually a permanently-fixed storage unit including one or more washbasins.

(9) An alternative name for a portfolio maintained as a showcase for one's own talents, especially as a writer, actor, singer, composer or model.

(10) Any idea, theory or statement entirely without foundation (UK only, now obsolete).

1200-1250: From Middle English vanite, borrowed from Old French vanité (self-conceit; futility; lack of resolve) derived from the Classical Latin vānitās (emptiness, aimlessness; falsity (and when used figuratively "vainglory, foolish pride”), root of which was vānus (empty, void (and when used figuratively "idle, fruitless”).  A more precise equivalent in Latin was probably vanitatem (emptiness, foolish pride).  Root was the primitive Indo-European wano-, the suffixed form of the root eue- (to leave, abandon, give out).  English also absorbed many synonyms and related words: egotism, complacency, vainglory, ostentation, pride, emptiness, sham, unreality, folly, triviality, futility.  Except in religious texts, the old meaning (that which is vain, futile, or worthless) faded from general use, the modern meaning (self-conceited), which endures to this day, is attested from the mid-fourteenth century.  The first reference to furniture was the vanity table, dating from 1936, a use adopted by manufacturers of bathroom fittings in the later post-war period.  The first vanity table seem to have been advertised in 1936.  Vanity is a noun, vanitize is a verb and vanityless is an adjective; the noun plural is vanities.

Art Deco walnut veneer vanity table, circa 1935, with a large, triptych mirror apparatus.

Vanity tables were well suited to the motifs of art deco because the aspect ratio often was similar to the representational public architecture most associated with the style.  This one, believed to have been built in northern Italy is a classic example of art deco, featuring perfect symmetry and a mix of austere straight lines and curves, the proportions elegantly balanced.  Although it's structures like buildings and bridges or the memorable cars of the 1930s that are most often used to illustrate art deco, the niche of the vanity table was in some was more interesting because the size lay between the tiny (such as a vanity case) where the detailing could achieve its effect through intricacy and something on a grand scale like the Chrysler Building (1930), one of New York City's landmark skyscrapers.  

The Old Testament, Savonarola, and the Bonfire of the Vanities

Vanity of vanities, said the preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. (Ecclesiastes 1:2, King James Version of the Bible (KJV, 1611)).  The word translated as "vanity" appears 37 times in Ecclesiastes, more than in the entirety of the rest of the Old Testament so is clearly a theme of the text.  The meaning of vanity is used here in its original form of something that is transitory and quickly passes away.  In that it’s a literal translation of the Hebrew hebel, best understood in this context as meaning breath of wind, something which, whatever its immediate effects, is soon gone.  Unfortunately for nihilists, emos and other depressives trawling texts for anything confirming the pointlessness of life, biblical scholars agree the phrase is not an assertion that life is meaningless or that our labors in this fallen world are ultimately useless.  Instead, it’s a saying to help people put their lives in the proper perspective.  Ecclesiastes is not saying all our efforts are worthless, just observing that all we do in our three score and ten years upon this earth is but a brief prelude to our eternal existence and much of life escapes our understanding, for we cannot comprehend how everything fits into the grand story of creation.  All very poetic but, perhaps sadly, improbable.  It’s more likely the universe is a violent, doomed, swirl of matter and energy, life is pointless, right and wrong are just variable constructs, everything is meaningless and all any can hope for is a fleeting false consciousness that might make us feel briefly happy.

Nascita di Venere (the Birth of Venus, circa 1485), tempera on canvas, by Sandro Botticelli (1444-1510), Uffizi Gallery, Florence.  The work was painted on a commission from the Medicis; this one was not tossed onto the flames.

