In 1581, the Italian writer Giovan Andrea Corsuccio complained in his Il vermicello that ‘today anyone, vile as he may be, dresses in silk, ... so that even the charlatans, if they have no velvet cap or doublet, are not able to draw a crowd of listener’.¹ Corsuccio was troubled by the fact that men of inferior status wore excessive garments and too expensive materials, such as silk, traditionally considered the badge of a gentleman.

Similar concerns about extravagant appearance and ‘confused mingle-mangle of apparell’ among the lower social orders were also raised in other parts of Renaissance Europe, such as England and Italy.² For instance, in Spain, towards the end of the sixteenth century, a group of curious observers claimed that ‘it is well-known the excess of the way of dressing among Spanish people, because on a festive day the craftsman and his wife do not differ from the nobility’.³ The high-ranking Spanish citizens strongly disapproved with the idea that it would no longer be possible to identify people and their social rank on the basis of the wearer’s dress, as clothing had been traditionally seen as one of the most fundamental and visible means of recognising and distinguishing class.⁴

While Renaissance and early modern authors and commentators might have exaggerated to emphasise particular points, complaints about sumptuous dress among common artisanal populations were increasingly voiced during a period when stylish garments, fashionable accessories and desirable materials in a wide range of qualities became more accessible than ever before, not just for the elites but also for those of modest means and inferior status. The impact of this changing fashion context on everyday dress and on the development of fashion among the ordinary artisanal population is the subject of this book.

The changing context of fashion

The sixteenth century represented an important turning point in European fashion. The emergence of new crafts, industries and technical innovations, and the wide circulation of new fashion innovations, popularised by courts and promoted by the flourishing cloth and clothing trade, introduced new concepts into the traditional, local ways of dressing, making a break with traditional ways of dressing and the significance attributed to clothing.⁵ This not only changed the way clothing was made, decorated and worn, but it also introduced a wide range of new products, consumption patterns and cultural values into the systems of dress. Heavy, brocaded velvets and damasks provided no longer the most exclusive powerful tools that made distinctions of rank visible in society. Instead, the display of new fashion manufactures that were designed to be worn or carried, such as light silk fabrics, gloves, fans, handkerchiefs, hats, trims, silk bands and buttons became essential parts of a fashionable outfit and indicators of the wearer’s rank.⁶ Less magnificent silks, like taffeta and tabby, became acceptable even in the formal wear of the ruling men and women, and could be combined with elaborate surface decorations, such as applied braid and slashing.⁷ The multiple ways in which fashionable dress could be put together, mixing and matching detachable sleeves, bands of decoration, silk ribbons and small-scale personal items such as gloves, shoes, handkerchiefs and fans, is visible in surviving sixteenth-century visual images and surviving garments all over Europe (Figures 0.1a–c).

Dress historians have connected the new emphasis placed on light silks, accessories, trims and surface decoration, in part, to the broadening markets for more marketable goods that were suited to the gathering pace of elite dress fashions.⁸ However, the cheaper price and the smaller size of new products that were on offer in the local shops and second-hand markets made fashion accessible also to new social groups. Shop records and other archival evidence demonstrate that ready-made items, from woven ribbons and lace veils to velvet hats and gilt netting, were available at varying prices and qualities in local fairs and shops to a wide range of consumers. At the same time, cheaper imitations of the desired goods, such as false pearls, foiled gems or stamped mock velvets, appeared on the market, turning extraordinary textiles, garments and jewellery into something familiar.⁹

This changing fashion context provided a new dynamic ability for urban men and women way below the nobility, including local artisans and shopkeepers from barbers and bakers to shoemakers, innkeepers and book dealers, to experiment with appearance. Foreign travellers occasionally noted the extravagance of the ordinary people’s dress. Pietro da Casola, a Milanese cleric who visited Venice on his way to the Holy Land at the turn of the sixteenth century, for example, remarked that in Venice ‘those [women] who are able as well as those who are not dress very sumptuously’.¹⁰

Figure 0.1a-c Accessories and surface decorations in sixteenth and seventeenth century Spanish and Italian dress. Museo Nacional del Prado, Madrid, Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Reale, Pisa, and Kunsthistorisches Museum Vienna.

