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

by Paula Hohti (Editor)

Overview

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 byinvestigating 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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781526164650
Publisher:	Manchester University Press
Publication date:	01/28/2025
Series:	Studies in Design and Material Culture
Pages:	368
Product dimensions:	6.69(w) x 9.45(h) x (d)

About the Author

Paula Hohti is Professor of History of Art and Culture at Aalto University.

Table of Contents

Introduction – Paula Hohti
Part I: Innovation and Imitation
1 Transformations in textiles, 1500–1750 – John Styles
2 Ribbon culture in early modern Italy – Andrea Caracausi
Experiment in focus I: making silk – Paula Hohti, Miriam Pugliese
Experiment in focus II: knitted stockings – Piia Lempiäinen and Paula Hohti
3 Imitation in early modern artisan fashion –Sophie Pitman
Experiment in focus III: imitation of fur – Sophie Pitman
Experiment in focus IV: stamped mock velvet doublet – Sophie Pitman
Experiment in focus V: digital doublet: hidden layers – Maarit Kalmakurki
Part II: Adornment and display
4 Né vera né falsa: non-elite ownership of pearls in early modern Italy – Michele Nicole Robinson
Experiment in focus VI: imitation of amber and pearls – Michele Nicole Robinson
5 Adorning the everyday: male artisan jewellery in early modern England – Natasha Awais-Dean
6 Dressed to kill: arms, armour and protective attire in Renaissance men’s middle- and lower-class dress – Victoria Bartels
Experiment in focus VII: tailor-made male doublet: embodied experience – Valerio Zanetti
Part III: Status and credibility
7 The Clothing of the contadina: women’s work, leisure and morality, 1550–1650 – Elizabeth Currie and Jordan Mitchell-King
Experiment in focus VIII: lace – Michele Nicole Robinson
8 Practical, professional, and prosperous: dressing artisans and small shopkeepers in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Denmark – Anne-Kristine Sindvald Larsen
Experiment in focus IX: caring for clothes – Anne-Kristine Sindvald Larsen
9 The Dissemination of fashion: consumption habits and non-essential textile in early modern Italian artisan inventories – Stefania Montemezzo
10 Artisan attire and the politics of dress in seventeenth century Tallinn – Astrid Wendel-Hansen
Experiment in focus X: colour – Paula Hohti
Conclusion – Paula Hohti
Index