The 1570s: The Elizabethan Style of Dress

Gowns
This is the decade during which the "typical" English Elizabethan gown came into being. Beginning at the end of the 1560s, French fashions, like those shown in the last two pictures on the previous page, began gaining popularity in England. Commonly called the "French Gown", or "strait-bodied gown" (strait-bodied meaning tight-bodiced), it was by 1575 the gown seen in most pictures and portraits.

This picture of an Unknown Girl, painted in 1569 <picture 1> exhibits all the features of this style. The bodice comes to a modest point in the front, and has decorated guards going up the front and around the arched neckline. There are rolls at the shoulders with white puffs of fabric drawn out between strips of fabric, and slightly puffed sleeves of a material different than that of the gown. The chest is covered by either a separate partlet, or the shirt to which the sleeves belong. All of these features are hallmarks of 1570s English dress.

Queen Elizabeth, as well as making her country a fiscally sound world power and precipitating a literary renaissance, also influenced fashion of the time. She had several portraits painted<picture 2>, woodcuts of which were made and distributed among the populace. She was fond of foreign styles, several of which were incorporated into English dress during her reign. The French sleeve, seen on Queen Elizabeth's Phoenix Portrait<picture 3>, became popular in the 1570s. It flared sharply at the shoulder and narrowed from mid-bicep down to the wrist.

Gowns often fastened up the front, with lacings or with hooks and eyes. Most gowns seen in English portraits of the 1570s are front-closing. Alternately, gowns could lace up the side back or center back. If a skirt was split in the front, the bodice closed in the front as well.

The loose gown, sometimes called a Ropa, was also worn. It fell from the shoulders to the ground, and could be worn over a loose kirtle or a kirtle with a close-fitted body & skirt. In Patterns of Fashion page 110-113, a picture and pattern layout for an extant loose gown are found. A reconstructed version of the Ropa is on display at the Victoria & Albert Museum. <picture 4>

Kirtles
The kirtle, or undergown, was still worn underneath the outer gown and over the smock. Although there's very little evidence as to what they looked like, wardrobe accounts and pictures of lower-class dress (which show women dressed in only their underlayers) give us an idea of what was worn under the outer gown.

One type of kirtle was loose, falling from the shoulders to the ground without fitting the body. The "gathered kirtles" mentioned in Queen Elizabeth's wardrobe accounts were probably basic bodices with skirts gathered to them. Some kirtles, such as the ones worn beneath the gowns of the 1560s, probably fitted close to the waist and flared out from there.

A kirtle was also called a "petticoat bodies", or a gathered petticoat skirt attached to a simple bodice. References to petticoats often mention bodices attached to them. Like the gowns, a kirtle might lace or hook-and-eye up the front, lace up the side backs, or lace up the back. Current evidence strongly suggests they were sleeveless, with close-fitting sleeves laced to them.

To make matters even more confusing, in the mid-16th century "kirtle" began to apply to another item of dress as well: the underskirt to which a forepart was applied (the decorated section which shows beneath the front-split skirt of an overgown. Alcega's kirtle patterns in his 1589 Tailor's book show them to be a simple gored skirt.

   

A petticoat bodies is shown in Patterns of Fashion, on page 102. A loose kirtle is also shown in this book, on page 110.

Movies
Elizabeth R, Vol 2 and 3
The portrait gowns of Queen Elizabeth are brought to life in these episodes of Elizabeth R.

Pictures

• Middle Class Dress of the 1570s
• Renaissance Fashion, 1560-1600
• Elizabeth I Portrait Gallery
• Pictures of Queen Elizabeth at TudorHistory.com
• Portraits of Elizabeth at Tudor-Portraits.com
• Woodcuts of the 1570s
• Queen Elizabeth's Influence on Elizabethan Dress

Timeline:
16th Century
Dress