What historians came to call the “The Bonfire of the Vanities” was an event in Florence on 7 February, 1497, orchestrated by the fundamentalist Dominican friar Girolamo Savonarola (1452–1498).  The Church was at the time riddled with priests who disapproved of just about everything but Savonarola was a true radical who thought direct action more pleasing to God than mere pious words so directed his followers (including many enthusiastic children) to scour Florence for “sinful objects”, including looking glasses (mirrors), musical instruments, books not the Bible or other religious texts, cosmetics, fine clothing, pagan artworks and such.  These objects he ordered gathered and tossed onto a huge, multi-tiered pyre erected in the Piazza della Signoria (the city’s public square), the pile topped by an image of Satan (a nice touch).  Savonarola’s interpretation of scripture demanded people living lives of extreme austerity and, given mankind’s state of constant sin, a constant state of repentance, his aim to purge Florence of secular corruption, his mood much encouraged by the recent expulsion of the Medici family.  Part of the legend of the Bonfire of the Vanities is that Sandro Botticelli was so moved by Savonarola’s apocalyptic sermons he threw some of his own pagan-themed paintings into the fire but there is no contemporary evidence supporting that although, it’s not impossible the artist, sniffing the political wind, decided it wise publicly to sacrifice a few lesser works.  The myth however has always appealed to writers lamenting that barbarians are always with us and in Civilisation (1969) Lord Clark (Sir Kenneth Clark (1903–1983)) wrote the loss of even a few Botticellis seemed “…a heavy price to pay for religious conviction.”

The Florentines Renouncing The Vanities By Order of Savonarola (1890), engraving by an unknown artist.  For fundamentalists, book-burning has never lost its appeal although in places like Florida, Texas, and Tennessee, the process is now virtualized.

Kenneth Clark was a cultural elitist of a kind now perhaps either extinct or rendered silent by a less deferential culture, and, to avoid offending those prone to being offended, some editions of Civilisation subsequently appeared with the title Western Civilisation.  Whether Botticelli really had a “road to Damascus” moment or was just making a “good career move” will never be known but, after the bonfire, a stylistic shift in his art towards the deeply spiritual was obvious but not too much should be read into this: a good artist knows his market.  The Dominican order to which Savonarola belonged had been formed to “combat heresy in the Christian church” and in places in France and Italy where the order had a presence, between the thirteenth & fifteenth centuries there were quite a few such bonfires but what made the one in 1497 most remembered is the historic significance.  Savonarola had for years been preaching about an “end of times” moment, predicting the Apocalypse would come in around 1500 and while in Christendom such messaging was hardly novel, Savonarola was better at it than most and he found audiences more receptive as the corruption in Church and state under the Medicis (Florence’s ruling family of Florence) became more blatantly extractive.  Inflamed by his incendiary words, in 1494 a mob burned down the Medicis' bank and, taking the hint, the family fled the city.  Inspired, Savonarola took power and turned his attention to other un-Godly symbols, notably vanities such as what would now be called “contemporary art” and indulgences such as extravagant clothing and the powders & potions people (including men) used to “beautify themselves”.  Especially offensive were deemed the female Biblical figures in paintings of the time.

Girolamo Savonarola, gemalt von Langenmantel (Girolamo Savonarola Preaching Against Prodigality, 1879), oil on canvas by Ludwig von Langenmantel (1839–1904), Saint Bonaventure University (a Franciscan institution), western New York State.

So, the proto-Talib had his moment of triumph as a particularly practical art critic but among more thoughtful Florentians his reputation suffered because they were appalled their heritage and culture was being threatened just to satisfy one friar’s obsessions; while many were glad to see the end of the Medicis they were not pleased by the loss of the art.  As it was, although Savonarola got to watch the glory of the incineration, his victory over vice proved pyrrhic because he over-reached by dabbling in politics, opposing Alexander VI’s (circa 1431-1503; pope 1492 1503) Holy League against the French; summoned to Rome, Savonarola ignore the order and further defied the Holy See by preaching under a ban, demanding reform of the Church and more bonfires.  The pope in 1497 excommunicated Savonarola and with this most of his popular support evaporated.  On 23 May, 1498, after typically brisk legal proceedings in both civil and ecclesiastical courts had condemned Savonarola and two other Dominican friars who had remained loyal, the trio were hanged and their bodies cremated at the same spot in Piazza della Signoria were the Botticellis had burned; his “end of times” came a couple of years early.  There the matter may have ended but Savonarola's devotees (the Piagnoni (the lamenting ones)) went “underground” and maintained into the next century the cause of religious reform and republicanism, the sect not suppressed until Rome in 1512 engineered the return to power of the Medici.  Seizing the moment, the Medici arranged their own “re-insurance” by securing the throne of Saint Peter for “the Medici Pope” (Leo X (1475–1521; pope 1513-1521)) who may never have uttered the famous phrase” “God has given us the papacy, let us enjoy it” but it certainly summed up the way things were being done “under new management”.  Although damned by many as a barbarian or philistine, some early Protestants (including Martin Luther (1483–1546) himself), regarded Savonarola as a vital precursor to the Protestant Reformation.

