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1550-1600 in fashion
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Fashion in the period 1550-1600 in Western European clothing is characterized by increased opulence, the rise of the ruff, the expansion of the farthingale for women, and, for men, the disappearance of the codpiece.
lass="link1" onMouseover='showByLink("m5871203",this)' onMouseout='hide("m5871203")'href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Charles_V%2c_Holy_Roman_Emperor">Charles V, king of Spain, Naples, and Sicily and Holy Roman Emperor, handed over the kingdom of Spain to his son Philip II and the Empire to his brother Maximilian II in 1558, ending the domination of western Europe by a single court, but the Spanish taste for sombre richness of dress would dominate fashion for the remainder of the century., New alliances and trading patterns arose as the divide between Catholic and Protestant countries became more pronounced.
The severe, rigid fashions of the Spanish court were dominant everywhere except France and Italy; black garments were worn for the most formal occasions.
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Fashion in the period 1550-1600 in Western European clothing is characterized by increased opulence, the rise of the ruff, the expansion of the farthingale for women, and, for men, the disappearance of the codpiece.
General trends
The Spanish style
Charles V, king of Spain, Naples, and Sicily and Holy Roman Emperor, handed over the kingdom of Spain to his son Philip II and the Empire to his brother Maximilian II in 1558, ending the domination of western Europe by a single court, but the Spanish taste for sombre richness of dress would dominate fashion for the remainder of the century., New alliances and trading patterns arose as the divide between Catholic and Protestant countries became more pronounced.
The severe, rigid fashions of the Spanish court were dominant everywhere except France and Italy; black garments were worn for the most formal occasions. Regional styles were still distinct though. Janet Arnold in her analysis of Queen Elizabeth's wardrobe records identifies French, Italian, Dutch, and Polish styles for bodices and sleeves, as well as Spanish.
Linen ruffs worn at Court grew from a narrow frill at neck and wrists to a broad "cartwheel" style that required a wire support by the 1580s. Later ruffs were made of delicate reticella, a cutwork lace that evolved into the needlelaces of the seventeenth century.
Fabrics and trims
The general trend toward abundant surface ornamentation in the Elizabethan Era was mirrored in clothing, especially amongst the aristocracy in England: shirts and chemises were embroidered with blackwork and edged in lace, and heavy cut velvets and brocades were further ornamented with applied bobbin lace, gold and silver embroidery, and jewels. Toward the end of the period, polychrome (multicolored) silk embroidery became fashionable..
Leather and fabric garments continued to be decorated by slashing and punching the fabric in regular patterns, and linings could be pulled through the slashes in small puffs.
Clothing was fastened with buttons or tied with cord or ribbon points. For the wealthy, buttons were made of silver and gold and set with gemstones, and points were tipped with aiguillettes or aiglets of precious metals.
By the end of the period, a sharp distinction could be seen between the sober fashions favored by Protestants in England and the Netherlands, which still showed heavy Spanish influence, and the light, revealing fashions of the French and Italian courts; this distinction would carry over well into the seventeenth century.
Women's Fashion
Bodices and sleeves
The narrow-shouldered, wide-cuffed "trumpet" sleeves characteristic of the 1540s and 1550s disappeared with the accession of Elizabeth, in favor of French and Spanish styles with narrower sleeves.
Emphasis was on high or wide shoulders. Slashed upper sleeves with puffs of the chemise pulled through, seen in Italian dress in the 1560s, evolved into single or double rows of loops at the shoulder with contrasting linings. By the 1580s these had been adapted in England as padded and jeweled shoulder rolls.
Bodices could be high-necked or have a broad, low, square neckline, often with a slight arch at the front early in the period. French, Spanish, and English bodices were stiffened into a cone shape or worn over corsets. Bodices fastened with hooks in front or were laced at the side-back seam; high-necked bodices styled like men's doublets might fasten with hooks or buttons. The bodice ended in a V-shape at the front waist in French, English, and Spanish fashion. Italian and German fashion retained the front-laced bodice of the previous period, with the ties laced in parallel rows; Italian fashion uniquely featured a broad U-shape rather than a V at the front waist.