The increasing ability of ordinary people in the Renaissance period to acquire a wide range of material goods through pawning, second-hand markets, renting, borrowing, gift giving, theft, lotteries, auctions, inheritances or advanced credit systems has been noted by Renaissance art and material culture historians who have referred to examples of popular classes in their studies of consumption, material culture and dress.¹¹ This evidence suggests that ordinary Europeans enjoyed a greater access to consumption of new clothing and fashion manufactures than ever before. Yet, as Margaret Rosenthal has noted, exactly how and to what extent lower social orders were connected to fashion and new consumption practices, and what characteristics defined their appearance, is still an ongoing area of investigation.¹² Could individuals from lower social classes, such as tailors, bakers, barbers, shoemakers and butchers, participate in Renaissance fashion and culture and engage with the latest trends?

Non-elite engagement with fashion

Early modern probate inventories, sumptuary law statutes, guild documents, auction records and account books suggest that the wardrobe of ordinary artisanal individuals and families underwent a transformation in Europe in the second half of the sixteenth century. Preliminary research based on probate inventories from Italy, for example, indicates that the number and kind of garments and dress accessories among local urban craftspeople, shopkeepers and tradespeople increased significantly in the second half of the sixteenth century. The plain and durable woollen and linen garments suited to work, typical for artisans, were complemented with a notable range of garments and dress accessories that embraced new fashions. These ranged from colourful silk skirts and aprons to muffs, gloves, silk scarves and hats decorated with gold badges and feathers. Male artisans had a taste in particular for ruffs that grew from a narrow frill at neck and wrists to a broad ‘cartwheel’ style that required a wire support by the 1580s, and women favoured gold frontals and rosettes, silver and gold nets and thin silk veils. In addition, a range of elaborate bright stockings and detachable sleeves that were made from coloured silks, particularly red, white, green, or yellow taffeta, sarcenet or satin, were included in artisan wardrobes. ¹³

This evidence suggests that many types of fashion novelties were worn by the general population as well as the more affluent elites, and, when contextualised with pictorial evidence, their cultural significance as functional or fashionable wear at lower levels of society becomes evident. For example, in Vincenzo Campi’s Fruitseller, painted in the 1580s (Figure 0.2), the young woman wears a plain linen garment decorated with a matching partlet and sleeve cuffs and red sleeve ribbons. A yellow band is embroidered across her green apron, perhaps made in imitation of gold.

Figure 0.2 Campi, Fruitseller, 1560s. Young women wearing a linen gown with matching partlet and sleeve cuffs and red sleeve ribbons. A yellow band is embroidered across her green apron. Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan.

Historians have shown, furthermore, that ordinary people’s engagement with fashion in the Renaissance period was more than just a matter of ‘getting and spending’.¹⁴ Instead, it extended to the way ordinary people began – through their garments and images of clothes – to adopt and express attitudes towards life, explore their connections to others and interact with the surrounding world and culture.¹⁵

To comprehend the significance of this profound change, we can examine surviving visual evidence. One notable example is the ‘democratisation’ of portraits in the sixteenth century, which demonstrate how urban citizens below the nobility began to place importance on clothes, accessories, hairstyles and their comportment to assert their social value and how they desired to be perceived. In Moroni’s portrait from the 1560s, for example, the tailor appears in a self-assured pose, wearing a fine cream doublet and red hose (Figure 0.3). Although he holds a pair of scissors, symbolising his craft and manual labour, his posture and elegant clothes establish a visual connection between the tailor and portraits of the contemporary elite.

The significance of clothing below the nobility, moreover, extended beyond self-fashioning and visual display. The ‘Book of Clothes’, studied in detail by Maria Hayward, Ulinka Rublack and Jenny Tiramani, shows that, in Germany, Matthäus Schwarz, an accountant and a son of a wine merchant, commissioned over 130 watercolour illustrations between 1520 and 1560, in which he posed in different styles of outfits, in front and back (Figure 0.4).¹⁶ What makes this collection of illustrations remarkable, as Rublack notes, is not only the accountant’s fascination with manipulating clothing and adapting changing fashions to create the desired impression but also how he experienced his clothing in relation to his body. It appears that the accountant was worried about putting on weight. In 1529, at the age of twenty-nine, he had himself depicted in the nude and inscribed a note next to the image, stating, ‘this was my proper figure from behind, for I had become fat and round’ (Figure 0.5).¹⁷ This example, Rublack argues, is one demonstration of how deeply clothing became embedded with the perceptions people across social classes had about their dress, bodies and the social and cultural meanings associated with fashion.¹⁸

These findings highlight the issue that has been largely overlooked in dress history: that fashion transformation in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was interconnected across social classes. All this evidence demonstrates, then, that there is a demand for an interdisciplinary study of Renaissance and early modern fashion that investigates how fashion evolved in dialogue with various social groups and economic contexts.