Vanity Fair

Published in 1678, John Bunyan’s (1628–1688) The Pilgrim's Progress is an allegory of the Christian’s spiritual journey through the sins and temptations of earthly existence to the salvation of the Kingdom of Heaven; a symbolic vision of an English worthy’s pilgrimage through life.  In the village of Vanity is a perpetual fair, selling all things to satisfy all desires and Vanity Fair represents the sin of man’s attachment to and lust for transient worldly goods, a critique echoed later in secular criticisms of materialism.  Novelist William Makepeace Thackeray (1811–1863), although making no mention of Bunyan or his work when he published Vanity Fair in 1847-1848, could rely on his readers being well acquainted with the symbolism of the earlier allegory.  By the mid-nineteenth century when Thackeray’s portrait of British society was published, the term had become laden too with secular and class-conscious meanings, suggesting the imagery both of self-indulgent playground and the sense of that stratum of society where the only habitué are the idle and undeserving rich.  Memorably, Thackeray explored both although the work obviously is dated and structurally not without error (published originally as a 19-part monthly serial, it does seem the author may have written the latter volumes without having re-read the earlier parts, meaning inconsistencies do exist).

Lindsay Lohan. Vanity Fair Italia, August 2011.

Over the years, on both sides of the Atlantic, a number of periodicals have used the masthead Vanity Fair.  The current one has its roots in Condé Montrose Nast's (1873–1942) purchase in 1913 of (1) a men's fashion journal called Dress and (2) Vanity Fair, a magazine devoted to the performing arts with an emphasis on theatre.  After a brief, unsatisfactory foray as the combined title Dress and Vanity Fair, in 1914 there was a re-launch of Vanity Fair and success was immediate, continuing even until well into the troubled 1930s.  For magazines, the conditions of the Great Depression were curiously different to the vicissitudes of the digital age of the twenty-first century.  Then (as now) revenue from advertising had collapsed by by the Condé Nast in 1936 folded Vanity Fair into his companion title Vogue, circulation had reached an all-time high.  The problem was the cover price of an issue wasn’t enough profitably to cover production and distribution costs; advertising was essential.  In a situation familiar to newspaper publishers in their halcyon days, it wasn’t always financially advantageous to achieve higher sales; unless one's title has the right readers (the prized "A", "B" (and maybe "C1") demographics), the more copies that were sold, the higher the losses.

Condé Nast Publications revived the title with the first issue appearing in February 1983.  Like most print publications, its advertising revenue has declined but, critically in this market, so have newsstand sales.  The subscriber base is said to be stable but Condé Nast doesn’t release data detailing the breakdown and it’s thus unknown how much of this is made up from less lucrative bundled packages.  Newsstand sales of single-issue copies are a vital metric in this market, editors judged by monthly sales, a school of analysis now focused on deconstructing the relationship between the photograph on an issue’s cover and copies sold; editorial content, while not ignored, seems less relevant.  The magazine’s future is thus uncertain as are the options were it not to continue as a distinct, stand-alone entity with a print version.  It’s a different environment from 1936 when it was absorbed into Vogue and different even that things at the turn of the century when Mirabella, a similar publication facing similar problems, closed; the now well-practiced path of ceasing print production and going wholly digital may become attractive if circulation continues to suffer.  While it true Condé Nast already has digital titles that would seem to overlap with Vanity Fair, that’s less of a concern than cannibalization in print where the relationship of production and distribution costs to individual sales is different; both are marginal in gaining additional digital subscriptions.

