1600–1650 in Western fashion
Fashion in the period 1600-1650 in Western European clothing is characterized by the disappearance of the ruff in favor of broad lace or linen collars. Waistlines rose through the period for both men and women. Other notable fashions included full, slashed sleeves and tall or broad hats with brims. For men, hose disappeared in favor of breeches.
General Trends
The silhouette, which was essentially close to the body with tight sleeves and a low, pointed waist to around 1615, gradually softened and broadened. Sleeves became very full, and in the 1620s and 1630s were often slashed to show the voluminous sleeves of the shirt or chemise beneath. Waistlines rose.
In England, embroidered linen jackets fastened with ribbon ties were fashionable for both men and women from c. 1600-1620, as was lace tinted with yellow starch. Gowns with split sleeves (often trimmed with horizontal rows of braid) were worn by both men and women.
From the 1620s, dense surface ornament fell out of fashion in favor of solid-colour satins, and ribbon bows were common as trim.
Spanish fashions remained very conservative. The ruff lingered longest in Spain and Holland, but disappeared first for men and later for women in France and England.
The social tensions leading to the English Civil War were reflected in English fashion, with the elaborate French styles popular at the courts of James I and his son Charles I contrasting with the sober styles in sadd or somber colors favored by Puritans and exported to the early settlements of New England.
Portraiture and fantasy
In England from the 1630s, under the influence of literature and especially court masques, Anthony van Dyck and his followers created a fashion for having one's portrait painted in exotic, historical or pastoral dress, or in simplified contemporary fashion with various scarves, cloaks, mantles, and jewels added to evoke a classic or romantic mood. These paintings are the progenitors of the fashion of the later 17th century for having one's portrait painted in undress, and do not necessarily reflect clothing as it was actually worn.[1]
Puritan dress
Puritans wore a conservative form of fashionable attire, characterized by "sadd" or somber colors and modest cuts. Gowns with low necklines were filled in with high-necked smocks and wide collars. Married women covered their hair with a linen cap, over which they might wear a tall black hat. Men and women both avoided bright colors, shiny fabrics, and over-ornamentation.
Contrary to popular belief, Puritans and Calvinists did not wear black for everyday, especially in England, Scotland, and colonial America. Black dye was expensive and faded quickly, and black clothing was reserved for the most formal occasions (including having ones portrait painted), for elders in a community, and for those of higher rank. More typical colors were brown, murrey (mulberry, a brownish-maroon), dull greens, and tawny colors. Wool and linen were preferred over silks and satins, though Puritan women of rank wore modest amounts of lace and embroidery as appropriate to their station, believing that the various rank of society were divinely ordained and should be reflected even in the most modest dress. Wiliam Perkins wrote "...that apparel is necessary for Scholar, the Tradesman, the Countryman, the Gentleman; which serveth not only to defend their bodies from cold, but which belongs also to the place, degree, calling, and condition of them all" (Cases of Conscience, 1616).[2]
Women's Fashions
Gowns, bodices, and petticoats
In the early years of the new century, fashionable bodices had high necklines or extremely low, rounded necklines, and short wings at the shoulders. Separate closed cartwheel ruffs were worn. Long sleeves were worn with deep cuffs to match the ruff. The cartwheel ruff disappeared in fashionable England by 1613.[3]
By the mid-1620s, styles were relaxing. Ruffs were discarded in favor of wired wing collars called rebatos and, later, wide, flat collars. By the 1630s and 1640s, collars were accompanied by kerchiefs similar to the linen kerchiefs worn by middle-class women in the previous century; often the collar and kerchief were trimmed with matching lace.
Bodices were long-waisted at the beginning of the century, but waistlines rose steadily to the 1640s before beginning to drop again. Bodices with wide, low, straight necklines were worn with matching or contrasting stomachers that ended in a broad, rounded point below the higher waist. Separate stomachers later disappeared in favor of bodices closed in front with tabbed skirts called basques; these were often worn with a ribbon sash.
The long, tight sleeves of the early 1600s grew shorter, fuller, and looser. A common style of 1620s and 1630s was the virago sleeve, a full, slashed sleeve gathered into two puffs by a ribbon or other trim above the elbow.
In France and England, lightweight bright or pastel-colored satins replaced dark, heavy fabrics. Short strings of pearls were fashionable.
