History of British costume, from the earliest period to the close of the eighteenth century / by J.R. Planché.

  • James Planché
Date:
1847
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: History of British costume, from the earliest period to the close of the eighteenth century / by J.R. Planché. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    282/518 page 254
    THE GENERAL MALE COSTUME of this period may be gathered from the following extracts from the Chronicles of Monstrelet and Paradin’s Histoire de Lyons, for there was no fashion so ridiculous started in France, but then, as now, it was immediately adopted in England. The former writer tells us that the jackets, doublets, or pourpoints, were cut shorter than ever, and the sleeves of them slit, so as to show their large, loose, and white shirts ; the shoulders were padded out with large waddings called mahoitres, and so ca- pricious were the beaux of the period, that he who to-day was shortly clothed, was habited to-morrow down to the ground. They wore their hair so long that it came into their eyes, and they covered their heads with bonnets of cloth a quarter of an ell or more in height; all of them, as well knights as squires, wore chains of gold of the most sumptuous kind. Even boys wore doublets of silk, satin, and velvet; and almost all, especially in the courts of princes, had points at the toes of their shoes a quarter of an ell long and upwards, which they now called poulaines. Paradin is still more descriptive on the subject of shoes. “ The men,” he says, “ wore shoes with a point before, half a foot long; the richer and more eminent personages wore them a foot, and princes two feet long, which was the most ridiculous thing that ever was seen ; and when men became tired of these pointed shoes, which were
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3