Congreve's vanity

The Comedies of William Congreve (Penguin edition of four plays, 1986).  Congreve would prefer to have been remembered as another Voltaire.

Except among the dwindling number of souls still studying English literature, the name of Restoration playwright William Congreve (1670–1729) will be at least obscure and probably unknown.  However, two of his most memorable phrases remain part of the language, albeit usually misquoted and attributed to William Shakespeare (1564–1616).  So, many will be familiar with: “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned.” (Congreves’s original text being “Heav'n has no rage, like love to hatred turn'd, nor Hell a fury like a woman scorn'd.” and “Music has charms to soothe a savage beast.” (originally “Music has charms to soothe a savage breast.”), both from the play The Mourning Bride (1697) although the protagonist, despite becoming a bit unhinged by the cruel path of doomed love, doesn’t resort to leporidaecide (bunny boiling) so Hell’s fury plays out in different ways.  There’s a tendency to attribute both to Shakespeare because they “sound Shakespearian”, a construct created by words like “hath” rarely being seen other than in some fragment from the bard’s goose-feathered quill.  Congreve was in his lifetime for some time one of England’s most popular authors but there’s much to suggest he was not exactly ashamed at having written such “popular entertainments” but would certainly have preferred to be thought a serious writer and, after retiring to live on his royalty stream, he switched to translating the classics from Antiquity.  He seems to have made no secret of his semi-shame, the French philosopher Voltaire (François-Marie Arouet; 1694–1778) in Letters Concerning the English Nation (1733) recounting one meeting with him: “He spoke of his works as trifles that were beneath him, and hinted to me at our first conversation that I should visit him upon no other foot than that of a gentleman who led a life of plainness and simplicity.  I answered that had he been so unfortunate as to be a mere gentleman, I should never have come to visit him, and I was very much disgusted at so unseasonable a piece of vanity.”

Vanity Cases 

Enamel vanity case by Gérard Sandoz, Paris, circa 1927 (left) and cigarette case by Cartier, Paris, circa 1925 (right).

It was during the 1920s, the small vanity case's shape and size evolved into what remains the familiar modern form.  Most exquisite were the art-deco creations designed as companion pieces to the cigarette cases newly fashionable with women as the social acceptability of young ladies smoking spread.  As a concept, the vanity case is an ancient accessory, one 3,000-odd years old and made from inlaid cedar containing ointment, face-paint, perfume and a mirror of polished metal, discovered during one of Howard Carter’s (1874–1939) archaeological digs.  Well known in something recognizably modern from the fourteenth century in France and Italy, they became fashionable in England only during the 1700s and then for men, as a small box called a “dressing case”, designed to fit into larger “dressing case”.  The shift to small, portable devices for women came in the late-eighteenth century, just as the handbag (in the modern sense) was becoming a fashion item as well as a functional receptacle.  The essence of the vanity case became its role as a "portable beauty parlour", the inside of the lid fitted with a small mirror while the case contained what was required for "touch-ups" (of eyes, hair, lips, cheeks etc) while on the move or away from one's boudoir.    

Doodlebug

Doodlebug (pronounced dood-l-buhg)

(1) In entomology, the larva of an antlion (a group of some 2,000 species of insect in the neuropteran family Myrmeleontidae, the appellation “doodlebug” an allusion to the “doodle-like” marks they leave in the sand as tracks of their movement.

(2) In entomology (UK), a cockchafer (genus Melolontha).

(3) In entomology (US regional), a woodlouse.

(4) As “doodlebugger”, a dowser (divining rod) or similar device supposedly useful in locating underground water, hydrocarbons, minerals etc.  By extension, the word was applied to geophysicists or geologists undertaking field work (especially oil prospecting or mineral exploration); they were said to be doodlebugging.