Unfitted gowns (called nightgowns in England) with long hanging sleeves, short open sleeves, or no sleeves at all were worn over the bodice and skirt and tied with a ribbon sash at the waist. In England of the 1610s and '20s, a loose nightgown was often worn over an embroidered jacket called a waistcoat and a contrasting embroidered petticoat, without a farthingale.[4] Black gowns were worn for the most formal occasions; they fell out of fashion in England in the 1630s in favor of gowns to match the bodice and petticoat, but remained an important item of clothing on the Continent.
Skirts might be open in front to reveal an underskirt or petticoat until about 1630, or closed all around; closed skirts were sometimes carried or worn looped up to reveal a petticoat.
Shoes tied over the instep and were decorated with ribbon or lace rosettes called shoe roses. Backless slippers called pantofles were worn indoors. Low heels were fashionable.
Underwear
Underwear consisted of a linen chemise or smock and (optionally) linen drawers. The chemise could have a low, square neckline or a high neckline; either style could be worn with ruffs (to c. 1625) or the newly fashionable broad collars.
Corsets were shorter to suit the new bodices, and might have a very stiff busk in the center front extending to the depth of the stomacher. Skirts were held in the proper shape by a padded roll or French farthingale holding the skirts out in a rounded shape at the waist, falling in soft folds to the floor. The drum or wheel farthingale was worn at the English court until the death of Anne of Denmark in 1619.
In conservative Spanish court fashion, the cone-shaped Spanish farthingale of the last century lingered well into the period, to be replaced by wide French farthingales toward the 1650s, long after they had gone out of style elsewhere.
Hairstyles and headgear
To about 1613, hair was worn feathered high over the forehead. Married women wore their hair in a linen coif or cap, often with lace trim. Tall hats like those worn by men were adopted for outdoor wear.
In a characteristic style of 1625-1650, hair was worn in loose curls or waves to the shoulders on the sides, with the rest of the hair gathered or braided into a high bun at the back of the head. A short fringe or bangs might be worn with this style. Very fashionable married women abandoned the linen cap and wore their hair uncovered or with a hat.
Style gallery 1600-1620
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1 - 1602 -
2 - 1605 -
3 - 1609 -
4 - 1610s -
5 - 1612 -
6 - 1614-18 -
7 - 1618-20 -
8 c. 1620
- Hilliard's Unknown Woman of 1602 wears typical Puritan fashion of the early years of the century. Her tall black felt hat with a rounded crown is called a capotain and is worn over a linen cap. She wears a black gown and a white stomacher over a chemise with blackwork emboridery trim; her neckline is filled in with a linen partlet.
- Anne of Denmark wears a bodice with a low, round neckline and tight sleeve, with a matching petticoat pinned into flounces on a drum or cartwheel farthingale, 1605. The high-fronted hairstyle was briefly fashionable.
- Isabella Clara Eugenia of Spain, Regent of the Netherlands, wears a cartwheel ruff and wide, flat ruffles at her wrists. Her split-sleeved gown in the Spanish fashion is trimmed with wide bands of braid or fabric, 1609.
- Mary Radclyffe in the very low rounded neckline and closed cartwheel ruff of c.1610. The black silk strings on her jewelry were a passing fashion.
- Anne of Denmark wears mourning for her son, Henry, Prince of Wales, 1612. She wears a black wired cap and black lace.
- An Englishwoman (traditionally called Dorothy Cary, Later Viscountess Rochford) wears an embroidered linen jacket with ribbon ties and embroidered petticoat under a black gown with hanging sleeves lined in gray. Her lace collar, cuffs, and hood are tinted with yellow starch.
- Frans Hals' young woman wears a chain girdle over her black gown and elongated bodice with matching tight sleeves and petticoat. She is wearing a padded roll to hold her skirt in the fashionable shape. Dutch, 1618-20.
- Elizabeth, Lady Style of Wateringbury wears an embroidered jacket-bodice and petticoat under a red velvet gown. She wears a sheer partlet over an embroidered high-necked chemise, c. 1620.
Style gallery 1620s
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1 - 1620-21 -
2 - 1620s
-
3 -1625 -
4 - 1623-26 -
5 - c. 1626 -
6 - c. 1629-30
- Marie de' Medici in widowhood wears black with a black wired cap and veil, c. 1620-21.
- Anne of Austria, Queen of France, wears an open bodice over a stomacher and virago sleeves, with a closed ruff. Note looser cuffs. C. 1621-25.
