Like wearing a skirt over pants, another example of wanting it both ways is to wear a long-sleeved shirt under a t-shirt, usually a "graphical" t-shirt with a band logo or other design. Really this started in the 1990s with either grunge or skater/punk culture. It was a good way to wear one's collection of band shirts even in cold weather. However, it was a style that carried over into the early 2000s. I'm a bad offender in this style vein even to present day.
Now you can get shirts that just have the sleeves sewn into the t-shirt to get the look without the layering. The example in the bottom image is from K-Mart. It's a young man's shirt, but I personally own two women's shirts of a similar construction, one of them that was sold as active or exercise wear.
It was these looks that I thought of when I saw images of "the great sleeve collapse" of the mid 1800s. After many crazy-huge sleeve designs in the 1820s, in 1835 sleeve bulk started getting banded down, and eventually they ended up with this bi-level sleeve look where a ruffle, band, or other element was sewn on at the level where you'd have a short sleeve, but on a long sleeve. You can see this in the top image. The main difference is that unlike the dress, which has both sleeve portions in the same fabric, the t-shirt/long sleeve combinations often have a contrasting color and often a different fabric type than the t-shirt it's paired with.
Image sources:
Top image: Dress. Date: 1855-1860. Culture: American. Credit Line: Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of The Jason and Peggy Westerfield Collection, 1969. Accession Number: 2009.300.7711
Bottom image: Sinister Men's Layered-Look Thermal T-Shirt - Eagle. From K-Mart. Item # 046VA57373312P Model # SNR-0610. Retrieved 7 Dec 2014 from http://www.kmart.com/sinister-men-s-layered-look-thermal-t-shirt-eagle/p-046VA573733
The top image is of an Ancient Egyptian bead net dress. We assume, and can guess from their artwork, that this dress would be worn over another dress or tunic. Beaded bling and sheer fabric over other articles of clothing have come back many times over the centuries, and as you can see from the middle image, 1920s flappers enjoyed the flashy look.
Flappers were shocking women. They wore short skirts that showed their knees (!!), kissed boys, drank, smoked, cut their hair short, and wore makeup. But at least they wore something under their sheers! The second dress (left) has the sheer and beads, and while the dress beside it (right) is completely sheer, it wouldn't have been worn that way. Just like the Egyptian dress, it is likely an overdress section of a more complete outfit.
Rihanna, at the 2014 CDFA Fashion Awards in NYC, wore a sheer, Swarovski crystal-encrusted net dress custom-designed for her by Adam Selman, and it showed just about everything. Aside from the length of the skirt and the sheerness of the gown, the flapper influence is pretty obvious, even down to the close-fitting headdress, costume jewelry earrings and Hollywood glamour fur stole and long gloves. If critics in the 1920s were having heart attacks over flappers showing their shins, they'd probably drop dead if they could see this.
Image sources:
Top image: Beadnet Dress. Culture: Egyptian. Date: 2323–2150 B.C. Findspot: Giza, Egypt. From Giza, tomb G 2342 D (now G 5520 D); 1933: excavated by the Harvard University–Boston Museum of Fine Arts Expedition; assigned to the MFA in the division of finds by the government of Egypt. (Accession Date: March 9, 2001). ACCESSION NUMBER: 33.1020.1. COLLECTIONS:Textiles and Fashion Arts, The Ancient World. CLASSIFICATIONS: Costumes
Second image, left: Evening dress. Designer: Anne & Thérèse. Culture: French. Date: c. 1925. Credit Line: Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Mrs. Robert G. Olmsted and Constable MacCracken, 1969. Accession Number: 2009.300.1351
Third image, right: Evening dress. Designer: Possibly House of Lanvin. Culture: French. Date: c. 1927. Credit Line: Brooklyn Museum Costume Collection at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of the Brooklyn Museum, 2009; Gift of Rena Gill, 1985. Accession Number: 2009.300.8114
Bottom image: Rihanna at the 2014 CDFA Fashion Awards, NYC. Designer: Adam Selman. Retrieved 7 Dec 2014 from http://www.look.co.uk/fashion/rihanna-is-the-sexiest-sequin-clad-flapper-weve-ever-seen
During the Victorian Period, from about 1820 to 1870, women's rights activists sought dress reform for women, advocating for more comfortable, less restrictive clothing. They believed that crinolines, heavy skirts, and corsets caused illness and deformity and that clothing should be looser and easier to move around in, allowing women to be more active.
