With stiff and formal clothes of XIX/XX century, how people managed to maintain proper hygiene?

by Ohnoes_in_distress

If you look at XIXth and early XXth century, you notice that clothes were much more formal than nowadays, with long sleeves and multiple layers all year around. How people managed to keep proper hygiene in this clothes, especially without modern bathrooms and hygiene products?

For example, house servants like footmen had to be on their feet very early in the morning with last of their duties finishing up well in the evening, during all this time performing semi-intensive physical labour (lots of walking and carrying) in formal clothes and possible 30/35+C temperatures in the summer. I feel like I'd want to have at least 1 or 2 showers during such day, with changing at least a shirt each time for a fresh one. However it doesn't look realistic for a XIX footman to have such luxuries...

chocolatepot

There is certainly still room for someone else to write about what servants and members of the working class in general were doing, but I've got a few answers for you!

We're accustomed to changing our clothes every day. Sometimes more than once a day. How often did people change and wash their clothes in the 1700s and 1800s?

There's a stereotype that a lot of Victorian women would wear lots of, and difficult to move in clothing. How would one use the bathroom while wearing such attire?

When we talk about the Victorian Era, inevitably the topic of baths and cleanliness comes up. Was the antipathy for washing common or were most people cleaner than the usually taught history?