Refashioning the Renaissance: everyday dress in Europe, 1500-1650

Abstract

"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." -- Provided by publisher.

Contents

Introduction. Refashioning the Renaissance / Paula Hohti -- Part I. Innovation and imitation -- Chapter 1. Transformations in textiles, 1400-1760 / John Styles -- Chapter 2. Ribbon culture in early modern Italy / Andrea Caracausi -- Chapter 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 -- Chapter 4. Né vera né falsa: Non-elite ownership of pearls in early modern Italy / Michele Nicole Robinson -- Chapter 5. Adorning the everyday: Male artisan jewellery in early modern England / Natasha Awais-Dean -- Chapter 6. Dressed to kill: Arms, armour and protective attire in Renaissance men's middle- and lower-class dress / Victoria Bartels -- Experiment in focus IV: Embodied experience of a tailor-made 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 -- Chapter 7. The dissemination of fashion: Consumption habits and non-essential textile goods in early modern Italian artisan inventories / Stefania Montemezzo -- Chapter 8. Artisan attire and the politics of dress in seventeenth-century Tallinn / Astrid Wendel-Hansen -- Chapter 9. The clothing of the contadina: Women's work, leisure and morality, 1550-1650 / Elizabeth Currie and Jordan Mitchell-King -- Chapter 10. Practical, professional and prosperous: Dressing the 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 / Elena Kanagy-Loux.