A low neckline could be filled in with a partlet. English partlets were usually of embroidered linen with matching sleeves. Embroidered sets of partlet and sleeves were frequently given to Elizabeth as New Year's gifts. Alternatively, a high-necked chemise with a standing collar and ruff could be worn.
Gowns
Gowns with hanging sleeves in various styles, often lined in fur, were worn as an extra layer indoors and out through the period. Loose gowns of the 1560s hung from the shoulders, and some had puffed upper sleeves. Loose gowns could be worn over a one-piece kirtle or under-dress, usually laced at the back...
Later gowns were fitted to the figure and had full or round sleeves with a wristband. These were worn over a bodice and matching skirt or petticoat and undersleeves. Extremely long hanging sleeves came into fashion at the end of the period.
Skirts
The fashion for skirts worn open at the front to display a rich petticoat or separate forepart continued into the 1580s. The forepart was a heavily decorated panel to fill in the front opening; it might be sewn to a plain petticoat or pinned in place. Often the forepart matched the bodice sleeves.
Underwear
During this period, underwear consisted of a linen chemise or smock and (optionally) linen drawers. The chemise could have a low, square neckline or a high collar and ruff like a man's shirt. Fine chemises were embroidered and trimmed with narrow lace.
To shape the figure, the fashionable lady wore a corset called a pair of bodies. Her skirts were held in the proper shape by a farthingale or hoop skirt. In Spain, the cone-shaped Spanish farthingale remained in fashion into the early 17th century. It was only briefly fashionable in France, where a padded roll or French farthingale held the skirts out in a rounded shape at the waist, falling in soft folds to the floor.
In England, the Spanish farthingale was worn through the 1570s, and was gradually replaced by the French farthingale. By the 1590s, skirts were pinned to wide wheel farthingales to achieve a drum shape.
Italian women wore skirts gathered at the waist, without hoops.
Outerwear
Women wore sturdy overskirts call safeguards over their gowns for riding or travel on dirty roads. Hooded cloaks were worn overall in bad weather.
Accessories
The fashion for wearing or carrying the pelt of a sable or marten spread from continental Europe into England in this period; costume historians call these accessories zibellini or "flea furs". The most expensive zibellini had faces and paws of goldsmith's work with jewelled eyes. Queen Elizabeth received one as a New Years gift in 1584. Gloves of perfumed leather featured embroidered cuffs. Folding fans appeared late in the period, replacing flat fans of ostrich feathers.
Hairstyles and headgear
Early in the period, hair was parted in the center and fluffed over the temples; later front hair was curled and puffed high over the forehead. Wigs and false hairpieces were used to extend the hair.
In keeping with tradition, married women in Northern Europe wore their hair pinned up and covered. A close-fitting linen cap called a coif or biggins was worn, alone or under other hats or hoods, especially in the Netherlands and England; many embroidered and bobbin-lace-trimmed English coifs survive from this period. A style called in French at attifet was wired or starched into a slight heart-shape; it is called a Mary Stuart cap by costume historians, after the Queen of Scots who wears this French style in several portraits. Flemish and French hoods were worn into the 1560s (and later farther from Court and great cities).
Another fashionable headdress was a caul or cap of net-work lined in silk attached to a band, which covered the pinned up hair, which had been seen in Germany in the first half of the century.
In this period, women began to wear hats similar to those worn by men, usually over a caul or coif. This fashion was deplored by Puritan commentator Philip Stubbes in his Anatomie of Abuses 1583 (although a tall hat would become a characteristic of Puritan women's costume in the 1590s and for half a century thereafter, contributing to the popular notion of "Pilgrim" dress).
Widows in mourning wore black hoods with sheer black veils. First-time brides wore their hair down in token of virginity and wore orange blossoms in their hair.
Style gallery 1550s
- Italian fashion of the early 1550s features a loose gown of light-weight silk over a bodice and skirt (or kirtle) and an open-necked partlet.
- Dutch fashion of 1554: A black gown with high puffed upper sleeves is worn over a black bodice and a gray skirt with black trim. The high-necked chemise or partlet is worn open with the three pairs of ties that fasten it dangling free.
- Mary I wears a cloth-of-gold gown with fur-lined "trumpet" sleeves and a matching overpartlet with a flared collar, pooibly her coronation robes, 1554. Neither the sleeves nor the overpartlet would survive as fashionable items in England into the 1560s.