At the same time, women in factories, mines, and mills wore shorter dresses and trousers to avoid getting clothing caught in machinery and allow ease of movement so they could do their work. The "Bloomer Costume," named for women's rights activist Amelia Bloomer, was briefly introduced but never caught on as a fashionable outfit. As you can see in the first image, it consisted of a shorter dress with wide-legged trousers, either called "bloomers" or "Turkish trousers," underneath.
While it never went on to dominate fashion, a lot of working women adopted a similar costume just because it was practical and still allowed them the femininity (and social expectation) of wearing a skirt or dress, but protected the legs, keeping them warm and modestly covered.
In the early 2000s I remember seeing a few girls at UNH walking around in the dead of winter with skirts over jeans. I thought they were just trying to have it both ways, and they probably were. Recently it seems the trend is starting up again, as shown in the second image at the Spring/Summer 2014 Ready to Wear show, with this (and several similar) look by Marques Almeida. It seems to be an evolution and amalgamation of the trend of wearing leggings with long shirts or tunics, into wearing the same with skin-tight skinny jeans. Those looks seem more "natural" because of how closely the legs fit, making them not much different than wearing opaque tights with a dress, but in the writeups about this look I also read that flared jeans may be coming back (yay!) so we may end up seeing skirts over wider-legged, looser jeans.
This is a way to wear that pretty dress that either is too short or too brief for the cold weather, or if you feel your legs don't look good (for whatever reason). Women also see it as a way to either dress up their jeans or dress down their fancy skirts and dresses.
I found the really close connection to the Bloomer Costume at the link where I found the third image: a site devoted to style and directed at Muslim women. The accompanying article talks about enjoying the convenience of trousers but being uncomfortable with how they show the shape of their legs. This combination allows them to adhere to their religious clothing restrictions and still have access to comfortable and functional clothing.
Image sources:
Top image: Title: The Bloomer Costume. Creator: N. Currier. Date: 1851. Location: Library of Congress Prints and Photographs. Reproduction Number: LC-USZC2-1978 (color film copy slide) LC-USZ62-970 (b&w film copy neg.) Call Number: PGA - Currier & Ives--Bloomer costume (A size) [P&P]. Notes: Currier & Ives : a catalogue raisonné / compiled by Gale Research. Detroit, MI : Gale Research, c1983, no. 0641. File photo in LOT 4440-A. Permalink: http://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/90711963/
Middle image: Look 11. Spring/Summer 2014 Ready to Wear show. Designer: Marques Almeida. Retrieved 7 Dec 2014 from http://www.vogue.co.uk/fashion/spring-summer-2014/ready-to-wear/marques-almeida/full-length-photos/gallery/1039135
Bottom image: From article on Aquila Style, "Skirt + Pants = Skants! The perfect alternative for a stylish hijabi always on the go!" Retrieved 7 Dec 2014 from http://www.aquila-style.com/fashionbeauty/skirt-pants-skants/52188/
In the Regency period, spanning from about 1815 to 1820, waistlines were still high from the Empire period and a cropped jacket called a spencer was in fashion. Most spencers had a hem just under the bust.
Cropped jackets were in style some years ago; I remember seeing them all over in the 2005-2010 period and I have at least three cropped cardigans that I wore over regular shirts, mostly to combat excessive office air conditioning in the summer when I wore lighter shirts. They died off for a while (a couple of years ago I was looking for one to go over a sleeveless dress I planned to wear to a November wedding, and couldn't find one in any of the stores I looked in) however, with the 1990s coming around in style again, the cropped styles (then mostly in belly-baring shirts) seem to be returning. Generally they're worn with higher-waisted skirts or pants so only a thin band of skin is showing; this, in effect, moves the entire waistline up rather than opening it up and making it slightly more forgiving for those without Gwen Stefani abs.
