1300–1400 in fashion part 2

[Dept of PMM Artists & things]

Underwear

The innermost layer of a woman's clothing was a linen or woolen chemise or smock, some fitting the figure and some loosely garmented, although there is some mention of a "breast girdle" or "breast band" which may have been the precursor of a modern bra.^[26]

Women also wore hose or stockings, although women's hose generally only reached to the knee. ^[18]

All classes and both sexes are usually shown sleeping naked-- special nightwear only became common in the 16th century ^[27] -- yet some married women wore their chemises to bed as a form of modesty and piety. Many in the lower classes wore their undergarments to bed because of the cold weather at nighttime and since their beds usually consisted of a straw mattress and a few sheets.

[edit] Gowns and outerwear

Over the chemise, women wore a loose or fitted gown called a cotte or kirtle, usually ankle or floor-length, and with trains for formal occasions. Fitted kirtles had full skirts made by adding triangular gores to widen the hem without adding bulk at the waist. Kirtles also had long, fitted sleeves that sometimes reached down to over the knuckles.

Various sorts of overgowns were worn over the kirtle, and are called by different names by costume historians. When fitted, this garment is often called a cotehardie (although this usage of the word has been heavily criticized^[28]) and might have hanging sleeves. Over time the hanging part of the sleeve became longer and narrower until it was the merest streamer, called a tippet, then gaining the floral or leaflike daggings in the end of the century.^[29]

Sleeveless overgowns or tabards derive from the cyclas, an unfitted rectangle of cloth with an opening for the head that was worn in the 13th century. By the early 14th century, the sides began to be sewn together, creating a sleeveless overgown or surcoat.^[29]

Outdoors, women wore cloaks or mantles, often lined in fur. The Houppelande was also adopted by women late in the century. Women invariably wore their Houppelandes floor-length, the waistline raising up to right underneath the bust, sleeves very wide and hanging, like angel sleeves.

[edit] Headdresses

[edit] Northern and western Europe

Married women in Northern and Western Europe wore some type of headcovering. The barbet was a band of linen that passed under the chin and was pinned on top of the head; it descended from the earlier wimple (in French, barbe), which was now worn only by older women, widows, and nuns. The barbet was worn with a linen fillet or headband, or with a linen cap called a coif, with or without a couvrechef (kerchief) or veil overall. ^[30] It passed out of fashion by mid-century. Unmarried girls simply just braided the hair to keep the dirt out.

A crespine worn by Joan of Bourbon, Queen of France

The barbet and fillet or barbet and veil could also be worn over the crespine, a thick hairnet or snood. Over time, the crespine evolved into a mesh of jeweler's work that confined the hair on the sides of the head, and even later, at the back. This metal crespine was also called a caul, and remained stylish long after the barbet had fallen out of fashion.^[31]

[edit] Italy

Uncovered hair was acceptable for women in the Italian states. Many women twisted their long hair with cords or ribbons and wrapped the twists around their heads, often without any cap or veil. Hair was also worn braided. Older women and widows wore a veil and wimple, and a simple knotted kerchief was worn while working. In the image at right, one woman wears a red hood draped over her twisted and bound hair.

[edit] Style gallery

1 – Italian gowns	2 – Barbet and fillet	3 – Women dining	4 – In a garden
5 – Hood	6 – Italian fashion	7 – Bride and ladies	8 – Houppelande

1. Italian gowns are high-waisted. Women's hair was often worn uncovered or minimally uncovered in Italy. Detail of a fresco by Giotto, 1304–06, Padua.
2. Woman presenting a chaplet wears a linen barbet and fillet headdress. She also wears a fur-lined mantle or cloak, c. 1305–1340.
3. Women at dinner wear their hair confined in braids or cauls over each ear, and wear sheer veils. The woman on the left wears a sideless surcoat over her kirtle, and the woman on the right wears an overgown with fur-lined hanging sleeves or tippets. Luttrell Psalter, England, c. 1325–35.
4. Woman in a garden on a breezy day. Her kirtle sleeves button from the elbow to the wrist, and she wears a sheer veil confined by a fillet or circlet. Her skirt has a long train. Luttrell Psalter, c. 1325–35.
5. Illustration from the French Romance of Alexander, 1338–44, shows a woman wearing a red hood on her head and an overgown with vair-lined hanging sleeves or tippets
6. Italian fashion of this period features broad bands of embroidered or woven trim on the gown and around the sleeves.^[32] Siena, c. 1340
7. A bride wears a long fur-lined gown with hanging sleeves over a tight-sleeved kirtle, with a veil. Her gown is trimmed with embroidery or (more likely) braid. A royal lady wears a blue mantle hanging from her shoulders; her hair is worn in two braids beneath her crown, Italy, 1350s.
8. An indiscreet young woman wears an early houppelande and poulaines, the long pointed shoes that would be worn through most of the next century by the most fashionable. Her hair is wrapped and twisted around her head, late 14th century.

[edit] Footwear

Conservative (left) and high-fashion (right) shoes of the late 14th century

Men wear snug boots with cuffs for fencing, late 14th century. These are almost certainly not cuffed boots, but rather hose which have been rolled down over garters. This was common practice during this period for workers.