- Titian's Lady in White wears Italian fashion of 1555. The front-lacing bodice remained fashionable in Italy and the German States. She appears to be wearing a straight-bodied corset.
- Catherine de' Medici in a gown with a high-arched bodice fur-lined "trumpet" sleeves, over a pink forepart and matching paned undersleeves, c. 1555.
- An unknown woman wears a dark gown trimmed or lined in fur over fitted undersleeves. A chain is knotted at her neck. England, 1557.
- Bianca Ponzoni Anguissola wears a gold-colored gown with tied-on sleeves and a chemise with a wide band of gold embroidery at the neckline. She holds a jewelled fur or zibellino suspended from her waist by a gold chain, Lombardy (Northern Italy), 1557.
- The widowed Mary Nevill, Baroness Dacre wears a black gown (probably velvet) over black satin sleeves. Her collar lining and chemise are embroidered with blackwork, and she wears a black hood and a fur tippet over her shoulders, later 1550s
Style gallery 1560s
- Eleanor of Toledo wears a red loose gown over a bodice and a sheer linen partlet. Her brown gloves have tan cuffs, 1560.
- Margaret Audley, Duchess of Norfolk wears the high-collared gown of the 1560s with puffed hanging sleeves. Under it she wears a high-necked bodice and tight undersleeves and a petticoat with an elaborately embroidered forepart, 1562.
- The Gripsholm Portrait, thought to be Elizabeth I, shows her wearing a red gown with a fur lining. She wears a red flat hat over a small cap or caul that confines her hair.
- Mary Queen of Scots wears an open French collar with an attached ruff under a black gown with a flared collar and white lining. Her black hat with a feather is decorated with pearls and worn over a caul that covers her hair, 1560s.
- Unknown lady holding a pomander wears a black gown with puffed upper sleeves over a striped high-necked bodice or doublet. She wwears a whitework cap beneath a sheer veil, 1560-65.
- Isabel de Valois, Queen of Spain in severe Spanish fashion of the 1560s. Her high-necked black gown with split hanging sleeves is trimmed in bows with single loops and metal tags or aiglets, and she carries a jewelled flea-fur on a chain.
- Portrait of Elsbeth Lochmann in modest German style: she wears a light-colored petticoat trimmed with a broad band of dark fabric at the hem, with a brown bodice and sleeves and an apron. An elaborate purse hangs fron her belt, and she wears a linen headdress with a sheer veil, 1564.
- Sisters Ermengard and Walburg von Rietberg wears German front-laced gowns of red satin trimmed with black bands of fabric. They wear high-necked black over-partlets with bands of gold trim and linen aprons. Their hair is tucked into jewelled cauls, 1564.
Style gallery 1570s
- Horizontal lacing over a stomacher and an open chemise are characteristic of Italian fashion. The skirt is gathered at the waist.
- Leonora di Toledo wears a blue gown with a flared collar and tight undersleeves with horizontal trim. The uncorseted S-shaped figure is clearly shown, 1571.
- Elizabeth of Austria is portrayed by the French court painter François Clouet in a brocade gown and a partlet with a lattice of jewels, 1571. The lattice partlet is a common French fashion.
- In this allegorical painting c. 1572, Elizabeth I wears a fitted gown with hanging sleeves over a matching arched bodice and skirt or petticoat, elaborate undersleeves, and a high-necked chemise with a ruff. Her skirt fits smoothly over a Spanish farthingale.
- Elizabeth I wears a doublet with fringed braid trim that forms button loops and a matching petticoat. Janet Arnold suggests that this method of trimming may be a Polish fashion (similar trimmings à la hussar were worn in the nineteenth century).
- Mary Queen of Scots in captivity wears French fashions: her open ruff fastens at the base of the neck, and her skirt hangs in soft folds over a French farthingale. She wears a cap and veil.
- Nicholas Hilliard's miniature of his wife Alice shows her wearing an open partlet and a closed ruff. Her blackwork sleeves have a sheer overlayer. She wears a black hood with a veil, 1578.
- German fashion: Margarethe Elisabeth von Ansbach-Bayreuth wears a tall-collared black gown over a reddish-pink doublet with tight sleeves and a matching petticoat. She wears a black hat.