This book explores how fashion emerged and developed in Europe in 1500–1650 among the middling classes, including craftspeople, shopkeepers and local traders residing in commercial centres, trading towns and the surrounding countryside across various regions in southern and northern Europe such as Italy, England, Scandinavia and Estonia.¹⁹ Their social group consisted of individuals such as bakers, barbers, shoemakers, innkeepers and others who earned their livelihood by creating or selling goods. While the collective terms used in this book to refer to the group of artisans and small local shopkeepers include ‘artisans’, ‘artisanal groups’, the ‘artisan classes’, ‘non-elite’ and the ‘middling sort’, it is important to recognise the diversity within this group. While most were ordinary members of minor craft and trade guilds, the group encompassed a wide range of individuals, from prosperous pewterers and goldsmiths to destitute members of the textile and building crafts.²⁰ Dress played a crucial role in making social distinctions visible between these diverse categories.²¹

Figure 0.3 Moroni, Portrait of a Tailor, 1565–70. The sitter is dressed in fine pinked cream colour doublet and red breeches. The National Gallery, London.

Figure 0.4 Schwarz, ‘Book of Clothes’, fol. 113r, 1538. The Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Brunswick.

Approaching everyday artisan fashion

This book is the outcome of research conducted within the ‘Refashioning the Renaissance’ project, a five-year collaborative dress-history initiative funded by the European Research Council (ERC, Aalto University 2017–23).²² The project was set up to identify new sources and develop methodologies that allow us to investigate fundamental questions relating to the transformation of fashion in early modern Europe, with a special focus on popular taste, dissemination, transformation and adaption of fashion, on imitation and meaning, and on changing cultural attitudes to dress among popular groups in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe.

Figure 0.5 Schwarz, ‘Book of clothes’, fol. 80r, 1526. The Herzog Anton Ulrich Museum, Brunswick.

One of the key challenges of studying non-elite dress is the question of how we can gain access to the cultural practices, artefacts and dress fashions at popular levels of society. Museums and archives primarily document the culture of the rich and powerful, leaving scant information about the garments and lifestyles of the ordinary population. Consequently, understanding how dress fashions evolved at popular levels of society, as well as how to study them effectively, presents significant hurdles.

This challenge is particularly evident regarding the physical texture and visual and sensory properties of clothing and accessories, along with the skills and artisanship involved, as written accounts and visual depictions provide limited information about materials and construction techniques, and surviving garments worn by the ordinary population are scarce, often fragmented and in poor condition.²³ Addressing these gaps of evidence requires innovative methodologies and a combination of diverse approaches.

The research presented in this book aims to overcome the limitations in sources by incorporating a novel methodology that combines traditional historical empirical evidence with a range of explorations of early modern materials and crafting techniques.

Methods and sources

The core historical findings are based on archival sources, written records and visual representations to investigate the clothing worn by lower social classes. At the heart of our research is an extensive archival dataset, created during the ‘Refashioning the Renaissance’ project. This dataset comprises nearly a hundred thousand items of textiles, clothing and jewellery documented in post-mortem inventories of ordinary artisanal families between 1550 and 1650, currently accessible online in an open-access format (Figure 0.6).²⁴ Referred to as the ‘Refashioning the Renaissance database’ in this book, it contains 80,076 records from Siena, Florence and Venice, as well as 12,207 records from early modern Denmark.²⁵ The dataset is cross-referenced with a range of other archival evidence from guild records, petitions, trade accounts, contracts, sumptuary law statutes and printed and painted depictions of dress. These ranges of traditional historical records offer a solid foundation and reliable evidence for exploring essential elements of early modern popular fashion. They shed light on the garments, accessories and textile materials that circulated among lower social groups in this period, and reveal what economic, symbolic and cultural meanings were associated with dress and fashion in their own time.

Figure 0.6 Inventory of the Danish tailor Peter Folchersen, 5 June, 1650, fol. 213r. National archives, Copenhagen.

