The web is a great place for those interested in early modern clothing and fashions. Much of what exists, though, is aimed at costumers rather than historians, and this page is intended to draw together materials that provide insights into the social, political and cultural contexts and meanings of clothing rather than advice on how to make your own copies (lovely though such sites are!). As well as specifically ‘historical’ resources, there are also some theoretical materials, from sociology and cultural studies etc, that I found illuminating and useful.
NB: I hope to expand the geographical range eventually; for now, the focus is European
General ~ Consumer Culture ~ Social Status and Regulation ~ Identities ~ Morality ~ Cross-dressing ~ Particular Items
General Costume and Fashion Resources
The Costumers’ Manifesto: Costume History (Tara Maginnis) this site is the business: whatever you want to know, this is a great starting point. Of particular interest to the early modernist:
Sixteenth Century
Seventeenth Century
Eighteenth Century
The Elizabethan Costuming Page (Drea Leed) excellent on the sixteenth century
Clothing and Costume Links (David Oxford) broader historical range
Jolique exploring dress and culture across space and time: a lively webzine with enjoyable articles and resources
A Brief History of (western) Fashion (Kathleen Gossman)
The Costume Ring Homepage currently eighty sites, covering a wide range of periods and interests (mostly costuming and reconstruction-oriented)
‘Pretty Prints, Clever Cottons: 18th Century Fabrics’ (Kendra Van Cleave) an article aimed at costumers, providing a basic overview of fabrics and prints in use in the period; also a useful reading list, links to online images of fabrics
18th century Costume Terminology (Sue Felshin) alphabetical listing of terms with lots of links to images. It aims both to define vocabulary and to provide illustrations of the objects the words referred to. The geographical focus is mainly on Britain and British-influenced areas (such as its American colonies), with a lesser focus on France and New France
Images
Pictures of 16th-Century Costume (Elizabethan Costuming Page) follow link to ‘portraits and pictures’
Costume Picture Gallery (Le Poulet Gauche)
From La Couturiere Parisienne:
Medieval and Renaissance
1600s
1700s
Random Illustrations of 17th-Century Costume (Costumers’ Manifesto)
17th-Century Dutch Paintings (Costumer’s Manifesto)
Consumers and Luxury: Consumer Culture in Europe 1650-1850 (Reviews in History) book review
Material culture in the 17th and 18th centuries (Lorna Weatherill) not just clothing, although that’s included; this site has much material related to Weatherill’s important research project and book
Cloth, Clothing and Cloth Theft in Defoe’s England (Melissa Johnson) a short article taking Moll Flanders as its starting point to explore textiles in early modern England
Commerce, luxury and consumption in the early modern era (John Brewer) course information, including useful reading lists
Theory of the Leisure Class (Modern History Sourcebook) Thorsten Veblen’s influential theory of conspicuous consumption (1899); extract includes observations on clothing
Fashion as Culture Industry (Jo Entwistle) a sociological/cultural analysis, concerned with the modern production/consumption of fashion - but I think much of it should be of interest to historians too (NB: link is to archived version)
A Tangled Weaving: The social status of clothing in early modern Venice (Wendi Ann Hamilton)
Regulating the body: sumptuary laws (Jolique)
Examples of sumptuary legislation:
Tudor sumptuary laws (Elizabethan Costuming Page)
Elizabethan sumptuary laws (Renaissance)
Massachusetts sumptuary laws (The American Colonist’s Library)
Fashion, Hierarchy and Social Control sociology course notes, lots of useful reading (NB: link is to archived version)
Cultural and National Identities through Clothing
Costume and Identity from the Dry Drunk: Culture of Tobacco online exhibition
Worn Worlds: Clothing and identity on the renaissance stage (Peter Stallybrass) article (NB: link is to archived version)
Clothing, culture and identity in early modern England (Graeme Murdock et al) website for a project based at the University of Birmingham
From Plimoth Plantation:
Sewing in Plymouth Colony
Wampanoag Sewing
Yankee Doodle: a New England Dandy in King George’s Court (Jolique)
Sixteenth/Seventeenth-century Scottish attire (MacGregor Historic Games)
Introduction to dress and gender (Jolique) (NB: archived version)
Morality and Fashion: Contemporary Comments
Of Our Apparel and Attire (Modern History Sourcebook) William Harrison, Description of Elizabethan England (1577)
Stubbes on Fashion (Elizabethan Costuming Page) excerpts from Philip Stubbes’ Anatomie of Abuses (1583)
The Right, Lawful and Holy Use of Apparel (Covenanter.org) William Perkins, Cases of Conscience (1616)
On Apparelling (Covenanter.org) James Durham, The Law Unsealed (mid-seventeenth-century Puritan sermon)
Sobriety in Dress (Covenanter.org) Thomas Manton, Discourse on Titus (later seventeenth century)