Style gallery 1580s
- Lettice Knollys wears an embroidered black high-necked bodice with round sleeves and skirt over a gold petticoat or forepart and matching undersleeves, a lace cartwheel ruff and lace cuffs, and a tall black hat with a jeweled ostrich feather, c. 1580s.
- Elizabeth I wears a black gown with vertical bands of trim on the bodice. The curved waistline and dropped front opening of the overskirt suggest that she is wearing a French roll to support her skirt. She wears a heart-shaped cap and a sheer veil decorated with a pattern of pearls, early 1580s.
- Ladies of the French court c. 1580 wear gowns with wide French farthingales, long pointed bodices with revers and open ruffs, and full sleeves. This style appears in England around 1590. Note the fashionable sway-backed posture that goes with the long bodice resting on the farthingale.
- Anne Knollys wears a black gown and full white sleeves trimmed with gold lace or braid. She wears a French hood with a jewelled billiment and a black veil, 1582.
- The Infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia of Spain wears a Spanish farthingale and closed overskirt. The long pointed oversleeves are uniquely Spanish, 1584.
- The Infanta Isabel Clara Eugenia of Spain is seen here again wearing a Spanish farthingale, a closed overskirt, and the typically Spanish, long, pointed oversleeves. However, she is also wearing black, a testament to the austere side of the Spanish court, c. 1584.
- Nicholas Hilliard's Unknow Woman wears a cutwork cartwheel ruff. Her stomacher and wired heart-shaped coif are both decorated with blackwork embroidery, 1585-90.
- Elizabeth I wears a cartwheel ruff slightly open at the front, supported by a supportasse. Her blackwork sleeves have sheer linen oversleeves, and she wears wired veil with bads of gold lace, 1585-90.
- Elizabeth Brydges, aged 14, wears a black brocade gown over a French farthingale. The blackwork embroidery on her smock is visible above the arch of her bodice; her cuffs are also trimmed with blackwork. This style is uniquely English. She wears an open-fronted cartwheel ruff.
Style gallery 1590s
- The widowed Bess of Hardwick, Countess of Shrewsbury, wears a black gown and cap with a linen ruff, 1590.
- Elizabeth I, 1592, wears a dark red gown (the fabric is just visible at the waist under her arms) with hanging sleeves lined in white satin to match her bodice, undersleeves, and petticoat, which is pinned to a cartwheel farthingale. She carries leather gloves and an early folding fan.
- Elizabeth I wears a painted petticoat with her black gown and cartwheel farthingale. She wears an open lace ruff and a sheer, wired veil frames her head and shoulders. Her skirt is ankle-length and shows her shoes, 1592.
- English woman wears a fashion seen in many formal portraits of Puritan women in the 1590s, characterized by a black gown worn with a blackwork stomacher and a small French farthingale or half-roll, with a fine linen ruff and moderate use of lace and other trim. She wears a tall black hat called a capotain over a sheer linen cap and simple jewelry.
- Italian style: Maria de Medici wears a bodice with split, round hanging sleeves. Her tight undersleeves are chartacteristic of Spanish influence. From the folds of her skirt, she appears to be wearing a small roll over a narrow Spanish farthingale. Note that her oversleeves are the same shape as those worn by Lettice Knollys.
- This portrait (assumed to be Maria de Medici) shows the adaptation of fashion to accommodate pregnancy. A loose dark gown is worn over a matching bodice and skirt, with tight white undersleeves. The lady wears an open figure-of-eight ruff of reticella lace, 1594.
- Italian fashion of the 1590s featured bodices cut below the breasts and terminating in a blunt U-shape at the front waist, worn over open high-necked chemises with ruffled collars that frame the head. The Dogaressa of Venice wears a cloth of gold gown and matching cape and a sheer veil over a small cap, 1590s.
- Unknown English lady, formerly called Elizabeth I, wears a black gown over a white bodice and sleeves embroidered in black and gold, and a spotted white petticoat. Her hood is draped over her forehead in a style called a bongrace, and she carries a zibellino or flea-fur, with a jeweled face, 1595.
Men's Fashion
Overview
Men's fashionable clothing consisted of:,
- A linen shirt with a ruff and matching wrist ruffs early, replaced by a collar and matching cuffs later in the period.