The conventional historical research method is complemented in this book with practical hands-on experiments. Designed and organised during the ‘Refashioning’ project in collaboration with museum professionals, textile and craft experts, costume makers, historical re-enactors and scientists, these enabled us to re-create objects that no longer survive, showing how they were made, what they might have looked and felt like, and what levels of skill and sophistication were involved in making them.

The efforts carried out during the ‘Refashioning’ project included a range of experiments aimed at getting closer to the materials and garments worn by the artisanal population of the past. For instance, in collaboration with costume experts at the London School of Historical Dress, we brought back to life a seventeenth-century male doublet made from stamped mock velvet, recorded in the inventory of the modest Florentine waterseller Francesco Ristori, who passed away in Florence in 1631 (Figure 0.7). Additionally, we initiated a knitting project to re-create early modern knitted stockings, including a seventeenth-century hand-knitted silk stocking of high fashion conserved at Turku Cathedral Museum, Finland (Experiment in focus II). A group of dedicated volunteer knitters used tiny 1 mm knitting needles and silk yarn produced by hand at the silk farm Nido di seta in Calabria to bring to light the patterns and fine artisanship of the delicate stocking (Figure 0.8).

These explorative historical reconstructions, informed by detailed archival and visual research, scientific testing and object analysis carried out by the ‘Refashioning’ team, were made by hand by skilled craft experts using historically appropriate materials. Even though reconstructions are, as Jenny Tiramani has pointed out, ‘acts of interpretation’ and never precise copies of the authentic, engaging with reconstructed garments through touching, looking and even wearing them offered new insights into the fashionable aspirations and innovative methods used by the artisan classes to participate in early modern culture of fashion.²⁶

Additionally, several small hands-on experiments were conducted during the project to explore, for example, how early modern garments were stitched together and shaped by tailors, in what ways silk thread was traditionally made from cocoons, how the colours of clothing mentioned in our archival sources were created using natural dyes and historical colour recipes, how imitations of precious pearls and amber could be made at home following recipes from cheap printed advice manuals and how textiles were cleaned and cared for (Figures 0.9a–b). These material investigations allowed us to explore, for instance, a sense of the visual and sensory effects offered by counterfeit materials or imitative objects, such as false amber or fake leopard fur, as well as to re-create some of the essential colours, materials and shapes of garments and objects of adornment that were mentioned in artisans’ clothing inventories.

Figure 0.7 Reconstruction of a seventeenth-century male artisan’s doublet made by the ‘Refashioning the Renaissance’ project and London School of Historical Dress.

Figure 0.8 Two hand-knitted replications of an extant seventeenth-century silk stocking, reconstructed by the ‘Refashioning the Renaissance’ project. The stockings are knitted using hand-reeled Bombyx mori silk and dyed with fustic and logwood.

Experimental recreative methods and object-based research have emerged as a significant development in the field of dress history in recent years. Building on methods of experimental archaeologists, costume makers, re-enactors and textile conservators, historians such as Sarah Bendall, Serena Dyer, Hilary Davidson, Pamela Smith, John Styles and Ulinka Rublack have demonstrated the transformative capacity of replication to turn static narratives of the past into a dynamic process to comprehend the experiences of wearing and making of early modern textiles.²⁷ Despite the promising outcomes, experimental approaches in the study of cultural history of dress remain relatively unfamiliar, with possibilities yet to be fully explored and methodologies still needing to be established.²⁸

This book presents, alongside more traditional essays, an exploration of the most important material experiments and historical reconstructions conducted as part of the ‘Refashioning the Renaissance’ project.²⁹ Through short Experiment in focus texts, readers can examine and understand how experimental work and material-based approaches can help us to provide access to the visual, material and sensory properties of early modern of fashion and gain new insights into the skills of makers and the significance of materials now to lost to us. Additionally, the experiments in focus demonstrate how a range of ‘re-methods’ can provide historians with new ways of sharing findings about the making, wearing and historical importance of textiles and clothing.

Figure 0.9a Red dye experiments at historical colour workshop, held by the ‘Refashioning the Renaissance’ project at Aalto University, September 2019.

Cultural studies of dress and fashion have been traditionally separated from the study of the real physical and material objects, due to the preference for interpreting semiotic symbols and signs of dress through visual or written representations rather than the physical and material properties of clothing and textiles.³⁰ As a result, we have largely lost touch with the materiality of historical objects and fashion and the material experiences linked to their creation and use.