(5) In World War II (1939-1945) UK slang, the German cruise missile the V1, (Fs-103), also known informally as the “flying bomb” or “buzz bomb”, the latter an allusion to the distinctive sound made by the craft’s pulse-jet power-plant.  The slang began among RAF (Royal Air Force) personnel and later spread to the general population.

(6) In US rural slang, as “doodlebug tractor”, a car or light truck converted into tractor used (usually for small-scale agriculture), first noted as a type during the Great Depression years of the 1930s.  During World War II, the improvisation continued because new tractors were in short supply because most production was allocated to the military. 

(7) Individual self-propelled train cars (obsolete).

(8) Any of various small, squat vehicles (as both nickname and official designation).

(9) In informal use, a term of endearment (now rare).

(10) In informal use, a slackard (an archaic form of slacker) or time-waster (now rare).

(11) In informal use, an idiot (as used casually rather than in its once codified sense in mental health).

(12) In informal use, someone who habitually draws (or doodles) objects.

1865-1870: A coining in US English, the construct being doodle + bug, the first known use as a US dialectal form (south of the Mason-Dixon Line) to describe certain beetles or larva.  Doodle dates from the early seventeenth century and was used to mean “a fool or simpleton”.  It was originally a dialectal form, from dudeldopp (simpleton) and influenced by dawdle (to spend time idly and unfruitfully; to waste time, pointlessly to linger, to move or walk lackadaisically; to “dilly-dally”), thus the later use of doodle to mean “a slackard (slacker) or time-waster”.  The German variants of the etymon included Dudeltopf, Dudentopf, Dudenkopf, Dude and Dödel (and there’s presumably some link with the German dudeln (to play the bagpipe)).  There is speculation the Americanism “dude” may have some connection and the now internationalized (and sometimes gender-neutral) “dude” has in recent decades become one of slang’s more productive and variable forms.  The song Yankee Doodle long pre-dates the American Revolutionary War (1775-1783) but it was popularized in the era by being used as a marching song by British colonial troops, the intention being to poke fun at their rebellious opponents; that didn't work out well.  From this use was derived the verb of the early eighteenth century (to doodle), meaning “to swindle or to make a fool of”.  The predominant modern meaning (the drawings regarded usually as “small mindless sketches”) emerged in the 1930s either from this meaning or (as seems to have greater support), from the verb “to dawdle” which since the seventeenth century had been used to mean “wasting time; being lazy”.  In slang and idiomatic use, doodles uses are legion including “the penis” and any number of rhyming forms with meanings ranging from the very good to the very bad.  The hyphenated doodle-bug has appeared and Urban Dictionary has the usual array of alternative, user-generated meanings.  Doodlebug, doodlebugging & doodlebugger are nouns; the noun plural is doodlebugs.

A doodled Volkswagen “bug” on Drawn Inside.

Bug dates from 1615–1625, the original use being to describe insects, apparently as a variant of the earlier bugge (beetle), thought to be an alteration of the Middle English budde, from the Old English -budda (beetle) but etymologists are divided on whether the phrase “bug off” (please leave) is related to the undesired presence of insects or was of a distinct origin.  Bug, bugging & debug are nouns & verbs, bugged is a verb & adjective and buggy is a noun & adjective; the noun plural is bugs.  Although “unbug” makes apparent sense (ie remove a bug, and thus synonymous with the modern “debug”), it doesn’t exist whereas forms such as the adjectives unbugged (not bugged) and unbuggable (not able to be bugged) are listed as standard.  The array of compound forms meaning “someone obsessed with an idea, hobby etc) produced things like “shutterbug” (amateur photographer) & firebug (arsonist) seems first to have emerged in the mid nineteenth century.  The development of this into “a craze or obsession” is thought rapidly to have accelerated in the years just before World War I (1914-1918), again based on the notion of “bitten by the bug” or “caught the bug”, thus the idea of being infected with an unusual enthusiasm for something.