- A doublet with separate sleeves tied or laced to the shoulders.
- Optionally, a jerkin, usually sleeveless and often made of leather, worn over the doublet.
- Hose, in variety of styles, worn with a codpiece early in the period:
- Trunk hose or round hose, short padded hose. Very short trunk hose were worn over cannions, fitted hose that ended above the knee. Trunk hose could be paned or pansied, with strips of fabric (panes) over a full inner layer or lining.
- Slops or galligaskins, loose hose reaching just below the knee. Slops could also be pansied.
- Pluderhosen, a Northern European form of pansied slops with a very full inner layer pulled out between the panes and hanging below the knee.
- Venetians, semi-fitted hose reaching just below the knee.
- Stockings or netherstocks.
- Flat shoes with rounded toes, with slashes early in the period and ties over the instep later.
Outerwear
Short cloaks or capes, usually hip-length, often with sleeves, or a military jacket like a mandilion, were fashionable. Long cloaks were worn for inclement weather. Gowns were increasingly old-fashioned, and were worn by older men for warmth indoors and out. In this period gowns began their transition from general garments to traditional clothing of specific occupations, such as scholars (see Academic dress).
Hairstyles and headgear
Hair was generally worn short, brushed back from the forehead. Longer styles were popular in the 1580s. In the 1590s, young men of fashion wore a lovelock, a long section of hair hanging over one shoulder.
Through the 1570s, a soft fabric hat with a gathered crown was worn. These derived from the flat hat of the previous period, and over time the hat was stiffened and the crown became taller and far from flat. Later, a conical felt hat with a rounded crown called a capotain or copotain became fashionable. These became very tall toward the end of century. Hats were decorated with a jewel or feather, and were worn indoors and out.
Close-fitting caps covering the ears and tied under the chin called coifs or biggins continued to be worn by children and older men under their hats or alone indoors; men's coifs were usually black.
A conical cap of linen with a turned up brim called a nightcap was worn informally indoors; these were often embroidered.
Style gallery 1550s-1560s
- King Edward VI of England wears matching black doublet, paned hose, and gown trimmed with bands of gold braid or embroidery closed with jewels, c. 1550.
- Antoine de Bourbon wears an embroidered black doublet with worked buttons and a matching gown. His high collar is worn open at the top in the French fashion.
- Don Gabriel de la Cueva wears a jerkin with short slashed sleeves over a red satin doublet. His velvet hose are made in wide panes over a full lining, 1566.
- Prospero Alessandri wears a severe black jerkin with the new, shorted bases over a light grey doublet with rows of parallel cuts between bands of gold braid. His rose-coloured pansied slops are also decorated with cuts and narrow applied gold trim, 1560.
- Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk wears a shirt trimmed in black on ruff and sleeve ruffles. He wears a belt pouch at his waist. 1563.
- Charles IX of France wears an embroidered black jerkin with long bases or skirts over a white satin doublet and matching padded hose, 1566.
- Highnecked black jerkin fastens with buttons and loops. The detailed stitching on the lining can be seen. The blck-and-white doublet below also fastens with tiny buttons, German, 1566.
- Portrait of Henry Lee of Ditchley in a black jerkin over a white satin doublet decorated with a pattern of armillary spheres, 1568.
Style gallery 1570s
- Henry, Duke of Anjou, the future Henry III of France, wears doublet and matching cape with the high collar and figure-of-eight ruff of c. 1573–74.
- An Italian tailor wears a pinked doublet over heavily padded hose. His shirt has a small ruff.
- Sir Christopher Hatton's shirt collar is embroidered with blackwork, 1575.
- French fashion features very short pansied slops over canions and peascode-bellied doublets and jerkins, the Valois Tapestries, c. 1576.
- Sir Martin Frobisher in a peascod-bellied doublet with full sleeves under a buff jerkin with matching hose, 1577.
- Miniature of the Duc d'Alençon shows a deep figure-of-eight ruff in pointed lace (probably reticella). Note the jeweled buttons on his doublet fasten to one side of the front opening, not down the center, 1577.
Style gallery 1580s-1590s
- Miniature of Sir Walter Raleigh shows a linen cartwheel ruff with lace (possibly reticella) edging and the stylish small pointed beard of 1585.