Figure 0.9b Cheap sixteenth-century printed ‘book of secrets’ by maestro Giovanni da Lucca, Opera nuova nella quale troverai molti bellissimi secreti … (1540?). Wellcome Institute, London, 4630/B.

By focusing on the materials and materiality fashion, along with its symbolic, social and cultural significance, this book seeks to offer new insights not only into everyday artisan fashion but also to the lived experiences associated with the early modern materials and garments that influenced fashion trends. Understanding the visual and physical attributes of garments during the centuries covered in this book, ranging from the early sixteenth century to about 1650, is crucial, as the period witnessed a number of significant shifts in the ways in which textiles and clothing were produced, adapted and worn. Materials, skilled artisanship and the sensory qualities of garments and accessories constituted defining elements of fashion and an important part of its meanings. ³¹

Previous studies by notable dress, textile and consumer historians such as John Styles, Giorgio Riello, Beverly Lemire and Maxine Berg have provided a valuable framework for understanding the dynamics of economic, social and cultural change in premodern Europe, and the role that textiles and dress played in shaping such changes.³² However, social groups below the wealthy elites have been largely overlooked in the elite-dominated dress studies of the Renaissance and early modern periods, because of either the perception that their fashions were characterised by emulation and passive copying of the elites or the assumption that individuals on the societal margins had limited contact with the rapid changes in European fashion and remained culturally isolated.³³ As a result, a significant portion of the consumer population has been marginalised in the history of fashion in urban Renaissance and early modern life, raising doubts among historians about the impact of the Renaissance on the lives of ordinary Italians.³⁴

By integrating traditional historical methods and sources with exploration of materials and techniques of early modern textiles and garments, this book seeks to enhance our understanding of the fashion of the lower social orders and challenge the inherent biases often present in conventional historical sources, which tend to emphasise the perspectives of the privileged elites. In doing so, this book aspires to present a fresh and socially more diverse perspective of early modern dress, aiming to inspire new inquiries and broaden the horizons of how narratives in cultural historical studies of dress can be constructed.

‘Refashioning the Renaissance’

This book presents the key findings of the ‘Refashioning the Renaissance’ project. In collaboration with economic, cultural and social historians, dress and material culture historians, museum specialists and craft experts, it explores what materials and objects constituted the key elements of everyday dress and agents of fashion change among the lower social groups in Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. By focusing on the creation, adaptation, innovation, uses and meanings of a wide range of fashion items among the ordinary artisanal population, along with the materials of fashion, ranging from affordable light textiles and imitations to expensive jewellery and valuable fabrics, the central questions explored in the chapters and experiments in focus include: What types of novelties and low-cost fashion manufactures were available to emerging consumer groups and how was their use regulated by sumptuary laws? What materials and objects shaped consumer preferences at the lower social levels? How was fashionable appearance physically, materially and visually constructed by ordinary artisans and what processes were involved in dressing oneself?

The book is organised into three sections, each dedicated to different aspects of everyday artisan fashion. The first part concentrates on innovations and imitations in fashion, showing the range of new commercial fashion products available to consumers of modest means from the early sixteenth century onwards. In Chapter 1, John Styles frames the book chronologically and methodologically from an economic-history perspective. His chapter shows that, between the fifteenth and the eighteenth centuries, western Europe witnessed a surge of novelty in textiles and a wave of innovations, embracing both fabrics and equipment used for textile production. Styles examines the shift from heavily napped woollen broadcloths and silk velvets, which dominated the European high-prestige textile market, to lighter and more affordable silk, wool and mixed-fibre fabrics, and explores the impact of these innovations and how they extended to non-elite consumers. Styles shows that the rise in popularity of the new affordable and visually appealing textile goods, particularly cheaper silks, had a profound impact not only on the vibrant consumer economy of early modern Europe but also on ordinary people’s engagement with fashion. The transformations in the textile market expanded the range of attractive clothing options accessible to ordinary women and men and shaped their broader fashion preferences.

This shift in the European textile market was accompanied by a corresponding transformation in the variety and availability of textile trimmings and clothing accessories, such as knitted stockings, kerchiefs, lace trims and ribbons. While ribbons and tapes, for example, had ancient origins and knitted goods were present in medieval Europe, the period after 1500, as Styles emphasises, witnessed a remarkable expansion and elaboration of these items.