The use to mean a demon, evil spirit, spectre or hobgoblin was first recorded in the mid-fourteenth century and was a clipping of the Middle English bugge (scarecrow, demon, hobgoblin) or uncertain origin although it may have come from the Middle Welsh bwg (ghost; goblin (and linked to the Welsh bwgwl (threat (and earlier “fear”) and the Middle Irish bocanách (supernatural being).  There’s also speculation it may have come from the scary tales told to children which included the idea of a bugge (beetle) at a gigantic scale.  That would have been a nightmarish thought and the idea remains fruitful to this day for artists and film-makers needing something frightening in the horror or SF (science fiction) genre.  The use in this sense is long obsolete although the related forms bugbear and bugaboo survive.  Dating from the 1570s, a bugbear was in folklore a kind of “large goblin”, used to inspire fear in children (both as a literary device & for purposes of parental control) and for adults it soon came to mean “a source of dread, resentment or irritation; in modern use it's an “ongoing problem”, a recurring obstacle or adversity or one’s pet peeve.  The obsolete form bugg dates from circa 1620 and was a reference to the troublesome bedbug, the construct a conflation of the middle English bugge (scarecrow, hobgoblin) and the Middle English budde (beetle).  The colloquial sense of “a microbe or germ” dates from 1919, the emergence linked to the misleadingly-named “Spanish influenza” pandemic.

A doodlebug (left) and his (or her) doodles in the sand (right).

That the word doodlebug has appeal is obvious because since the 1860s it has been re-purposed many time, often with the hint something “small but not cute”, that something understandable given the original creature so named (larva of an antlion) is not one of nature’s more charismatic creations.  Doodlebugs are squat little things which live mostly in loose sand where they create pit traps and genuinely are industrious creatures, their name earned not because they are idle time-wasters but because the tracks they leave in the sand are strikingly similar to the doodles people often wile away their time drawing.  The frankly unattractive ant leave their doodles behind because, as they percolate over the ground, their big butts drag behind them, leaving the erratic trails.  So compelling is the name, it has been applied to a number of other, similar insects.  Another use is attributive from the link with the seventeenth century notion of a doodle being “a simpleton or time-waster”, extended later to “an idiot” (the word used casually rather than as it once was codified in mental health); in the 1930s it came be used of those who incessantly sketch or draw stuff, the idea being they are squandering their time.  What they draw are called “doodles”, the source of the name for the artist.

Doodles on a rendering of Lindsay Lohan by Stable Diffusion.

The mid-twentieth century art (some of its practitioners claiming it was a science) of doodlebugging was practiced by doodlebuggers who used a method said to be not greatly different from the equally dubious technique of the water diviner.  All the evidence suggests there was a general scepticism of the claims that a bent rod waived about above the earth could be used to locate hydro-carbons and the use of “doodlebuging” to refer to the process was originally a slur but it became an affectionate name for those intrepid enough to trek into deserts seeking the “black gold” usuing more orthodox prospecting techniques.  In the 1940s when the “profession” was first described, any reliable means of detecting sub-surface oil deposits simply didn’t exist (other than drilling a hole in the ground to see if it was there) and the early doodlebuggers were scam merchants.  The science did however advance (greatly spurred on by the demands of wartime) and when geologists came to be able to apply the modern machinery of seismic mapping and actually had success, they too were called doodlebuggers and happily adopted the name.

Texaco Doodlebug fuel tanker, one of eight built in 1934-1935 during the industry's "streamliner" era.  It was a time when art deco's lovely lines appeared in many fields of design. 

In the early twentieth century, a doodlebug was a self-propelled rail car, used on rail lines which were short in length and subject only to light traffic.  These were autonomous vehicles, powered both by gasoline (petrol) (in the US, it was the the pre-diesel era) and electricity; they were an attractive alternative for operators, being much cheaper to run than the combination of large locomotives & carriage cars, eminently suited to routes with lower passenger numbers.  The concept may be compared with the smaller (often propeller or turbo-prop) aircraft used for shuttle services or on regional & feeder routes where demand be sufficient to make viable the use of larger airliners.  Although the doodlebugs carried relatively few passengers, their operating costs were correspondingly lower so the PCpM (passenger cost per mile) was at least comparable with the full-sized locomotives.  While it may be a myth, the story is that one rail employee described the small, stumpy rail car as looking like a “potato bug” and (as English informal terms tend to do) this morphed into the more appealing doodlebug.

