1500-1520: The Transitional Period
During the later 15th century, fashionable dress was very vertical in shape. Though there were several different styles currently existing in Europe at the time, one particularly fashionable type of gown worn in northern Europe had a low, V-shaped neck, a high waist defined by a belt below the bust, and a full skirt with a long train. Tall hennin hats were worn, and sleeves were closely-fitted to the arm. <picture 1>

Another type of gown was also common in late 15th century Europe. It began as the underdress worn beneath the aforementioned v-necked gown, but was also worn on its own. The bodice was laced closely down to the waist or upper hip and the skirt flared out from there. The sleeves were long and closely-fitted,or bicep-length with long sleeves pinned to them. <picture 2>

Beginning in the 1490s and continuing into the 1500s, this narrow, elongated shape began to give way to a broader and more horizontal shape. Square necklines became popular, as did flaring sleeves. The waistline lowered from mid-rib to the natural waist, and skirts became fuller. A division began to appear between the close-fitting bodice and the full skirt of a gown. The tall hennin hood was replaced by a variety of headwear, most of which was shorter, bulkier and closely fitted to the head.<picture 3>

1490 to 1510 was a time period of swift changes in fashion. Several regional styles cropped up and faded just as swiftly. Tapestries of the time period are one of the best sources for these short-lived regional styles. Here are three gowns from approximately the same time period. <picture 4> .You can see how different they are.

1520s
In the 1520s, feminine fashion in England begin to solidify into one particularly popular ensemble. It is commonly dubbed "Tudor" dress, after the current Tudor king Henry VIII. Notorious for the way he went through wives and religious edicts, Henry's multiple marriages, divorces and beheadings did have one silver lining: they resulted in several high-quality portraits of his queens and consorts, wearing the height of Tudor fashion. <picture 5>

The fashionable lady of the late 1520s wore a three-piece ensemble: a shift, or basic undergarment; an undergown, also called a kirtle; and an overgown (henceforth called a "gown"). All had low, square necklines. The shift was a basic t-tunic shaped garment.

The kirtle/undergown was closely-fitted to the torso, sometimes with a waist seam and sometimes without, which was laced closely to the body and provided all of the support and shaping required. It had short, bicep-length sleeves to with decorative undersleeves were pinned, or long, closely-fitted sleeves. It could lace up the front or the back.

Sound familiar? It should; this gown was the basic late 15th century gown mentioned above and shown in Picture 4. it remained a basic undergarment well into the 16th century.

The overgown also had a square neckline, but had bell-shaped sleeves and a fuller skirt, sometimes pleated at the waist. Some overgowns closed up the center front, while others laced closed across the kirtle, showing the kirtle bodice fabric beneath. A stomacher could be pinned across the lacings to hide them. <picture 6> Some gowns appear to have fastened in the back, as no front opening is evident and the front of the skirt is unbroken.

1530s
This decade saw the stratification and formalization of the above outfit. The square neckline became wider, the sleeves tighter at the top and wider at the bottom, and the kirtle undersleeves developed a distinct puff. The bodice became more closely fitted as well, in some cases looking distinctly stiffened, with stomachers worn to cover front lacing. The gown skirt gathered or pleated to the bodice. The forepart of the kirtle skirt could be seen beneath the gown skirt.

Jane Seymour's portrait<picture 7> is a good example of mid-1530s court fashion. You can see the row of golden pins pinning her stomacher over her gown lacing. Hans Holbein also sketched a number of other ladies<picture 8> wearing this dress, sometimes with the addition of a partlet<picture 9>, a short item which covered the upper chest and fastened under the arms. It was usually either black velvet or fine wool, or was made of a fabric matching the gown. In some cases, partlets of a very fine white fabric (linen or silk) were also worn.

The Spanish farthingale, which had become popular in the 1530s, gave the skirts a distinct bell-shape.<picture 10> (we will be discussing the farthingale in more detail in next week's lesson.)

Period Costume for Stage and Screen: Hunnisett lays out a pattern for Jane Seymour's gown and gives instructions on how it was sewn together. While the construction has some theatrical elements, the patterns themselves are quite good.

1540s-1550s
This style stayed in place, for the most part, for the 1540s and 1550s. There were some changes, however. The gown waistline, which started out at the natural waist, developed a distinct V shape. The bell shape of the skirt became more pronounced as well, giving a very triangular look to the style. This can be seen in the portraits of Lady Jane Grey <picture 1> and the Princess Elizabeth <picture 2>. The neckline, sleeve shape and flaring skirt remain pretty much the same as that of the previous decade, although the undersleeve puffs grew larger.

The kirtle's highly decorated forepart and sleeves, which had started out as integral parts of the undergown, soon became detachable. The forepart as a separate, highly decorated item remained part of fashion throughout the 16th century, though it changed shape to accommodate the skirt's changing silhouette.