Andrea Caracausi, in Chapter 2, explores the impact of this transformation on fashion. His chapter reveals how the market for ribbons expanded during the late Renaissance and beyond, offering a plethora of choices for decorating garments, ranging from expensive luxury braids to affordable plain ribbons made from cheap waste silk. This expansion in the ribbon market stimulated demand and made ribbons accessible to people from all economic and social backgrounds. Because of their small size, ribbons provided an affordable means to incorporate precious materials in dress and maintain a connection with prevailing fashionable trends.

Sophie Pitman’s contribution in Chapter 3 shifts the focus to imitations and the manipulation of materials, exploring how imitations of expensive and rare items like fur, silk velvet and gold were created by skilled craftspeople. Pitman’s chapter shows the expanding range of artificial novelties available, ranging from small buttons made of precious metal and silk threads wrapped around a wooden bead to imitation fur and fake pearls. Such imitations allowed men and women from diverse backgrounds to convey an impression of luxury without high cost. Yet Pitman challenges the prevailing assumptions about their value, showing that imitations were not necessarily seen just as fakes, cheap copies or inferior substitutes of the originals, reserved only for those with limited economic means. Instead, many types of replicas, worn by individuals across all social strata, were often appreciated for their artisanship and regarded at times even more attractive and suitable options than the genuine articles.

The three experiments in focus in this part – imitation fur, knitted stockings and stamped mock velvet doublet – focus on some of the key materials and techniques that played an instrumental role in driving the innovative fashion trends discussed in the chapters. They underscore the significant role played by affordable and fashionable semi-durable or ‘semi-luxuries’ from the early sixteenth century onward as a means to engage with current fashions.³⁵

The second part of the book focuses on adornment and display, investigating the availability for artisans of costly dress accessories such as jewellery, precious gems and protective arms. Traditionally, these items have been regarded by scholars as expensive status symbols exclusively reserved for the affluent and influential members of society. Michele Nicole Robinson and Natasha Awais-Dean in Chapters 4 and 5 challenge these assumptions by demonstrating that artisans, both men and women, commonly possessed and adorned themselves with expensive jewellery, including pearls and gold and silver jewellery, despite their cost and regulations imposed by sumptuary laws. However, their chapters also highlight that while all jewels and jewellery were generally expensive, we need to be cautious and avoid making broad generalisations about their material value. Items such as pearls, gold strings, medallions, rings, silver buttons and hat badges were available in various grades and lower price ranges for ordinary consumers through pedlars, local fairs, markets, auctions, pawnshops and goldsmiths’ workshops. Misshapen and tiny lower-grade pearls, for example, were sold by the ounce rather than being individually priced like larger pearls, making them much more affordable than more costly and desirable Asian pearls.

Victoria Bartels, in Chapter 6, focuses on male artisans, arms and armoury, showing that the possession and display of arms and armoury – once reserved for princes, lords, knights or upper-class citizens – was not limited to the elite echelons of society in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Men from all social classes, including artisans and even humble farmers, legally and illegally owned, and carried weapons. While arms served vital important protective functions, swords and daggers worn on belts were also considered fashionable accessories and essential components of respectable male dress by artisans as well as high-ranking citizens.

The three experiments in focus in this section explore the embodied experience linked with wearing a Renaissance male doublet and examine the visualisation of the garment’s complex construction and hidden layers through digital reconstruction. These are followed by an exploration of how imitation pearls and amber could be made following recipes of that time. The experiments underscore the importance of considering sensory aspects such as scent, warmth, physical sensations and bodily postures, as well as the concealed layers of garments which may not be visible to the eye, alongside visual aesthetics, when assessing the experience and value of artisan fashions. For example, in the case of false amber beads frequently used in rosaries, as argued by Michele Nicole Robinson, it might have been amber’s transformative effect that was sought rather than the material or visual look itself. Ensuring that counterfeit amber beads emitted a similar scent and warmth to authentic amber when touched was important, as these supported religious practices and protected bodily health.