- Sir Henry Unton He wears the cartwheel ruff popular in England in the 1580s. His white satin doublet is laced with a red-and-white cord at the neck. A red cloak with gold trim is slung fashionably over one shoulder, and he wears a tall black hat with a feather, 1586.
- Unknown man of 1588 wears a lace or cutwork-edged collar rather than a ruff, with matching sleeve cuffs. He wears a tall grey hat with a feather which is called capotain.
- Sir Walter Raleigh wears the Queen's colors (black and white). His cloak is lined and collared with fur, 1588.
- Robert Sidney wears a loose military jacket called a mandilion colley-westonward, or with the sleeves hanging in front and back, 1588.
- Philip II of Spain (d. 1598) in old age. Spanish fashion changed very little from the 1560s to the end of the century.
- Sir Christopher Hatton wears a fur-lined gown with hanging sleeves over a slashed doublet and hose, with the livery collar of the Order of the Garter, c. 1590.
- Man's cloak of red satin, couched and embroidered with silver, silver-gilt and coloured silk threads, trimmed with silver-gilt and silk thread fringe and tassel, and lined with pink linen, 1580-1600 (V&A Museum no. 793-1901)
Footwear
For most of this period, fashionable shoes for men and women were similar, with a flat one-piece sole and rounded toes. Later shoes tied with a ribbon over the instep.
Thick-soled pattens were worn over delicate indoor shoes to protect them from the muck of the streets, and men wore boots for riding.
A variant on the patten popular in Venice was the chopine – a platform-soled mule that raised the wearer sometimes as high as two feet off the ground .
Children's fashion
Toddler boys wore gowns or skirts and doublets until they were breeched.
- Francesco de Medici wears an unusual doublet (or gown?) that appears to fasten up the back, Italy, 1551
- François Duke of Alençon, France, 1556-58
- The French princess Marguerite of Valois wears a while gown with embroidery and pearls. Her hair is twisted and coiled against her head and pinned in place with pearls, 1560.
- Italian children, c. 1570. The girls wear gowns of striped fabric trimmed with bands of black, with linen chemises and partlets.
- Infantas Isabella Clara Eugenia and Catalina Micaela of Spain wear miniature versions of adult costume, including gowns with hanging sleeves and Spanish fathingales, c. 1571. Their skirts appear to have tucks to allow them to be let down as the girls grow.
- Two boys at table wear brownish doublets and slops over cannions, the Low Countries, 1585.
- A five-year-old child wears a coif, ruff, and lace-trimmed cuffs, England, 1590
- Catherine van Arckel of Ammerzoden, aged 8, wears a red velvet gown with embroidery and several gold chains. Dutch, 1598.
Working class clothing
- German painting of the Last Supper in contemporary dress shows a table servant wearing pluderhosen with full, drooping linings, 1565.
- Dutch vegetable seller wears a black partlet, a front-lacing brown gown over a pink kirtle with matching sleeves, and a gray apron. Her collar has a narrow ruffle, and she wears a coif or cap under a straw hat, 1567.
- Flemish country folk. The woman in the foreground wears a gown with a contrasting lining tucked into her belt to display her kirtle. The woman at the back wears contrasting sleeves with her gown. Both women wear dark parlets; the V-neck front and pointed back are common in Flanders. They wear linen headdresses, probably a single rectangle of cloth pinned into a hood (note knots in the corners behind). Men wear baggy hose, short doublets (one with a longer jerkin beneath), and soft, round hats, 1568.
- English countrywoman wears an open-fronted gown laced over a kirtle and a chemise with narrow ruffs at neck and wrists. A kerchief is pinned into a capelet or collar over her shoulders, and she wears a high-crowned hat over a coif, a chin-cloth, and an apron. She carries gloves in her left hand and a chicken in her right, c. 1570.
- Italian fruit seller wears a front-fastening gown with ties or points for attaching sleeves, a green apron, and a chemise with a ruffled collar. Her uncovered hair is typical of Italian custom, c. 1580. Fruit and vegetable-sellers are often shown with more cleavage exposed than other women, whether reflecting a reality or an iconographic convention is hard to say.
- English gardeners wear cotes with full skirts, hose, hats, and low shoes, 1594.
See also
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