Not to dimin­ish the night­mare of mor­tars and shrap­nel, but as evi­denced by Crow’s Eye Pro­duc­tions’ peri­od-accu­rate dress­ing video above, one of the great­est hor­rors of WWI was wet wool. Decades before the inven­tion of Gore-Tex, Polar Fleece, and oth­er high-per­for­mance, all-weath­er gear, British sol­diers relied on their woolies from head to toe. Nothing’s worse than the scent of three lay­ers of wet wool when you’re catch­ing your death in sod­den put­tees. Pre­vent­ed from join­ing the com­bat on the front­lines, British women helped out where they could, achiev­ing a more com­fort­able lev­el of dress than they’d known before the war. View more of Crow’s Eye Pro­duc­tions’ short films on the his­to­ry of dress here.