The final part of the book examines everyday artisan fashion in relation to status and reputation. In Chapters 7 and 8, Stefania Montemezzo and Astrid Wendel-Hansen challenge the prevailing notion of the Renaissance and early modern periods, which suggests that only wealthy and powerful citizens could demonstrate success and express interest in fine garments through expensive textiles. Their research reveals that costly materials such as fur, patterned silk velvets, damasks, brocades and red fabrics dyed with expensive insect dyes –traditionally associated with elite luxury and symbols of status in sumptuary laws – were owned and embraced by a broad range of individuals and from different social groups. Despite the clear desire for novelty and the ability to adapt to evolving fashion trends demonstrated by ordinary men and women, these prestigious textiles – often seen as important stores of wealth that were circulated in inheritances – did not disappear from artisanal wardrobes. The coexistence of traditional luxury fabrics and emerging textile innovations, such as new lightweight fabrics and mixed silks, some of which imitated the exotic silks of Asia and were crafted in foreign styles, complicates the notion of linear change in fashion.

Chapters 9 by Elizabeth Currie and Jordan Mitchell-King and 10 by Anne-Kristine Sindvald Larsen highlight the importance of a respectable appearance among artisan, peasant and trading communities, not only on festive days or special occasions but also in their everyday professional lives. Their research suggests that individuals from modest Italian countrywomen to humble artisans from small Danish trading towns recognised the importance of maintaining a clean, fashionable and modestly prosperous appearance for their social and marital position, public influence, and professional image as trustworthy and reliable businessmen or businesswomen. As Currie, Mitchell-King and Sindvald Larsen show, presenting a favourable image through a simple linen apron or other unassuming garments decorated with embroidery, ribbons, lace trims and accessories, while ensuring clothes remained clean and maintained a pleasant scent, held similar importance for artisans and peasant women as it did for their social superiors. Some artisans, like Jacob Jensen Nordmand, a skilled Danish art turner, even expressed their social ambitions and aspirations by commissioning portraits that immortalised their professional and prosperous image (see Figure 10.5).

The three experiments in focus in the final section, focusing on stain removal recipes, historical colours and dyes, and bobbin-lace making, explore the processes involved in caring for, dyeing and embellishing linens and other textiles at home. These explorations reveal that instructions found in printed collections of recipes, advice manuals, pattern books and books of secrets – increasingly circulated in Europe in cheap printed media – offered individuals of the lower social strata new possibilities for creating vibrant and desirable colours and decorations within their household environment. They highlight the importance of widespread new fashion knowledge in driving the expansion and evolution of everyday artisan fashion.

Conclusion

Through an exploration of written records, visual representations, material objects, hands-on experiments and historical reconstruction, it becomes abundantly clear that ordinary European men and women not only possessed access to contemporary fashions but also placed great importance on their dress and outward appearance. While practicality of garments was often a primary concern in the early modern period, especially in the north of Europe which experienced extreme cold due to the ‘little ice age’, the belongings of artisans, shopkeepers and small local traders show a clear awareness and understanding of prevailing clothing trends. Their clothing and accessories reflect an ability to embrace novelty and adapt to the evolving dynamics of fashion.

The key components of fashion among the popular groups, spanning various regions from Italy and England to Denmark and Estonia, included cost-effective textile and fashion innovations of the period, such as new light silks, imitation fabrics and ribbons as well as small accessories such as bobbin-lace-trimmed handkerchiefs, hats, muffs and knitted stockings. At the same time, however, their clothing cupboards incorporated significant and expensive textile objects and objects of adornment, such as silk velvets, fur, gold, pearls and arms, associated traditionally in sumptuary laws and visual images with prestige, power and high social status.

Materials played a significant role in driving transformations and shaping fashions at the lower social levels. The ways in which artisans applied imitation fabrics in stylish garments, or blended materials of high intrinsic value with cheaper textiles in order to appear fashionable, reveal the creative and personalised ways in which early modern European artisans engaged with fashion. By incorporating trendy elements such as ornamental silk ribbons, trimmings of lace or imitation fur or fake gems into the most visible areas of their dress, even individuals of modest means, such as blacksmiths, gardeners or rural women were able to engage actively in fashion at an affordable cost.

This creative and innovative approach to fashion emerged during a time when the traditional hierarchy of clothing, based on financial value of textiles, was being challenged. The value of garments and accessories depended increasingly as much, if not more, on the novelty and artisanship involved rather than solely on the intrinsic value of the material itself. This emphasises the complex nature of how dress functioned in the early modern period.

The material culture of Renaissance fashion among the middling classes was characterised by liveliness, vibrancy and creativity. Simply labelling everyday artisan clothing and fashion as inferior and plain, defined by inexpensive alternatives and uninformed imitation of elite fashion, overlooks the intricate dynamics at play in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Europe.