OVERVIEW
of Fashion

Fashion Defined.

Fashion, as the term is used in this chapter, refers to a dominant mode in dress in a particular place or time, usually a mode that is established by a perceived social elite or by notable persons. Fashion functions as a social phenomenon, setting standards of dress that periodically change when what once was new and desirable becomes ordinary and then must be supplanted by yet another innovation. Moreover, fashion as a social force possesses its own natural laws. For example, it appears that once innovative fashions move too far from what society perceives as the norm, it rejects these excesses, and a pendulum swing occurs with a return to an older or plainer style. Fashionable clothing must convey the impression of distinction, excellence, originality, and character expressed artistically. And, of course, fashion responds to the availability of new materials, dye stuffs, and technologies. The relative importance of each of these factors, although generally present in some combination, will vary at any given time. Therefore, a fashion system is characterized by constant change. Historians of costume agree that in Europe fashion as a social concept—that is, an ongoing awareness of self-consciously changing styles—began in the Middle Ages. By the middle of the fourteenth century, this system was well enough established to be the subject of ongoing commentary and concern, since the pressure always to be purchasing new and expensive clothing, with its emphasis on the human body, has moral implications. But even before fashion became a major force in society, elements of a fashion system were present in European courts, making it possible to trace the development of fashion as early as the age of Charlemagne in the eighth century.

Sources of Information.

Because of the fragility of materials and the socially downward movement of used garments, very little clothing from the early part of the Middle Ages has survived, but the paintings in illuminated manuscripts provide a wide range of examples of what people wore. Because it was common practice to illustrate even historical texts dealing with biblical or classical subjects with figures wearing "modern" clothing, books as well as the other visual arts (sculptures, reliefs, wall paintings, tapestries) from the ninth to twelfth centuries offer an ongoing record of fashion trends. Literature is also a source of information towards the end of this period, since the newly developing genre of the romance often included detailed descriptions of courtly heroes and heroines (though these, as well as images from the visual arts, must be used carefully since some details are merely conventional). By the thirteenth century, documentary records, including lists of items sold at fairs and expense ledgers from royal households, offer evidence of both the range and cost of clothing, while the trade poems that emerged in the last half of the century provide details of the kinds of costume goods offered by traveling peddlers (known as mercers) to customers at every level of society. One additional source of information is the gradually increasing tradition of recording wills and inventories of belongings, which by the fourteenth century extended to members of every social rank.

Class Distinctions.

Members of higher and lower social classes have, of course, always dressed somewhat differently from each other. At the beginning of the period discussed here, society was, for the most part, divided between a small ruling class of warriors and a large laboring class that primarily worked the land. In the 800s, for example, when Charlemagne (Charles the Great) established the first European empire (called "Carolingian" after the Latin word for "Charles") to replace the Roman Empire that had fallen five centuries earlier, laborers throughout Europe wore a similar costume, common to both the newly dominant Germanic tribes and the earlier Celtic tribes they had displaced. This costume, for men, was made up of a short (mid-thigh-length) smock, belted at the waist, worn over leggings in cold weather and supplemented by a short cape, sometimes with a hood. Members of Charlemagne's court, on the other hand, maintained the simple style allowing vigorous movement necessary for warfare, but adopted some details imitating their Roman predecessors, adding a wool or silken braid to the hems of their tunics, loose bloomer-like "braies" (underpants) that tucked into their leggings, and a large rectangular cloak (which could double as a blanket) fastened at the right shoulder. By the late eleventh century, courtly robes had become long and voluminous in a more extensive imitation of Roman and Byzantine styles.

Elaboration of Styles.

Eleventh-century England provides an early example of a period that began to exhibit the kinds of changes typical of a fashion system. The nobles' standard of living rose, cities were established, trade expanded, and craftsmen flourished, catering to the demands of nobles with money to spend. Following the Battle of Hastings in 1066, the victorious Norman nobility acquired the wealth of England. During the period when William I was establishing his rule, styles for both males and females were based on the long tunic and were relatively conservative as to cut and ornamentation. There was a change in taste, however, during the reign of his successor, William II (ruled 1087–1100). Clothes during this period were lavishly cut from luxurious cloth (some of which was brought back from the Holy Land after the First Crusade in 1095–1099), and both men and women adopted a variety of personal decoration. Still, the extravagance during this reign did not involve the creation of new styles so much as it did the exaggeration of known styles. For example, more fabric was used in the tunic; it was made both longer and fuller, resulting in garments with numerous folds and of a length that bunched fabric on the floor. Such tunics represented a considerable economic investment in a period when both cloth and clothing were thought of as commodities of exchange and were used much as money is used today. Across the twelfth, thirteenth, and the first half of the fourteenth centuries, a sporadic but escalating creation of a detailed set of fashions took place and the range of fabrics available expanded (in silks, for example, there were plain, patterned, and figured pieces in twills and other weaves), first brought back from the Christian military expeditions to regain the Holy Land (including the Crusades of 1095, 1146, 1188, and 1202) and later from the resulting expansion of production sites and trade.

Craftsmen and Guilds.

The increasing trade in both fabrics and dyestuffs became more efficient and vigorous in the middle of the thirteenth century as corporations of craftsmen organized in guilds to supervise training of workers, regulate quality, and specialize in production. In Flanders and in Italy, for example, craftsmen transformed bulk wool from England and silk from Sicily and the East into fine fabrics. In Paris, such specialization had, by the last half of the thirteenth century, resulted in groups of artisans that made doublets, others that made bonnets, and still others that produced shoes. Beyond an increase in quality, an additional benefit of specialization was that the craftsmen were skilled enough to create novel variations in garments and decorative design. These specialized artisans—like those in other kinds of guilds—regulated trade during the Middle Ages; scribes, goldsmiths, bow and arrow makers, and so on tended to intermarry within their own groups and live in certain quarters of the city which took their names from the trade in question. Thus, a person shopping for certain articles of costume would generally find such items in home-based shops in specific neighborhoods, often indicated by a sign showing, for example, a representation of shoes or hats.

