1550–1600 in fashion

Women's Fashion

Bodices and sleeves

The narrow-shouldered, wide-tuffed "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 1460s 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 petticoatand undersleeves. Extremely long hanging sleeves came into fashion at the end of the period.

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 bigginswas 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 Mary, 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

gallery 1550s

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. Mary I wears a cloth-of-gold gown with fur-lined "trumpet" sleeves and a matching overpartlet with a flared collar, probably her coronation robes, 1554. Neither the sleeves nor the overpartlet would survive as fashionable items in England into the 1560s.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. An unknown woman wears a dark gown trimmed or lined in fur over fitted undersleeves. A chain is knotted at her neck. England, 1557.
7. 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.
8. 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

gallery 1560s

1. Eleanor of Toledo wears a red loose gown over a bodice and a sheer linen partlet. Her brown gloves have tan cuffs, 1560.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. Unknown lady holding a pomander wears a black gown with puffed upper sleeves over a striped high-necked bodice or doublet. She wears a whitework cap beneath a sheer veil, 1560–65.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.

gallery 1570s

1. Horizontal lacing over a stomacher and an open chemise are characteristic of Italian fashion. The skirt is gathered at the waist.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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).
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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.

gallery 1580s

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. The Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia of Spain is seen here again wearing a Spanish farthingale, a closed overskirt, and the typically Spanish, long, pointed oversleeves. She is wearing black, a testament to the austere side of the Spanish court, c. 1584.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. Infanta Catalina Micaela wears an entirely black gown with lace collar and cuffs, with white inner sleeves trimmed with gold embroidery or applied braid. Her jewellery includes a double string of pearls, a necklace, worked golden buttons and a belt.
9. 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.

gallery 1590s

1. The widowed Bess of Hardwick, Countess of Shrewsbury, wears a black gown and cap with a linen ruff, 1590.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. 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.
7. 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.
8. 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

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 long sleeves.
• 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 bepaned 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.

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.

gallery 1550s–1560s

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. Charles IX of France wears an embroidered black jerkin with long bases or skirts over a white satin doublet and matching padded hose, 1566.
7. Highnecked black jerkin fastens with buttons and loops. The detailed stitching on the lining can be seen. The black-and-white doublet below also fastens with tiny buttons, German, 1566.
8. Portrait of Henry Lee of Ditchley in a black jerkin over a white satin doublet decorated with a pattern of armillary spheres, 1568.

gallery 1570s

1. 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.
2. An Italian tailor wears a pinked doublet over heavily padded hose. His shirt has a small ruff.
3. Sir Christopher Hatton's shirt collar is embroidered with blackwork, 1575.
4. French fashion features very short pansied slops over canions and peascode-bellied doublets and jerkins, the Valois Tapestries, c. 1576.
5. Sir Martin Frobisher in a peascod-bellied doublet with full sleeves under a buff jerkin with matching hose, 1577.
6. 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.

gallery 1580s–1590s

1. Miniature of Sir Walter Raleigh shows a linen cartwheel ruff with lace (possibly reticella) edging and the stylish small pointed beard of 1585.
2. Sir Henry Unton 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.
3. 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.
4. Sir Walter Raleigh wears the Queen's colors (black and white). His cloak is lined and collared with fur, 1588.
5. Robert Sidney wears a loose military jacket called a mandilion colley-westonward, or with the sleeves hanging in front and back, 1588.
6. Philip II of Spain (d. 1598) in old age. Spanish fashion changed very little from the 1560s to the end of the century.
7. 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.
8. 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

Working class clothing

1. German painting of the Last Supper in contemporary dress shows a table servant wearing pluderhosen with full, drooping linings, 1565.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.
5. 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.
6. English gardeners wear cotes with full skirts, hose, hats, and low shoes, 1594