Laura Fitzachary

speaker

89 appearances 1 recordings 1 series first heard Aug 2026 last heard 8 Aug

Laura Fitzachary’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.

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Recordings per month over the last 12 months — 1 in all, peaking in Aug 2026 with 1.

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Brendan O'Connor · “People used tea bags and gravy browning to tan their legs!” · 8 Aug 2026 podcast

Loose and has limbs on show.

Okay, there's a bit of leg, yeah.

It's a bit of leg, there's a bit of arm coming into the 1920s, which is obviously in complete contrast to the end of the 19th century, uh, end the Victorian period, even the Edwardian, you saw clothes starting to loosen up a bit, but the dress reform movement that happens towards the end of the 19th century really sets the tone for which way clothes are going by the 1920s.

And then once they start to you get shorter skirts and arms out, obviously then they're

There's um uh there's a a a kind of a push towards being outside.

Mm, sportswear, uh specific sportswear and particularly for women as well.

Well, you have time to sun bathe.

And you were you're able to go on holidays, you're able to find the sun.

So if you're based in the UK and Ireland, then obviously you're not going to get as much sun.

And you find articles pop up, even in the Irish Independent, as early as nineteen thirty four, talking about the sun being out in the sun, how uh how one should tan.

And the early terminology around sun tanning is burning the skin is the term.

they use which is which is what it's on is

Yeah, actually it's even earlier.

Uh so there's there's brilliant articles that come out of the likes of Harper's Bazaar from nineteen twenty eight uh questioning should we gild the lily, should we tan by fake means or by fair?

So they're talking about using what we would refer to now as cosmetics for the legs, so leg makeup.

And that really explodes by the nineteen forties because stockings are huge and stockings create that tanned colour.

that people want on their legs throughout the thirties.

Obviously with World War Two.

You have a great shortage of nylon, but you also have very little imports of silk coming over from the east, so particularly from Japan, which means creating stockings is going to be hard.

Now, we had a great hosiery industry already in Ireland, but those um anecdotes, you might say, of people using cold tea bags or gravy, it's not gravy granules to tan your legs to round it up.

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