The Mark Fast number in the second photo is being worn open so we can see the model is only wearing a bra top beneath. The hem length is pretty much just below the bust. Interestingly, the sleeves are also 3/4 and looser in the upper arm/narrower on the forearm just like the spencer from 1818 in the photo above it.
Image sources:
Top photo: Spencer. Date: ca. 1818. Culture: American. Medium: silk. Dimensions: Length at CB: 16 in. (40.6 cm). Credit Line: Gift of Clare Vincent, 1983. Location: The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Accession Number: 1983.84. Retrieved 24 November 2014 from http://metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection-online/search/108018
Bottom photo: Look 21 of 32. Show: Spring/Summer 2012 Ready To Wear. Designer: Mark Fast. Retrieved 23 Nov 2014 from http://www.vogue.co.uk/fashion/spring-summer-2012/ready-to-wear/mark-fast/full-length-photos/gallery/670791
The frock coat may have gone out of fashion for men, more or less, but coats for women still love to have that skirt-like look for a feminine touch, especially for peacoats. Who says you can't look girly and be warm at the same time?
Skirts tend to be more exaggerated than our British Mail coach guard's frock coat from 1861 up at the top but are still double-breasted with wide lapels and a hem below the hips. The coat in the second photo looks like it has a tulle petticoat and the orange coat at the bottom has some nice box pleats in the back. The orange coat is from Burberry but sadly can't be found on their website any longer; I got the image from a friend's Pinterest post a year ago: http://www.pinterest.com/pin/259871840971387205/. I commented to her that "for anyone with some booty it might end up looking like a bustle" and it does also reflect the "move the bulk toward the back" that pre-dates and dates to the bustle period, from about the late 1860s to 1890. Both jackets also have a slight bit of the little sleeve "kick-up" from the 1890-1900 period.
Image sources:
Top image: Mail coach guard's frock coat, c. 1861. From the British Postal Museum and Archive. ID: 2010-0079. Retrieved 24 Nov 2014 from http://www.postalheritage.org.uk/page/uniformsgallery
Middle image: "Elegant gothic double-breasted gauze trimming coat" from Aoisis. SKU CR0003. Retrieved 24 Nov 2014 from http://www.aoisos.com/Elegant_Gothic_Double_Breasted_Gauze_Trimming_Coat_p/cr0003.htm
Bottom image: Burberry orange pea coat. Retrieved 24 Nov 2014 from http://www.pinterest.com/pin/259871840971387205/. Originally on uk.burberry.com.
Corsets may be the stuff of fetish wear and cosplay today, but in the 1800s they were not only support garments to get the smooth, fashionable line but also seen as beneficial to health... when they weren't being decried as dangerous. Corsets were even marketed in children and infant sizes, not to give kids an hourglass figure but to support their growing bodies and ensure good posture. Women used them for the same reason as well as achieving a fashionable silhouette.
Of course, dress reformers of the time warned of various dangers of corseting, from deformed bones to injuring, bruising, or rupturing internal organs. It seems these same notions are with us today: Google "corset training" and you'll find articles like this one from Women's Health Magazine, citing experts who warn of the possible dangers of wearing corsets, or at least of wearing them too tight.
Why are people still warning us about corsets? Because they're coming back: celebrities like Kim Kardashian and Jessica Alba are wearing them, but strangely enough they consider it not a body-shaping method but as an actual weight-loss aid.
It's called "the Corset Diet" and the idea is that wearing a corset for long periods every day will somehow "train" the waist into being smaller. Experts say that of course this doesn't work: shortly after removing the corset, the body returns to its original shape. It's part of why wearing a corset in a normal fashion (not tightlaced) doesn't really cause all the deformities that Victorian Era dress reform advocates worried about. Experts say that any weight loss is either water weight (from sweating) or from eating less because of compression of the stomach.