- Susanna Fourment wears an open high-necked chemise, red sleeves tied on with ribbon points, and a broad-brimmed hat with plumes, 1625.
- Isabella Brandt wears a black gown over a gold bodice and sleeves and a striped petticoat, 1623-26.
- Paola Adorno, Marchesa Brinole-Sale wears a black gown and a sheer ruff with large, soft figure-of-eight pleats seen in Italian portraits of this period. Her hair is caught in a cylindrical cap or caul of pearls. Genoa, c. 1626.
- Marie-Louise de Tassis wears a short-waisted gown with a sash over a tabbed bodice with a long stomacher and matching pettiicoat and virago sleeves, c. 1629-30.
Style gallery 1630s
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1 - 1630 -
2 - 1630 -
3 - c. 1632 -
4 - 1632 -
4 - 1632 -
6 - 1633 -
7 - 1635 -
8 - 1638
- Large ruffs remained part of Dutch fashion long after they had disappeared in France and England. The dark gown has short puffed sleeves and is worn over tight undersleeves and a pink petticoat trimmed with rows of braid at the hem. The lace-edged apron shows creases from starching and ironing, 1630.
- Portrait of an unknown woman wearing the informal English fashion of a brightly colored bodice and petticoat without an overgown. Her bodice has deep tabs at the waist and virago sleeves, 1630.
- Henrietta Maria as Divine Beauty in the masque Tempe Restored wears a high-necked chemise, a lace collar, and a jeweled cap with a feather, 1632. Masquing costumes such as this one, designed by Inigo Jones, are often seen in portraits of this period. [5]
- Henrietta Maria wears the formal English court costume of a gown with short open sleeves over a matching bodice with virago sleeves and a simple petticoat, 1632.
- Henrietta Maria wears a white satin tabbed bodice with full sleeves trimmed with silver braid or lace and a matching petticoat. Her bodice is laced up with a coral ribbon over a stomacher. A matching ribbon is set in a V-shape at her front waist and tied in a bow to one side. She wears a lace-trimmed smock or partlet with a broad, square collar. A ribbon and a string of pearls decorate her hair, 1632.
- Henrietta Maria's riding costume consists of a jacket-bodice of blue satin with long tabbed skirts and a matching long petticoat. She wears a broad-brimmed hat with ostrich plumes, 1633.
- Sara Wolphaerts van Diemen wears a double cartwheel ruff that remained popular in Holland through the period. She wears a black gown with a brocaded stomacher and virago sleeves, and a white linen cap, 1635.
- Helena Fourment wears a black gown, bodice, and petticoat worn with an open-necked chemise with a broad, starched lace collar, gray satin sleeves tied with rose-colored ribbons, and a broad-brimmed black hat cocked up on one side and decorated with a hatband and plumes, 1638.
Style gallery 1640s
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1 - c. 1640 -
2 - 1641 -
3 - 1640s -
4 - 1643
- Portrait of Henrietta Maria in the style of Van Dyck shows her in a flame-colored satin gown without a collar or kerchief. She wears a fur piece draped over her shoulder, 1640.
- Agatha Bas wears a pointed stomacher under a front-lacing, high-waisted black gown. Her matching linen kerchief, collar and cuffs are trimmed with lace, and she wears a high-necked chemise or partlet, Holland, 1641.
- Hester Tradescant's costume is trimmed in lace in keeping with her station, but she wears the closed linen cap or coif, tall hat, unrevealing neckline, and sober colors favored by Puritans, c. 1645. Her long-fronted bodice and open skirt are conservative fashions at this date.
- Dutch fashions of the 1640s feature modest, high-necked chemises, broad linen collars with matching kerchiefs and deep cuffs, and lavish use of bobbin lace.
Men's Fashions
Shirts, doublets, and jerkins
Linen shirts had deep cuffs. Shirt sleeves became fuller throughout the period. To the 1620s, a collar wired to stick out horizontally, called a whisk, was popular. Other styles included an unstarched ruff-like collar and, later, a rectangular falling band lying on the shoulders. By the 1630s, a collar with long points was popular; today, it is called a Van Dyke collar after the painter Anthony van Dyck.
Doublets were pointed and fitted close to the body, with tight sleeves, to about 1615. Gradually waistlines rose and sleeves became fuller, and both body and upper sleeves might be slashed to show the shirt beneath. By 1640 doublets were full and unfitted, and might be open at the front below the high waist to show the shirt.