Although the ensemble we've been talking about was the most fashionable and popular to be seen, other styles did exist. One of these was a gown with a high, flaring collar and puffed sleeves<picture 3>, worn over the smock and kirtle. This high-necked, or "high-bodied" gown, as they were sometimes called, could be closely fitted to the waist, with the skirt gathered to the bodice like that of a low-necked gown. Alternately, this gown could be loose and hang from the shoulders to the ground. Termed a "loose gown, It is seen with increasing frequency in the later 1540s & 1550s. Christina of Denmark<picture 4>, Katherine Parr<picture 5> and a Lady in Red<picture 6> are wearing examples of this type of gown. Lady Dacre<picture 7> also wears a gown of this type, which was more flattering (and perhaps more comfortable) to a larger physique than the body-hugging bodices of the time.

1560s
By the 1560s, this high-necked gown is often seen in portraits of the English nobility and well-to-do. <picture 8> It fastens up the front and has a new type of sleeve not seen before: a short, bicep to elbow length sleeve which was stuffed, padded, and perhaps even boned to keep its shape. <picture 9> It fits close to the waist, and flares from the waist to the ground over a Spanish farthingale.

The kirtle sleeves shown beneath this style of gown differ markedly from the large, puffed confections worn under the gowns of Henry's court. They are very closely fitted to the arm and usually pinked or slashed in a series of rows. This style of sleeve remains in vogue through the 1570s and 1580s, though the shape changes somewhat.

Meanwhile, in France... Although we are focusing on English fashion, what was happening in France during the 1550s and 1560s had a profound influence on English fashion of the 1570s. The French court gown of the time period retained the tight bodice seen in Tudor gowns, but rather than the flaring, trumpet-shaped sleeves, these gowns sported puffed, smaller sleeves, often of a fabric different than that of the gown, and distinct shoulder rolls. The neckline developed a distinct arch, and decoration appears around the neckline and down the front in the form of "guards", or strips of fabric. These guards could be highly decorated, as are those worn by Margaret de Valois<picture 10> or plain fabric, as those worn by Francoise Breze<picture 11>.

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.

1580s
Although the silhouette of the 80s didn't change dramatically from that of the 1570s, it did become broader. Shoulders of gowns became wider, due in part to the picadils (small tabs) which replaced rolls as the fashionable form of shoulder decoration. Sleeves became fuller as well. More high-bodied bodices, which came up to the neck and sported a collar, began to show up in pictures and portraits.

Lettice Knollys <picture 1> is wearing a gown which is the height of mid-1580s fashion. It has picadils at the shoulders, is closed up to the neck, and has puffed undersleeves and oversleeves of a style known as "Spanish" sleeves. On the whole, the bodices and overskirts of the 1580s were one color, with the sleeves and forepart of a different fabric.

The high-necked bodice appears to have been popular in Spain, and travelled to England from there. The infanta Clara Eugenia Isabella is wearing an example of this Spanish type of gown. The skirt is very bell-shaped, the bodice fitted up to the neck, and the trumpet-shaped oversleeves (called "Spanish great sleeves") slashed and caught at the wrist over closely-fitted, striped undersleeves. <picture 2>

the later 1570s & early 1580s are when the doublet bodice came into fashion. It was based on and shaped like a man's doublet, and, unlike gowns of previous eras, was a separate item not attached to a skirt. Queen Elizabeth's Darnley portrait shows her wearing a gown of this type. <picture 3> A separate skirt and doublet bodice could be worn over a petticoat or kirtle.

In the 1580s, the English skirt shape began to change from the long-popular bell-shaped skirt, created by the Spanish farthingale, to a more dome-shaped skirt, created by the French Farthingale. The French farthingale was popular in France through the 1570s, and finally made it to England in the mid 1580s. Queen Elizabeth is wearing a French farthingale in her Armada Portrait<picture 4>. We will discuss the Spanish and French farthingale in more detail during next week's lesson.

1590s
In the 1590s, feminine fashion became more and more extreme. Features already present in 1580s dress became exaggerated: the puffed sleeves became so large that some of them were boned with bents to keep their shape (although narrow sleeves are seen in a few portraits of the time.) The point of the bodice descended as far as female anatomy would allow, and the dome-shaped french farthingale flattened out to create a flat, circular shelf around the gown. The low, square neckline became fashionable again. Queen Elizabeth's portrait of 1592 is an example of current 1590s fashion. <picture 6>

The skirt could be tucked up in a flounce by pinning it to the French farthingale beneath. <picture 7> The stomacher, which had faded from fashion, made a reappearence. It was pinned over front lacing bodices, or in some cases either sewn or hooked-and-eyed to the front sides of the bodice. Sleeves and stomacher were often decorated in a similar fashion. <picture 8>

Italian Dress
Southern Europe went its own way during the 16th century. Though trends in dress affected Italians, on the whole the Italian silhouette was softer and less rigid.