With modern-day shapewear like Spanx, which let women achieve a smooth silhouette without the discomfort of boning or the complication of lacing, corsets aren't likely to come back in as big a way as they were in the 1800s. It is interesting that the old health warnings are still around, though.
It is important to note something that costumed reenactors have discovered: wearing corsets frequently for long periods can weaken the back and stomach muscles, since those are the muscles that usually work to hold your posture, and with a corset doing a lot of the work for them, they atrophy. So if you rely on a corset to get you a flat tummy when you're NOT wearing one, it could backfire. Luckily it just takes a little extra ab and back exercise to mitigate the effects.
Image sources:
Top image: Ferris Brothers "Good Sense" corset ad, c. 1890. Retrieved 24 Nov 2014 from http://chrismancollection.weebly.com/corset-advertisements.html
Middle image: Kim Kardashian in waist-cinching corset posted by her on Instagram @kimkardashian/Instagram. Retrieved 24 Nov 2014 from http://www.harpersbazaar.co.uk/beauty/fitness-wellbeing/what-is-waist-training-kim-kardashian-exercise-workout
Bottom image: Spanx "Strappy Go Lucky" open-bust tank. Style: 2322. Retrieved 24 Nov 2014 from http://www.spanx.com/shop/spanx/shapewear/strappy-go-lucky-open-bust-tank-zid38-2322/cat-38-catid-tn_spx_sw?CategoryDomainName=SPXNA-38&var_id=38-2322&_t=pfm%3Dcategory
Gotham is a great show not just for Batman fans but fans of couture, if only for the character of Fish Mooney, played by Jada Pinkett. The fashions and the jewelry this woman wears! I look forward to it every episode (and she does often wear at least three or more different outfits per episode). Talk about dressing for power.
Another woman power dresser of history is Elizabeth I, Queen of England during the Northern Renaissance period of the 16th century. The ruff, of course, was in fashion at the time, and most portraits of Elizabeth show her wearing one.
Atelier Minyon's (whose other designs appeal greatly to my goth side) snake necklace may have only been second runner up at the Couture Design Awards 2014 but it was featured in an episode of Gotham around the neck of our stylish Ms. Mooney. When I saw it, I thought of the ruff: it doesn't have exactly the same shape and it isn't made of lace, but it does have that same feel of a ruffle with the outward-curving pieces (which, as it turns out, are snakes).
While looking for a portrait of Elizabeth I, I stumbled upon another interesting connection: a portrait in which the queen originally held a snake in her hand instead of flowers. Coincidence?
Image sources:
Top image: Jada Pinkett and Alp Sagnak (of Atelier Minyon). Unable to find original image, retrieved 24 Nov 2014 from http://www.pinterest.com/pin/3377768446391985/
Middle image: Snake necklace. From the Couture Design Awards 2014. Category: Haute Couture. Second runner up. Designer: Alp Sagnak for Atelier Minyon. Retrieved 24 Nov 2014 from http://www.thecoutureshow.com/events/designawards/1515.shtml#2
Bottom image: Title: Queen Elizabeth I. Artist: Unknown artist. Media: oil on panel. Date: 1580s-1590s. Dimensions: 26 1/4 in. x 19 1/4 in. (666 mm x 488 mm). Given by Mines Royal, Mineral and Battery Societies, 1865. Location: National Portrait Gallery, London, Primary Collection. ID: NPG 200. Retrieved 24 Nov 2014 from http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw02076/Queen-Elizabeth-I?LinkID=mp01452&role=sit&rNo=6
I figured I'd stay in the shoe category for a moment and talk about Louis XIV's red heels and Christian Louboutin's iconic red-soled pumps. Red is a power color. Back in King Louis's day, the late 17th/early 18th century France, red dye was expensive, but that's not the only reason. It's psychological: red is both attractive and threatening. It broadcasts aggression and dominance. So it's no accident that Louis XIV, wary of his nobles getting uppity and overthrowing him, used the color.