In 1633, Louis XIV of France issued an edict requiring simplified dress at the French court; ruffs, paned sleeves, and ribbons were outlawed in favor of plain linen collars and cuffs.
Sleeveless leather jerkins were worn by soldiers and are seen in potraits, but otherwise the jerkin rapidly fell out of fashion for indoor wear.
Hose and breeches
Paned or pansied trunk hose or round hose, padded hose with strips of fabric (panes) over a full inner layer or lining, were worn early in the period, over cannions, fitted hose that ended above the knee. Trunk hose were longer than in the previous period, and were pear-shaped, with less fullness at the waist and more at mid-thigh.
Slops or galligaskins, loose hose reaching just below the knee, replaced all other styles of hose by the 1620s, and were now generally called breeches. Breeches might be fastened up the outer leg with buttons or buckles over a full lining.
From 1600 to c. 1630, hose or breeches were fastened to doublets by means of ties or points, short laces or ribbons pulled through matching sets of worked eyelets. Points were tied in bows at the waist and became more elaborate until they disappeared with the very short waisted doublets of the late 1630s. Decorated metal tips on points were called aiglets.
Stockings, shoes, and boots
Stockings had elaborate clocks or embroidery at the ankles early in the period. Boot hose of stout linen were worn under the boots to protect fine knitted stockings; these could be trimmed with lace.
The boots themselves were usually turned down below the knee; boot tops became wider until the "bucket-top" boot associated with The Three Musketeers appeared in the 1630s. Spurs straps featured decorative butterfly-shaped spur leathers over the instep. Wooden clogs or pattens were worn over boots to keep the high heels from sinking into soft dirt.
Outerwear
Gowns were worn early in the period, but fell out of fashion in the 1620s.
Short cloaks or capes, usually hip-length, often with sleeves, were worn by fashionable men, usually slung artistically over the left shoulder, even indoors; a fashion of the 1630s matched the cape fabric to the breeches and its lining to the doublet. Long cloaks were worn for inclement weather.
Hairstyles and headgear
Early in the period, hair was worn collar-length and brushed back from the forehead; very fashionable men wore a sinle long strand over hair called a lovelock over one shoulder. Hairstyles grew longer through the period, and long loose curls were fashionable by the late '30s and '40s, pointing toward the ascendance of the wig in the 1660s.
Puritans rejected the long, curled hair as effeminate, and favored a shorter fashion which led to the nickname Roundheads for adherents of the English Parliamentary party.
Pointed beards and wide mustaches were fashionable.
To about 1620, the fashionable hat was the capotain, with a tall conical crown rounded at the top and a narrow brim. By the 1630s, the crown was shorter and the brim was wider, often worn cocked or pinned up on one side and decorated with a mass of ostrich plumes.
Close-fitting caps called coifs or biggins were worn only by young children and old men under their hats or alone indoors.
Style gallery 1600s-1620s
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1 - 1600s -
2 - 1606-09 -
3 - c. 1610 -
4 - 1613 -
5 - 1623
-
6 - 1628 -
7 - 1629 -
8 - 1629
- James I and VI, 1603-1610, wears a satin doublet, wired whisk, short cape, and hose over cannions. Narrow points are tied in bows at his waist. He wears the garter and collar of the Order of the Garter.
- The young Henry, Prince of Wales and his companion wear doublets with wide wings and tight sleeves, and matching full breeches with soft pleats at the waist. For hunting, they wear plain linen shirts with flat collars and short cuffs at the wrist. Their soft boots turn down into cuffs below the knee, and are worn with linen boot hose. The prince wears a felt hat with a feather, 1606-09.
- Peter Saltonstall, in a fashionably melancholic pose c. 1610, wears an embroidered linen jacket under a brown gown with split sleeves. The gown sleeves have buttons and parallel rows of fringed braid that make button loops. The flat pleats or darts that shape his sheer collar and cuffs are visible. He wears an earring hung by a black cord.
- Richard Sackville, 3rd Earl of Dorset wears elaborate clothing, probably for the wedding of the King's daughter Elizabeth in 1613 (see notes on image page). His doublet, shoes, and the cuffs of his gloves are embroidered to match, and he wears a sleeved cloak on one arm and very full hose.
- James Hamilton wears the unstarched ruff that became popular in England in the 1620s. His hose reach to the lower thigh and are worn with scarlet stockings and heeled shoes, 1623.