In the first half of the 16th century, Italian gowns had the same flat, tight-fitting bodice as those of English Tudor gowns. The waistline was higher and straight across, however, and the voluminous skirt gathered to the bodice with cartridge pleats. The neckline could be a wide square or a gentle curve. The most commonly seen sleeves were full, with several rows of puffs at the shoulder and undersleeves (often of a contrasting colour) that were relatively close-fitting. No farthingale was worn. <picture 1>

In the 1550s and 1560s, the bodice waist lowered and the neckline rose. High-necked doublet bodices were commonly seen. A particularly Italian style was the double-bodied gown. The undergown had a low, square neck and close-fitting sleeves. The overgown had a V-neck, sometimes with a ruffle, and short, puffed sleeves. The bodice was usually pointed at the waist, and the tight undersleeves commonly striped or decorated with horizontal rows of pinking or trim. <picture 2>

Alterately, the overgown had long vertical slashes to show the undergown. Overgowns with slashes often had hanging sleeves rather than shoulder puffs. The undergown could button up to the neck as well has having a low, square neck. <picture 3>

Venice retained its own distinctive style: an exceedingly low-cut bodice, with horizontal lacing across the front that showed off the smock beneath. Sleeves had puffs at the shoulders and were close-fitting. <picture 4>

German Dress
It is hard to define a specific "German" type of dress. Like italian dress, it was rounder in the bosom than the stiffer gowns worn in England. In Tudor times, a common gown type was one with a scooped or very wide square neckline, decorated with wide guards around the neckline and front of the gown. The sleeves were quite narrow and flared over the hands. <picture 5>

Another early 16th century German gown was the open-fronted gown painted by Cranach. This gown had a tight fitting bodice, worn over a smock or perhaps a white kirtle, which only reached to mid-rib. The remaining area across the front was laced closed over the smock. The skirt was very full, often with strips of contrasting fabric sewn around the bottom, and the chest was covered by an embroidered placket. <picture 6>

In the later 16th century, German dress began to approximate the European norm. The bust was usually more rounded than the english silhouette, and high-bodied bodices that reached to the neck were commonly seen. The two women in this picture <picture 7> are wearing very typical 1570s german dress: doublet bodices with a rounded bust and vertical bands of fabric (guards) down the front. The sleeves are puffed at the shoulder, and the skirts have contrasting guards sewn around for decoration.

Working Class Dress in the 16th Century
The dress of the working classes echoed the dress of the richer folk, but lagged one to two decades behind current fashion. It also stayed more static. Fashions seen on peasants in the 1520s in some cases showed up in the 1570s.

It is not easy to find pictures of working folk in the 16th century. Simon Bening's daCosta Hours show some good pictures of peasants from the 1530s. Pieter Brueghel painted peasants and village folk in the 1560s and 1560s, and Flemish artists Pieter Aertsen and Joachim Beuckelaer painted servants and marketwomen in the later 1560s through the 1580s. Woodcuts of the 1570s show some working women as well. Because almost all available pictures are from Flanders and Germany, the dress described here is inevitably biased towards Flemish and German styles.

In Tudor times, the working classes wore the same three items of dress that their betters did: A smock, a kirtle, and a gown. The smock was of white linen, and cut in a T-tunic shape with a square or rounded neckline.

The kirtle laced up the front, and also had a rounded or square neckline. This undergown usually had a seam at the waist, and a skirt which flared rather than gathered--or gathered only slightly. The kirtle could be sleeveless or have short sleeves, to which longer sleeves could be pinned. It looked, in fact, very much like the fashionable dress of the 1470s and 1480s<picture 1> made of simpler materials.

There are pictures of women wearing only a smock and kirtle working in the fields and doing other hard labor. <picture 2> A black woolen partlet was sometimes pinned over the neck of the kirtle for more coverage of the chest. This partlet could fasten under the arms, or come to a V shape in the back. <picture 3>

Over the kirtle, a gown was worn. This gown was again similar in shape to the gown worn by Tudor women at the beginning of the century: a relatively close-fitting bodice that closed in the front, with flared sleeves, a square neckline and a skirt gathered to the bodice. This gown is worn well into the 1550s. <picture 4>

The apron was an essential item of wear, and is shown in all pictures of lower class or peasant dress. It could be white, but pictures also show blue, pink, olive and yellow aprons after 1550.

A style which shows up in the 1560s is similar to the woman in the background of Picture 2. A gown with short bicep sleeves is worn with a black partlet over it. The doesn't lace all the way across the front; rather, it stops at mid rib and laces cover the rest of the front. A kirtle can be seen beneath this gown. Sleeves are pinned to the gown sleeves. A flared black partlet or white linen partlet is worn over this ensemble. <picture 5> A similar outfit shows up in a woodcut of a 1570s French Peasant. <picture 6>

Another item of dress which shows up later in the century is a jacket, worn over the kirtle and open-laced gown above. <picture 7>

Write a Gown Report
Choose one of the portraits seen in this week's lesson that particularly appeals to you. Using the Research Resources for Lesson 1, find other examples of this type of outfit. Write a "gown report" which contains the following information:

1. What portait did you choose?

2. During which time period was this gown worn?

3. What country(s) was it worn in?

4. What are some portraits that show this type of gown?

5. Name the individual items of dress that are worn in this portrait.

6. Is there a great variety in this type of gown? Are other portraits that show it very similar, or very dissimilar? How do they differ?

7. Why does this type of ensemble appeal to you?