Louis's strategy to keep the nobles in line was to keep them close to him at court, keep them busy vying for his favor, and keep them spending their money so they couldn't hire armies to move against him. Louis wore red heels, and only his favorites were allowed to wear them.
"Pigalle," named after one of Christian Louboutin’s favorite neighborhoods in Paris, is the designer's iconic shoe, with a stiletto heel, pointed toe, and the red sole that is his trademark. It dates back to his Autumn/Winter 2004 collection and its 10 yr anniversary is this year. The heel itself isn't red, though one can get a shoe that is entirely red, but the signature of any of Louboutin's shoes is the red sole. It's a part of the shoe that isn't immediately seen, so the effect is more subtle. At $675 for this pair, and up to several thousand for others, the shoe is definitely a status symbol of the rich. Knockoffs abound (and Louboutin's Stopfake program seeks to stamp these out), and even Yves St. Laurent was sued for putting out a shoe with a red sole.
Image sources:
Top image: Artist: Hyacinthe RIGAUD (Perpignan, 1659 - Paris, 1743). Title: Louis XIV (1638 - 1715). Date: 1701. Location: Musee du Louvre. Collection de Louis XIV. ID: INV. 7492. Retrieved 24 Nov 2014 from http://www.louvre.fr/en/oeuvre-notices/louis-xiv-1638-1715
Bottom image: Designer: Christian Louboutin. Name: "Pigalle" Reference : 3080698BK01 Color : Black. Material : Patent Leather. Heel height : 120mm. Collection : Classic. Price: $ 675.00. Retrieved 24 Nov 2014 from http://us.christianlouboutin.com/us_en/shop/women/pigalle-7.html
I was going to link pattens to chopines to platform heels through the ages but looking at this one pair of chopines from the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto, Canada, something clicked. They looked like hooves. They looked like you have to balance all your weight on the front. They looked like those heel-less platform shoes Lady Gaga was wearing at the CFDA Fashion Awards in New York, June 2011. History has repeated itself indeed.
Pattens were function: step into them wearing your normal shoes and lift yourself out of the muck of the street: mud, garbage, dung, anything you might not want to get on (or in, shudder) your nice shoes.
Chopines, dating from the Italian Renaissance, were yet another fashion of the "I'm so rich I don't have to work/move/go anywhere" school. They surely made women taller than life, grabbing attention. Women had to take tiny steps, tottering on sometimes ridiculously high platforms, often needing to be steadied and assisted by servants or whatever man accompanied them.
You see how the woman in the left of the bottom photo has Lady Gaga's hand gripped firmly? And how the man to the right has his forearm out in case she tips the other way and needs some assistance? Maybe she just took her hand off his arm so she could wave to the cameras. Needless to say, she isn't getting around on her own.
The designer of the 10-inch platform shoes is Japanese designer Noritaka Tatehana, and are said to be inspired by chopines and Japanese high wooden clogs from the Edo Period in the 19th century. They retail from $4k to 15k
Image sources:
Top image: Chopine. Italian, 1580-1620. Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto, Canada. BSM P91.80
Middle image: "Lady Bell" shoes. Designer: Noritaka Tatehana. From his Fall/Winter 2011 collection. Retrieved 24 Nov 2014 from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2026796/They-cost-15-000-Lady-Gaga-14-pairs-Meet-man-trend-gravity-defying-heel-shoes.html#ixzz3K0AstK4Y
Bottom image: Lady Gaga at June 2011 CFDA Fashion Awards in New York. Retrieved 24 Nov 2014 from http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-2026796/They-cost-15-000-Lady-Gaga-14-pairs-Meet-man-trend-gravity-defying-heel-shoes.html#ixzz3K0AstK4Y
Charlie (@chozzles) and Anna (@ajlobster) are revisiting Star Trek: The Next Generation. In a big...
My blog is all about fashion of the past, but if you're interested in fashion critiques of the (fictional) future, check out this hilarious Tumblr. The authors analyze the fashion/costume choices in the TV show Star Trek: The Next Generation (and I hope they eventually branch into the other Treks as well).