Of Habit; Of Fashion (Emory Women Writers Project) Hannah Woolley, The Gentlewoman’s Companion (1675)
Of New Fashions (Emory Women Writers’ Project) Hannah Woolley, The Gentlewoman’s Companion
On Dress (Christian Classics Ethereal Library) sermon by John Wesley, eighteenth century
Women in Trousers, Men in Frocks
General
Contesting Cultural Norms: Cross-Dressing (Norton Topics Online)
The tradition of female transvestism in early modern Europe (Sexuality.org) book review
Catalogue of female cross-dressers (Matthew Stephens)
The Woman Controversy (Kari Boyd McBride)
Impudent women: carnival and gender in early modern culture (Kate Chedgzoy)
Gay sub-culture in early 18th-century London (Rictor Norton)
Bibliography of queer history: early modern Europe (Rictor Norton)
Vested Interests extracts from Marjorie Garber’s 1991 book
Individuals
That is, women and men with a real historical existence - whatever the myths that surround them. (I make no guarantees about the accuracy of the biographical sites…)
Lesbian Pirates (Rictor Norton)
Anne Bonny and Mary Read (Defiant Women) interesting site, shame about the advertising
Queen Christina of Sweden (Tracy Marks)
Charles d’Eon de Beaumont, eighteenth-century French soldier, courtier, officially declared a woman (but definitely a man):
The Dragoon in Drag (Jonah Begone) a touch of the ooh-er-missus…
Biography (Beaumont Society) more serious (NB: archived version)
Catalina de Erauso, seventeenth-century Basque woman who travelled across south America dressed as a man:
The (mis)adventures of Catalina de Erauso (A Paloma Martinez) article
Lieutenant Nun (Alexis Zepeda)
Lieutenant Nun (Sexuality.org) book review
Catalina Erauso’s petition (trans by Stephanie Merrim)
Mary Frith alias Moll Cutpurse extracted from the Newgate Calendar seventeenth-century thief and cross-dresser; see also The Roaring Girl in the drama section below: crossing the line from history to fiction…
Thomas/ine Hall (Jonah Begone) possibly a hermaphrodite, Thomas/ine thoroughly confused seventeenth-century Virginian society and the law courts
Mademoiselle Maupin (Jim Burrows) ‘17th century French swordswoman, adventuress and opera star’
Deborah Sampson (Jeannie Winter) a woman who fought as a soldier in the American revolutionary war
Unruly Women: Jemima Wilkinson and Deborah Sampson (James Henretta) Sampson became a soldier, Jemima Wilkinson a preacher during the 1770s
Hannah Snell (Matthew Stephens) an eighteenth-century Marine who concealed her true sex from her comrades for two years and fought in India
Literary crossdressing
Two early-seventeenth-century satirical pamphlets (at The Woman Controversy)
Hic Mulier
Balladry
The theme of women dressing as men was a perennial favourite in ballads - as it was on the stage. The best online resource for British balladry is the Bodleian Broadside Ballads Project. It is fully searchable and can also be browsed for subjects such as ‘women soldiers’, ‘women sailors’ and ‘transvestism’. Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century examples include…
The Soldier’s Delight, or the She-Voluntier
Hannah Snell ballads (Hannah Snell Homepage) blurring the line between reality and fiction?
Drama
Crossdressing with a difference (David Cope) on The Roaring Girl and Epicoene
Crossdressing in the renaissance (Susan Pagnac) (NB: archived version; some images may not show)
The maid in man’s attire (Rictor Norton)
Queer Play: the cultural work of cross-dressing in medieval drama (Robert Clark and Claire Sponsler)
Ben Jonson, Epicoene:
Epicoene full text
Epicoene: Cross-dressing in the Renaissance Era (Anna Dembowski and Andrea Moore) (NB: archived version; some images may not show)
Middleton and Decker, The Roaring Girl:
Full text of the play (Middleton Homepage)
Crossdressing in The Roaring Girl (Helen Hull)
Clothing and society in The Roaring Girl (Megan Spillman) (NB: archived version)
Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice:
Text of the play (Complete Works of William Shakespeare)
Merchant of Venice Resources (Internet Shakespeare Editions)
Shakespeare, As You Like It:
Text of the play (Complete Works of William Shakespeare)
Crossdressing in As You Like It (Susan Pagnac) (NB: archived version)
As You Like It resources (Shakespeare Internet Editions)
William Wycherley, The Country Wife
Text of the play (Bibliomania) (NB: ignore any ‘page cannot be found’ messages if you can see the text; navigation is not easy, but there is a tiny ‘next page’ link at the bottom of the bage and an even smaller arrow by the page number at the top. When I find a better text, believe me, this one will be replaced)
Country Wife resources (About.com)
Particular (or Peculiar) Items of Clothing and Accessories
Codfish, Baguettes and other Member Outings (Jolique) a history of codpieces
The Evils of Artifice (Jolique) on cosmetic use (and reactions to it) in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
History of the Elizabethan Corset (Elizabethan Costuming Page)
Elizabethan Smocks and Chemises (Elizabethan Costuming Page)
History of Boots (Cameron Kippen)
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