During the Elizabethan Era, fashion became more outlandish than it had ever been before. A new kind of silhouette was born, with long thing waits, large ruffs, high collars, and a geometric shape becoming quite popular. Queen Elizabeth became a fashion icon during her reign, and women would do extreme things in order to imitate her. Laws were even passed that limited what colors and materials you could wear according to your class. In the “Peacock Age”, the wackier your clothing was, the better you were.
Noblewomen’s attire had many layers in order to achieve the desired body shape. An inflexible corset was the bottom layer, then a stomacher, a hooped skirt known as a farthingale, petticoats, a kirtle, a gown, separate sleeves, and finally …show more content…
In 1574, Queen Elizabeth enforced new laws known as the “statues of apparel”. It helped enforce the divide between classes by allowing certain classes to wear certain colors and materials. The colors and materials worn by the nobility were often imported from faraway places like India, and therefore were very expensive. Sometimes, richer colors would cost more to create, so they would become a nobility-only color. The statues of apparel created a pyramid where the royalty, at the top, could wear whatever they wanted, and lower-class people could only wear a handful of predetermined colors and materials. Royalty was obviously at the top of the pyramid, but right below royalty were duchesses, marchionesses, and countesses, who were only banned from wearing purple, purple silk, and sable fur. Viscountesses and baronesses couldn’t wear what the people who outranked them were banned from wearing, and additionally couldn’t wear velvet, crimson, scarlet, indigo, and gold. Below them were wives of Knights of the Garter, who could not wear tinsel cloth, a type of cloth woven with strands of gold and silver. Wives of men who paid a fee of 100 coins were banned from wearing silver or pearl embroidery, and wives of sons of barons and wives of knights couldn’t wear lynx or civet cat fur. Daughter of knights were almost at the bottom of the pyramid, and they were not permitted to wear any
Noblewomen’s attire had many layers in order to achieve the desired body shape. An inflexible corset was the bottom layer, then a stomacher, a hooped skirt known as a farthingale, petticoats, a kirtle, a gown, separate sleeves, and finally …show more content…
In 1574, Queen Elizabeth enforced new laws known as the “statues of apparel”. It helped enforce the divide between classes by allowing certain classes to wear certain colors and materials. The colors and materials worn by the nobility were often imported from faraway places like India, and therefore were very expensive. Sometimes, richer colors would cost more to create, so they would become a nobility-only color. The statues of apparel created a pyramid where the royalty, at the top, could wear whatever they wanted, and lower-class people could only wear a handful of predetermined colors and materials. Royalty was obviously at the top of the pyramid, but right below royalty were duchesses, marchionesses, and countesses, who were only banned from wearing purple, purple silk, and sable fur. Viscountesses and baronesses couldn’t wear what the people who outranked them were banned from wearing, and additionally couldn’t wear velvet, crimson, scarlet, indigo, and gold. Below them were wives of Knights of the Garter, who could not wear tinsel cloth, a type of cloth woven with strands of gold and silver. Wives of men who paid a fee of 100 coins were banned from wearing silver or pearl embroidery, and wives of sons of barons and wives of knights couldn’t wear lynx or civet cat fur. Daughter of knights were almost at the bottom of the pyramid, and they were not permitted to wear any