It's fun seeing how the fashions in the show are influenced by fashions that were popular in the time period the show was produced (the 1980s-1990s) as well as fashions of prior eras. It's fun in general seeing how our concept of what people will wear in the future changes from era to era. This is one Tumblr I make a point to keep up with (to the point of backing through the archives to wherever I left off months ago). Check it out. :)
Eyeliner has staying power. I'm not talking about the 18 or even 24 hour formulas, I'm talking historically. The Ancient Egyptians used kohl to line their eyes. Scholars have said that it was believed to be medicinal or that it helped against the glare of the desert sun, or maybe it was just for decoration. It could have been protection against more than just solar glare; the design of eyeliner shown in some Egyptian artwork is similar to the wadjet or Eye of Horus (second image), a protective symbol thought to mimic the markings of a variety of falcon local to Egypt, as Horus's symbol is a falcon.
Eyeliner came back in a big way, or at least big eyeliner came back, in the 1970s when goths started imitating the heavy, stylized eyeliner look of Siouxsie Sioux of the punk group Siouxsie and the Banshees. The goth fascination with the occult and mortality probably also led to the adoption of this wadjet-eye style, since Horus was the son of Osiris, Egyptian god of the dead. Plus it looks really cool. Writer Neil Gaiman's cult classic graphic novel series, The Sandman, features an entity that is the personification of Death, and she has similar eye makeup, giving goths another reason to love it.
Stylized eyeliner was mostly in the realm of goths, which had another heyday in the 1980s and 1990s (I was one of the 90's group, myself). Putting a curl or even a "fishtail" curl, one up and one down, at the outer corner of the eye was a trend during part of the 1990s but eyeliner in that era was mostly smudgy and various degrees of thickness all the way out to "raccoon eyes."
Recently, stylized eyeliner is back with the ubiquitous "winged eyeliner" craze. It's easier than it used to be, with modern advances in smudge-proof and long-lasting formulas letting you really draw a distinctive, even elaborate line and having it actually stay put (here's a funny take on how some of us feel about it from a fellow Tumblrer, Animals Talking in All Caps). The bottom image is a Sephora ad I snapped a photo of while perusing the October 2014 issue of Glamour. The photo the model is holding shows how the trend commonly manifests, but the more fanciful way the model is wearing it hearkens back to the photo of Siouxie in the 1970s and the way it draws far back onto her temples is quite similar to our friend in the Egyptian wall painting at the top.
Resources:
Top image: Egyptian tomb painting from the Tomb of Kynebu, Upper Egypt. Circa 20th Dynasty (reign of Ramses VIII). Painted plaster. Representing Amenhotep I. Located at The British Museum. Museum # EA37993. Reg # 1868,1102.182. Additional ID: ES.1072.
Second image: Eye of Horus. Retrieved from http://altreligion.about.com/od/symbols/p/Eye-Of-Horus-Ancient-Egyptian-Symbol.htm on 11 Nov 2014.
Third image: Siouxie Sioux. From her biography at MTV.com. Retrieved from http://www.mtv.com/artists/siouxsie-sioux/ on 11 Nov 2014.
Fourth image: From The Sandman: Volume IV: Season of Mists. Page 23. Author: Neil Gaiman. Artists: various. Copyright 1992 DC Comics.
Bottom image: Sephora ad from Glamour October 2014.
Here we have a revival of the medieval kind: a sideless surcoat for the modern day from Louis Vuitton's Fall 2014 Ready to Wear show.
The top painting is an illumination on vellum of a scene of the marriage of France's King Phillip marrying Mary of Brabant. The time period when the illumination was made and the time it represents both fall into the medieval period, or Middle Ages, in Europe. The figure of Mary of Brabant is wearing a sideless surcoat (in the same fabric as King Phillip's robe, I notice, most likely to symbolize their union), an overdress from the era that had a sort of cutout on either side from the shoulder to the hip. It would be worn over at least one other dress.