Some assembly required: a doodlebug tractor with hydraulic pump-driven crane, the agglomeration dating from circa 1934.

Although the mechanical specification of each tended to vary as things broke and were replaced with whatever fell conveniently to hand or could be purchased cheaply, when discovered, it included a 1925 Chevrolet gasoline engine, Ford Model T firewall and steering, Ford Model A three-speed manual transmission, Ford Model TT (truck) rear end and AM General HMMWV rear wheels and tires.  The "mix & match" approach was typical of the genre and it's doubtful many were for long exactly alike.

A doodlebug could also be a DIY (do it yourself) tractor.  During the Great Depression of the 1930s, smaller-scale farmers (then more prevalent than today) in the US no longer had the capital (or access to loan-capital) to purchase plant and equipment on the same scale as in more prosperous times but needed still to make their land productive, a essential tool being the tractor, one of modernity's many devices which greatly had increased the efficiency of agriculture.  New tractors being thus for many being unattainable, necessity compelled farmers to turn to what was available and that was the stock of old cars and pickup trucks, now suddenly cheaper because the Depression had lowered demand for them as well.  With saws and welding kits, imaginative and inventive farmers would crop & chop and slice & dice until they had a vehicle which would do much of what a tractor could and according to the legends of the time, some actually out-performed the real thing because their custom design was optimized for a specific, intended purpose.  What made the modifications possible in the engineering sense was that it was a time when cars and pick-ups in the US always used a separate chassis; the bodies could be removed and it was possible still to drive the things and it was on these basic platforms the “doodlebug” tractors were fashioned.  They were known also as “scrambolas”, “Friday night specials” and “hacksaw tractors” but it was “doodlebug” which really caught on and so popular was the practice that kits were soon advertised in mail-order catalogues (the Amazon of the day and a long tradition in the rural US).  Not until the post-war years when economic conditions improved and production of machinery for civilian use resumed at full-scale did the informal industry of the doodlebug end.

1946 Brogan Doodlebug (right) with 1942 Pontiac Torpedo (left).  In the US, some passenger car production continued in the first quarter of 1942. 

Although now what’s most remembered about the US cars of the post-war era are the huge and extravagantly macropterous creations, there were more than two dozen manufacturers in the 1940s & 1950s offering “micro-cars”, aimed at (1) female drivers, (2) inner-city delivery services and (3) urban drivers who wanted something convenient to manoeuvre and park.  The market however proved unresponsive and as the population shift to the suburbs accelerated, women wanted station wagons (in many ways the emblematic socio-economic symbol of suburban American of the 1950s) and the delivery companies needed larger capacity.  As the Volkswagen Beetle (Type 1, 1938-2003) and a few other niche players would prove during that decade’s “import boom”, Americans would buy smaller cars, just not micro-cars which even in Europe, where they were for a time successful, the segment didn’t survive to see the end of the 1960s (although various factors would see later revivals).  But there was the Brogan Doodlebug, made by the B&B Specialty Company of Rossmoyne, Ohio and produced between 1946-1950 although that fewer than three dozen were sold hints at the level of demand at a time when Detroit’s mass-production lines were every day churning out thousands of “standard sized” cars.