The Age of Fashion.

Fashion historians often credit the development of the doublet as the event which gave birth, around 1350, to an "age of fashion." The first appearance of this short jacket, which took its name from the padded garment used as soft body armor under metal armor, occurred at a time when the military importance of the armored knight on a horse was declining, being superseded in actual fighting by the efficient and deadly long- and cross-bowmen. In the latter half of the fourteenth and throughout the fifteenth centuries, the knight continued to be designated as a military leader, even as he became less functionally important as provider and warrior. Simultaneously, his presence in the court took on greater significance, and the knight sought to make a more spectacular impression through dress. At this time, the long, full robe employing rich folds of material, now considered appropriate to the upper civic elite class of lawyers, physicians, and merchants, as well as for male members of the aristocracy, was dramatically replaced by a new silhouette. If the previous generations had preferred to hide the body in sedate movement-encumbering robes that denied physicality, the styles of the 1350s—when the aristocrat's connection to combat was becoming more symbolic than real—emphasized male freedom of movement and sexuality in an hourglass figure. Especially in the 1500s, such new fashions were specifically associated with the courtier class of persons who maintained themselves by various forms of royal and ducal appointments and "preferments." Two features of this costume are notable: the pourpoint, or short doublet showing the legs and buttocks, and the long pointed shoes called poulaines supposedly originating in Crakow, Poland. These exaggerated styles, as well as a trend towards tall headdresses that seemed to mimic the perpendicularity of Gothic architecture, were the subject of numerous satires against excesses in court dress.

Social and Economic Forces.

In addition to the development of new tastes in the royal courts of Europe, another significant source of fashion change may be found in the increasing affluence of members of the commercial class, which gave them the ability to adopt the styles worn by the nobility. Consequently, the nobility developed yet newer styles to assert their difference from, and superiority to, the commercial elites. This encroachment of the mercantile class upon the clothing styles formerly worn only by the nobility stimulated the proliferation of sumptuary laws (laws against excess in food, clothing, and celebrations) to regulate dress in terms of income and birth status, with the aim of stabilizing the visual and social distance between the various levels of society, from the aristocracy down to the plowman. An additional factor that contributed significantly, if indirectly, to changes in late fourteenth-century tastes from about 1348 onward was the recurrence of virulent outbreaks of a plague known as the Black Death. The sweeping fatalities from this disease and its later epidemics in the fifteenth century are thought to have eliminated between 35 and 65 percent of Europe's population. Such decimation of the populace does not seem to have halted in any permanent way the overall tendency toward conspicuous consumption, but it is interesting to note that Italian sumptuary laws responded to the mortality caused by the plague by modifying dowry requirements, including those relating to clothing, in a way that would encourage marriages and, of course, repopulation through economic incentives. One additional effect of the plague on ownership of clothing was that survivors of this epidemic inherited the wealth, including valuable garments, of those who were victims, and thus such wealth was concentrated among fewer owners.

An Aristocratic Prerogative.

In the Middle Ages, regardless of the increase of wealth among the commercial class and their imitation of noble dress, the trendsetters in clothing styles remained those at the highest level of society—especially those courtiers in power at the royal courts. A king was expected to maintain a high standard of magnificence not only in the quality of food and entertainment in his court, but also in his and his family's dress. And he was expected to epitomize largesse (generosity) in the giving of gifts, especially of cloth and complete garments, to his courtiers—a virtue the courtiers must in turn imitate with their inferiors. Thus, the consumption of fashionable cloth and garments spread from the top to the bottom of society; as fashion filtered down through the different levels of social class, these garments became increasingly "unfashionable." As a result, from the mid-fourteenth century onward, the pace of spending to create a fashionable appearance accelerated, changes in styles occurred more often, and the search for innovations in apparel eventually resulted in a standard of "precious elegance," overly refined elaboration of details such as slashed hems that revealed contrasting colors underneath, puffed sleeves (and, later, puffed trunks), or appliqué and embroidery work. Furthermore, the adoption of this standard coincided with a new acceptance of the concept of individuality, as opposed to the former custom of emphasizing familial or social groups. This change in attitudes included the idea that an individual might express his or her unique personality through costume. Thus, fashion, understood as a pattern of change and differentiation, became an aristocratic pleasure, enjoyed by courtiers in the same way that they enjoyed other artistic works and extravagant entertainments.

The Ongoing Fashion Process.

Ultimately, the change from the long flowing costume that completely covered the bodies of men and women alike in the late eleventh century to the short outer clothing assumed by the mid-fourteenth century male and the long fitted gowns with plunging necklines worn by their female contemporaries was a dramatic one. Adoption of the new short costume differentiated a young nobleman from his more conservative elders and emphasized his masculinity. Similarly, lowered necklines displayed female physical beauty. The long styles of earlier centuries persisted in the more conservative ranks of society, reaching their peak of linearity in the fourteenth century and continuing to be fashionable for another hundred years among civil, judicial, and academic professionals. Near the end of the fifteenth century, the masculine style went even further as shoulders broadened, headgear flattened and widened, codpieces (decorative pouches) were added to the crotch area of the wearer's hose, and the toes of shoes became blunt and broad in the so-called "bear paw" shoe style often associated with King François I of France. As previously stated, such periodic reversals are characteristic in a system of fashion.