The Louis Vuitton fashion in the two photos below mimics the look of a sideless surcoat. It has a similar wide-set collar and scoop side cutout, though at the hip the modern version is more square with some inset panels that wrap around up the front. Her skirt is shorter and her sleeves (either of a short blouse underneath or attached beneath the "surcoat") are wide and flowing instead of the fitted sleeves of Mary's under dress.
References:
Top image: Marriage of King Phillip "the Bold" of France (1245-85) to Mary of Brabant. Date: c. 14th Century. Artist: unknown "French School". Illumination from Chronicle of France or Chronicle of St. Denis. Located at the British Library, London, UK. ID number (?) Royal 20 C VII f.10.
Middle and bottom images: Look 36 of 49 from Fall 2014 Ready To Wear. Designer: Louis Vuitton. Retrieved from www.style.com on 11 Nov 2014.
Second-hand clothing shops have been around for a long time, but you might be surprised how long. Would you believe the Italian Renaissance?
Fashion as we think of it today, with trends that last a relatively short time, really took off during the Renaissance. Trade brought new materials, techniques, ideas and styles. It also brought money, and a growing middle class of artisans and merchants now had money to spend, and they wanted to spend it dressing above their station.
Sumptuary laws are laws governing dress: who could wear what, what materials, what colors, and how much clothing they are allowed to have. For the middle class during the Renaissance, each member of a household could get a new set of clothing (two indoor layers and a mantle/cloak for outdoors) per year.
Think about how quickly fashion changes in a year! Italy wasn't one consolidated country back then; it was a collection of city-states, each with its ruling prince, each with his court, which was a stage for the latest trends. These people could wear what they wanted and have as much clothing as they could afford, much like our celebrities. And with the middle class trying to keep up, they of course would chuck the old stuff each year and buy up to the latest fashion.
This is where used clothing stores come in. Remember, we weren't yet to the point where we we are now, with mass-manufacturing and a more throwaway culture. Clothing was made by highly skilled tailors, sewing by hand (the sewing machine wouldn't be invented until the late 1700s). Considering that every step of making cloth, from preparing the fiber to finishing off the cloth, was done by a separate set of artisans, fabric and the clothing made out of it was incredibly work-intensive and therefore precious. Before this point in history (and at many points later, in fact) people would repair and patch and remake clothing as long as they could. You didn't throw clothing away until it was a rag, and even then someone would use it for something.
So the middle-class sold or donated their old clothing to secondhand clothing stores. If the poor weren't making their clothing at home, they bought it there. In this way, their clientele was more like that of our Goodwill or Salvation Army in the U.S. and less like the "upscale retail" shops, but the content might have been similar. Just like how you can go into a secondhand store and find some designer piece, fashion passed down to even the lower levels of economic class. Considering the middle class probably didn't have the money, or weren't allowed, to purchase as sumptuous pieces as the aristocracy, it's more likely to be knockoff Gucci than actual Gucci (so to speak) but it was the best they could do. As an author of a book at the time about the conduct of a gentleman said, "Everyone should dress well, according to his age and his position in society. If he does not, it will be taken as a mark of contempt for other people." (Della Casa, Galatea, quoted in Tortora, Eubank 2010). People had been trying to dress for the social class they wanted to be, not the one they were, since the Romans, but only now was it becoming expected.
Source: Tortora, P., & Eubank, K. (2010). Survey of historic costume. New York: Fairchild Books.
This virtual costume exhibition is designed to explore how elements of historic costume are used in today’s fashion. Here I will present images of dress from various eras in Western history paired with images of present day fashions along with explanations of the connections.
About me
I am a student in the History of Fashion and Costume class at SNHU and this blog is my final project for the Fall 2014 semester. I will be working on it throughout the semester, so check back to see my work in progress!
Avatar image: “Look 1” from http://www.style.com/slideshows/fashion-shows/resort-2011/marchesa/collection by Georgina Chapman for Marchesa Resort 2011
blakekathryn
dailybridgerton
gummygunk
dededos
izzy806
origamiaround
andulkaphoto
titsay