1946 Brogan Doodlebug.

Somewhat optimistically (though etymologically defensible) described as a “roadster”, the advertising for the Doodlebug exclusively featured women drivers and it certainly was in some ways ideal for urban use (except perhaps when raining, snowing, in cold weather or the sun was harsh).  It used a three wheeled chassis with the single wheel at the front, articulated so the vehicle could turn within its own length making parking easy, the thing barely 96 inches (2,440 mm) in length & 40 inches (1,020 mm) wide; weighing only some 442 lbs (200 kg), it was light enough for two strong men to pick it up and move it (a characteristic with both advantages and drawbacks).  Powered by either a single or twin-cylinder rear-mounted engine (both rated at a heady 10 HP (horsepower ), no gearbox was deemed necessary, thus no tiresome gear levers or clutch pedals intruded to confuse women drivers.   B&B claimed a fuel consumption up to 70 mpg (84 mpg in Imperial gallons) with a cruising speed of 45-50 mph (70-80 km/h).  All this for US$400 and remarkably, it seems it wasn’t until 1950 (after some 30 doodlebugs had been built over four years) the cost-accountants looked at the project and concluded B&B was losing about US$100 on each one sold.  A price-rise was ruled out so production ended and although B&B released the Broganette (an improved three-wheeler with the single wheel at the rear (a configuration offering much better stability); it was no more successful and the company turned to golf carts and scooters; that proved more lucrative.  B&B later earned a footnote in the history of motorsport as one of the pioneer go-kart manufacturers.

Annotated schematic of the V-1 (left) and a British Military Intelligence drawing (dated 16 June 1944, 3 days after the first V-1 attacks on London (right). 

First deployed in 1944 the German Vergeltungswaffen eins (“retaliatory weapon 1” or “reprisal weapon 1” and eventually known as the V-1) was the world’s first cruise missile.  One of the rare machines to use a pulse-jet, it emitted such a distinctive sound that those at whom it was aimed nicknamed it the “buzz-bomb” although it attracted other names including “flying bomb” and “doodlebug”.  In Germany, before Dr Joseph Goebbels (1897-1945; Nazi Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda 1933-1945) decided it was the V-1 (understood as “vengeance weapon 1”), the official military code name was Fi 103 (The Fi stood for Fieseler, the original builder of the airframe and most famous for their classic Storch (Stork), short take-off & landing (STOL) aircraft) but there were also the code-names Maikäfer (maybug) & Kirschkern (cherry stone).  While the Allied defenses against the V-1 did improve over time, it was only the destruction of the launch sites and the occupation of territory within launch range that ceased the attacks.  Until then, the V-1 remained a highly effective terror weapon but, like the V-2 and so much of the German armaments effort, bureaucratic empire-building and political intrigue compromised the efficiency of the project.

V-1 falling on London, 13 June, 1944, the location identifiable by the roofline of the city’s courts of law.  Not until 29 March, 1945 did the UK suffer its last V-1 strike, that final doodlebug falling to ground in Datchworth, Hertfordshire.

Shot from a Fleet-Street roof-top air-raid warning observation post, the image captures a V-1 in profile during the final seconds of its descent.  Accurate enough only for the target to be “London”, this one fell on a side road off Drury Lane, the warhead’s explosion damaging several buildings including the offices of The Daily Herald newspaper.  Long associated with the British Labour Party (and the labor movement more generally) The Daily Herald was published between 1912-1964 (always as a daily except during World War I (1914-1918) when there was only a weekly edition) and for a time in the 1930s it was the newspaper with the world’s highest audited circulation, peaking at over two million with a readership several times that number.  Despite a number of changes in ownership and editorial focus, it was for all its existence very much an organ of the labour movement and broadly supportive (though not uncritical) of the Labour Party, something that didn’t change in 1964 when it was re-launched as The Sun.  The real change came in 1969 when the by then ailing title was bought by Rupert Murdoch (b 1931), after which it (and the tabloid market) was never quite the same.  The pre-internet state of the UK’s once vibrant newspaper business was summarised by an anonymous advertising copywriter whose thoughts appeared in the book Newspaper Money by economists Fred Hirsch (1931–1978) and David Gordon (b 1942):

The Times is read by the people who run the country.

The Guardian is read by the people who would like to run the country.

The Financial Times is read by the people who own the country.

The Daily Telegraph is read by the people who remember the country as it used to be.

The Daily Express is read by the people who think the country is still like that.

The Daily Mail is read by the wives of the men who run the country.

The Daily Mirror (which itself once tried to run the country) is read by the people who think they run the country.

The Morning Star is read by the people who would like another country to run the country.

The Sun-well, Murdoch has found a gap in the market - the oldest gap in the world.