- Don Carlos of Spain wears a black patterned doublet with full black breeches, black stockings, and flat black shoes with roses. He carried a wide-brimmed black hat, 1628.
- Charles I. By the 1620s, doublets were still pointed but the waistline was rising above long tabs or skirts. Sleeves are slashed to the elbow and tight below. Points are more elaborate bows, and hose have completed the transition to breeches.
- James Hamilton wears full knee-length breeches with a matching short-waisted doublet slashed across the chest with sleeves slashed to the elbow. His shirt collar has a high stand and fall on his shoulders, and is trimmed with scallops of lace. He wears cuffed boots and spurs with butterfly-shaped spur leathers, and carries a cocked hat, 1629.
Style gallery 1630s-1640s
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1 - 1630s -
2 - 1631-32 -
3 - 1634 -
4 - 1635
-
5 - c. 1638 -
6 - 1639 -
7 - 1642 -
8 - 1644
- Dutch fashion. The short-waisted doublet is slashed across the back. Points have elaborate ribbon rosettes (note matching points at hem of breeches).
- Henri II of Lorraine, Duke de Guise, in the buff leather jerkin and gorget (neck armor) of a soldier. His jerkin is open from the mid-chest, and his breeches match his cape, 1634.
- Philip IV of Spain wears breeches and doublet of brown and silver and a dark cloak all trimmed with silver lace. His sleeves are white and he wears white stockings, plain black shoes, and brown leather gloves, 1631-32.
- Charles I's doublet of 1635 is shorter waisted, and points have disappeared. He wears a broad-brimmed hat and boots.
- Royalist style: Brothers Lord John Stuart and Lord Bernard Stuart wear contrasting satin doublets and breeches, satin-lined short cloaks, and high collars with lavish lace scallops. Their high-heeled boots have deep cuffs and are worn over boot hose with lace tops, c. 1638.
- A Dutch civic guardsman wears a shortwaisted leather buff jerkin and a broad sash, both fashionable among soldiers. 1639.
- The young Charles, Prince of Wales, (later Charles II) wears a soldier's buff jerkin, sash, and half armor over a fashionable doublet and breeches trimmed with ribbon bows.
- Philip IV in military dress, 1644, wears a broad linen collar and matching cuffs. His sleeved short gown or cassock of red with metallic embroidery is worn over a buff jerkin and silver-gray sleeves. He carries a broad-brimmed black hat cocked on one side.
Shoes
Flat shoes were worn to around 1610, when a low heel became popular. The ribbon tie over the instep that had appeared on late sixteenth century shoes grew into elaborate lace or ribbon rosettes called shoe roses that were worn by the most fashionable men and women.
By the 1620s, heeled boots became popular for indoor as well as outdoor wear; these were narrow to the knee early and had wide "bucket" tops later; they were worn turned down into cuffs.
Children's fashion
Toddler boys wore gowns or skirts and doublets until they were breeched.
-
English, 1606 -
1st Qtr 17th century -
Danish prince, c. 1615 -
Dutch, 1st 3rd 17th century -
Spanish, 1630-33
-
Dutch, 1634 -
English, 1637 -
Dutch, 1641
Notes
- ^ See Gordenker, Van Dyck and the Representation of Dress in Seventeeth-Century Portraiture.
- ^ See Cases of Conscience, 1616
- ^ See Costume notes to portrait of Mary Radclyffe, Denver Museum of Art
- ^ See Aileen Ribeiro, Fashion and Fiction: Dress in Art and Lierature in Stuart England
- ^ See Aileen Ribeiro, Fashion and Fiction: Dress in Art and Lierature in Stuart England
References
- Ashelford, Jane: The Art of Dress: Clothing and Society 1500-1914, Abrams, 1996. ISBN 0-8109-6317-5
- Arnold, Janet: Patterns of Fashion: the cut and construction of clothes for men and women 1560-1620, Macmillan 1985. Revised edition 1986. (ISBN 0-89676-083-9)
- Black, J. Anderson and Madge Garland: A History of Fashion, Morrow, 1975. ISBN 0-688-02893-4
- Gordenker, Emilie E.S.: Van Dyck and the Representation of Dress in Seventeenth-Century Portraiture, Brepols, 2001, ISBN 2-503-50880-4
- Ribeiro, Aileen: Fashion and Fiction: Dress in Art and Lierature in Stuart England, Yale, 2005, ISBN 0-300-10999-7