Fashion in History: A Global Look

Tutor: Giorgio Riello

Week 7

Tuesday 17 November 2009

FROM COURT TO CITIES: FASHION’S SECOND ORIGIN IN THE EARLY MODERN PERIOD

1. The Definition of Fashion

The difference between ‘fashion’ and ancient costumes:

‘A new fashion of apparel creepeth no sooner into use but presently he blameth and dispraiseth the old, and that with so earnest a resolution and universall a consent, that you would say, it is some kind of madnesse or selfe-fond humor that giddieth his understanding. And forasmuch as our changing or altering of fashion is so sudden and new-fangled, that the inventions and new devices of all the tailors in the world cannot so fast invent novelties, it must necessarily follow that neglected and stale rejected fashions doe often come into credit and use again: And the latest and newest within a while after come to be outcast and despised, and that one selfe-same judgment within the space of fifteene or twentie yeares admitteth not only two or three different, but also cleane contrarie opinions, with so light and incredible inconstancie, that any man would wonder at it.’

Montaigne, First Book of Essays (1580)

http://www.uoregon.edu/%7Erbear/montaigne/1xlix.htm

ITALY

First use of the word ‘fashion’ (moda) in ItalianAgostino Lampugnani La carrozza a nolo (1646).

FRANCE

In France at the times of Louis XIV the word ‘mode’ is used to identify lifestyles and consolidated forms of

behaviour (mode, modo, means behaviour, manner – something done in that manner of)

La Mode (1642) by François de Grenaille.

Fashion’s Second Origin

Some fashion scholars claim that fashion did not exist in the middle ages. They suggest that the real birth of fashion should is c. 1750 (the modern period or modernity)

Two points:1. I believe that fashion existed in the middle ages and early modern period.2. I see continuities from this period to the so-called modern (post 1750)

2. The European Centres of Fashion

In the period post 1500 fashion starts being conceptualised as a National phenomenon,. One starts to be dressed in French, or Spanish, etc. style

Piero della Francesca (c.1420-1492), Portrait of Federico da Montefeltro and his spouse Battista Sforza, c. 1465. Tempera on wood.Uffizi, Florence, Italy

Raphael, Elisabetta Gonzaga, 1504. Florence, Galleria degli Uffizi

Raffaello Sanzio, Portrait of Lorenzo de’ Medici (1492-1519), Duke of Urbino

Francis I by Jean CouletLouvre Museum, Paris, c. 1530

Caterina de Medici (1519-89) was born in Italy in the de' Medici family. She was queen of France as the wife of King Henry II

Titian, Portrait of Emperor Charles V Seated. 1548. Oil on canvas. Alte Pinakothek, Munich.

The Hapsburg Empire during the reign of Charles V, 1530-56.

Louis XIV and the Court at the Grotto in Versailles, c. 1675.

Louis XIV reigned between 1643 and 1715

Portrait of Catherine of Aragon by Michel Sittow. 1508  Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna

Mary I and Philip II of Spain, from The Family of Henry VIII: An Allegory of the Tudor Succession, c. 1572, attributed to Lucas de Heere. Sudeley Castle.

Queen Elizabeth I, by Marcus Gheeraerts the younger, c.1592. Known as the "Ditchley" portrait.

Inigo d’Avalos was a nobleman from Naples living in the second half of the sixteenth century. The inventory (list of things) of his wardrobe shows his cosmopolitanism:

- 25% of his clothing are ‘Venetian’ in style- 18% French- 15% Castilian- 9% Lombard and Milanese- 6% Florentine- 6% Turkish - 3% Catalan

3. The Culture of Fashion of the European Courts

Ball under Henri IV Ball under Henri IV Ball under Henri IV

1. The phenomenon of court was present everywhere in Europe and outside Europe

2. Why and how did the courts become so important in dictating fashion ?

Ball under Henri IV Ball under Henri IV Ball under Henri IV

F. Fournier-Sarlovèze, Louis XIV and Madame de Maintenon on the terrace of the Château de Compiègne. 1698. Oil on canvas. 98 x 124 cm. Chateau, Compiegne, France

Louis XIV and Madame de Maintenon

Norbert Elias (1897-1990), The civilizing process. Vol. 1: the history of manners [Über den Prozess der Zivilisation] (Oxford: Blackwell, 1978 and following editions).

François-Hubert Drouais, 'Madame de Pompadour', 1763-4.The National Gallery.

Elisabeth Louise Vigée-Lebrun, Portrait of Madame du Barry, 1782

4. The Rise of the Fashion City

Emphasis switched from allegory and rhetoric in dress, a reliance on the specific meanings of decorative motifs and colours, to an appreciation of quality in terms of precise cut and smooth finish.

Christopher Breward, The Culture of Clothing.

Bosse, Abraham (1602-1676), Conversation of women during the absence of their husbands (the dinner). Oil on wood. Inv. ECL 846. Musee de la Renaissance, Ecouen, France

Where the gallants would strut up and down in their new clothes between ten and twelve o’clock in the morning. Since their intention was to impress all present, the tailors, hiding behind the pillars, would treat the occasion as an impromptu fashion show and make notes on the latest cut, colour, trimmings and accessories.

Jane Ashelford, Dress in the Age of Elizabeth I, cit. in C. Breward, The Culture of Fashion, p. 50.

Gilbert Jackson, A LadyCountess of Derby, c. 1630. Oil on canvas, 220 x 142 cm.

The Jones Collection V&A, 565-1882

Bloomsbury Square in London in 1787

Conclusion

After 1800 the importance of the court as a ‘producer’ of fashion decline, while the city became one of the driving forces of fashion.