Sartorial politics in early modern Europe: fashioning women

Abstract

For women at the early modern courts, clothing and jewelry were essential elements in their political arsenal, enabling them to signal their dynastic value, to promote loyalty to their marital court and to advance political agendas. This is the first collection of essays to examine how elite women in early modern Europe marshalled clothing and jewelry for political ends. With essays encompassing women who traversed courts in Denmark, Finland, England, France, Germany, Habsburg Austria, Poland-Lithuania, Italy, Spain and Portugal, the contributions cover a broad range of elite women from different courts and religious backgrounds as well as varying noble ranks.