How did ordinary men and women dress in early modern Europe? What fabrics and garments formed the essential elements of fashion for artisans and shopkeepers? Did they rely on affordable alternatives to the silks, jewellery and decorations favoured by the wealthy elite? Or did those with modest means find innovative ways to express their fashion sense?
This book provides new perspectives on early modern clothing and fashion history by investigating the consumption and meaning of fashionable clothing and accessories among the popular classes. Through a close examination of the materials, craftsmanship and cultural significance of fashion items owned by and available to a broad group of consumers, it challenges conventional assumptions that the everyday dress of ordinary families was limited to a narrow selection of garments made of coarse textiles, often produced at home and resistant to change.
How did ordinary men and women dressinearly modernEurope? This book provides new perspectives on clothing and fashion history by investigating the consumption, material significance and cultural meaning of fashionable clothing and accessories among the popular classes.
Introduction Paula Hohti
Part I: Innovation and Imitation
1 Transformations in textiles, 15001750 John Styles
2 Ribbon culture in early modern Italy Andrea Caracausi
3 Imitation in early modern artisan fashion Sophie Pitman
Experiment in focus I: imitation of fur Sophie Pitman
Experiment in focus II: knitted stockings Piia Lempiäinen and Paula Hohti
Experiment in focus III: stamped mock-velvet doublet Sophie Pitman
Part II: Adornment and display
4 Né vera né falsa: non-elite ownership of pearls in early modern Italy
Michele Nicole Robinson
5 Adorning the everyday: male artisan jewellery in early modern England
Natasha Awais-Dean
6 Dressed to kill: arms, armour and protective attire in Renaissance mens
middle- and lower-class dress Victoria Bartels
Experiment in focus IV: embodied experience of a tailor-made male doublet
Valerio Zanetti
Experiment in focus V: digital doublet Maarit Kalmakurki
Experiment in focus VI: imitation of amber and pearls Michele Nicole
Robinson
Part III: Status and credibility
7 The dissemination of fashion: consumption habits and non-essential textile
in early modern Italian artisan inventories Stefania Montemezzo
8 Artisan attire and the politics of dress in seventeenth-century Tallinn
Astrid Wendel-Hansen
9 The clothing of the contadina: womens work, leisure and morality,
15501650 Elizabeth Currie and Jordan Mitchell-King
10 Practical, professional and prosperous: dressing artisans and small
shopkeepers in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Denmark Anne-Kristine
Sindvald Larsen
Experiment in focus VII: caring for clothes Anne-Kristine Sindvald Larsen
Experiment in focus VIII: colour Paula Hohti
Experiment in focus IX: lace Michele Nicole Robinson
Index -- .
Paula Hohti is Professor of History of Art and Culture at Aalto University. -- .