Footwear during the fourteenth century generally consisted of the turnshoe, which was made out of leather.^[33] It was fashionable for the toe of the shoe to be a long point, which often had to be stuffed with material to keep its shape.^[34] A carved wooden-soled sandal-like type of clog or overshoe called a patten would often be worn over the shoe outdoors, as the shoe by itself was generally not waterproof.^[35]

[edit] Working class clothing

Storing olives	Threshing	Cheesemaking	Milking
Fishing	Carrying water	Storing wood	Harvesting grain

Images from a fourteenth century manuscript of Tacuinum Sanitatis, a treatise on healthful living, show the clothing of working people: men wear short or knee-length gowns and thick shoes, and women wear knotted kerchiefs and gowns with aprons. For hot summer work, men wear shirts and braies and women wear chemises. Women tuck their gowns up when working.

[edit] See also

• Byzantine dress

[edit] Notes

1. ^ Laver, James: The Concise History of Costume and Fashion, Abrams, 1979, p. 62
2. ^ Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Centuries, Vol 1: The Structures of Everyday Life," p. 317, William Collins & Sons, London 1981
3. ^ Singman, Jeffrey L. and Will McLean: Daily Life in Chaucer's England, page 93. Greenwood Press, London, 2005 ISBN 0-313-29375-9
4. ^ See discussion in Laver: The Concise History of Costume and Fashion
5. ^ "The birth of fashion", in Boucher, François: 20,000 Years of Fashion, Harry Abrams, 1966, p. 192
6. ^ Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th–18th Centuries, Vol 1: The Structures of Everyday Life," pp. 312–3 and 323, William Collins & Sons, London 1981
7. ^ Boucher, 20,000 Years of Fashion, pp. 192–193
8. ^ ^{a b} Singman & McLean, id, p. 94
9. ^ a) Donald King in Jonathan Alexander & Paul Binski (eds), Age of Chivalry, Art in Plantagenet England, 1200–1400, p 157, Royal Academy/Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London 1987 and b) An Introduction to a History of Woodcut, Arthur M. Hind,p 67, Houghton Mifflin Co. 1935 (in USA), reprinted Dover Publications, 1963 ISBN 0-486-20952-0
10. ^ Donald King in Jonathan Alexander & Paul Binski (eds), op cit, p 160
11. ^ id, p. 95
12. ^ Koslin, Désirée, "Value-Added Stuffs and Shifts in Meaning: An Overview and Case-Study of Medieval Textile Paradigms", in Koslin and Snyder, Encountering Medieval Textiles and Dress, pp. 237–240
13. ^ Black, J. Anderson, and Madge Garland: A History of Fashion, 1975, ISBN 0-6880-2893-4, p. 122
14. ^ Crowfoot, Elizabeth, Frances Pruchard and Kay Staniland, Textiles and Clothing c. 1150 – c. 1450, Museum of London, 1992, ISBN 0-1129-0445-9,
15. ^ Georges Duby ed.,A History of Private Life, Vol 2 Revelations of the Medieval World, 1988 (English translation), p.571, Belknap Press, Harvard U
16. ^ Netherton, Robin, "The Tippet: Accessory after Fact?", in Robin Netherton and Gale R. Owen-Crocker, editors, Medieval Clothing and Textiles, Volume 1
17. ^ Favier, Jean, Gold and Spices: The Rise of Commerce in the Middle Ages, 1998, p. 66
18. ^ ^{a b c d e f g} Singman and McLean: Daily Life in Chaucer's England, p.101
19. ^ There is a famous surviving example in the Textile Museum at Lyon, called the "Pourpoint of Charles of Blois". It is made of highly tailored silk brocade (a total of twenty pieces of the brocade) with gold threads and lined with linen canvas. It is quilted throughout, probably stuffed with cotton. Description and photos and another photo, several in colour. Archived 2009-10-19.
20. ^ id. p. 97
21. ^ Continuation of chronicle of Guillaume de Nangis, Archives Nationales, Paris. Quoted in: Fernand Braudel, Civilization and Capitalism, 15th-18th Centuries, Vol 1: The Structures of Everyday Life," p. 317, William Collins & Sons, London 1981
22. ^ Claude Blair in: Jonathan Alexander & Paul Binski (eds), Age of Chivalry, Art in Plantagenet England, 1200–1400, Royal Academy/Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London 1987, p 480.The effigy and arming-coat of the Black Prince
23. ^ Barbara Tuchman;A Distant Mirror, 1978, Alfred A Knopf Ltd, p456, quoting Vaughan's biography of Philip.
24. ^ Laver, Concise History of Costume and Fashion
25. ^ Claude Blair, in Alexander & Binski, op cit pp 169–70
26. ^ Singman and McLean: Daily Life in Chaucer's England, page 98
27. ^ History of Nightwear (German)
28. ^ La Cotte Simple
29. ^ ^{a b} Payne, Blanche: History of Costume from the Ancient Egyptians to the Twentieth Century, Harper & Row, 1965
30. ^ Laver, James: The Concise History of Costume and Fashion, Abrams, 1979;
31. ^ Payne, History of Costume
32. ^ Boucher, 20,000 Years of Fashion
33. ^ A Practical Guide to Reproducing 14th Century Shoes
34. ^ Singman, Jeffrey L. and Will McLean: Daily Life in Chaucer's England, page 114. Greenwood Press, London, 2005 ISBN 0-313-29375-9
35. ^ id. p. 116