Synopses & Reviews
From an iconic portrait of a young Elizabeth I to the many paintings of Charles I by Flemish master Anthony Van Dyck and the glamorous andldquo;Windsor Beautiesandrdquo; of the court of Charles II, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century portraiture has long been a source of great interest to costume historians. Given the scarcity of surviving garments, it also tells us most of what we know about Tudor and Stuart dress. Weandrsquo;re all familiar with the stockings, voluminous breeches, and elaborate lace ruffs, but did you know that the clothing seen in many of these paintings cost more than the paintings themselves?
For In Fine Style, Anna Reynolds, curator of paintings at the Royal Collection, has drawn on the art of the period, as well as wardrobe inventories, literary references, contemporary accounts, and surviving garments to offer a fascinating account of the elite fashions of the day and the ways in which they were recreated in paint. The gold threads seen throughout the forepart of Elizabethandrsquo;s gown were costly, while the red dye that colored it came from crushed beetles and would have had to have been imported from Spain. Other works show their subjects with intricate ruffs, bright stockings, or broad farthingales, each item extravagantly adorned. Indeed, the main focus of Tudor and Stuart clothing was on rich materials that communicated the ability of the wearer to afford them, and, with the rise of the moneyed merchant class, sumptuary laws were established to limit their use to the nobility. Other forms of attire, including ornate hairdos held in place with wire and pleats that had to be set each time the garment was worn left absolutely no doubt as to the fact that the wearer had an army of servants and a wealth of spare time with which to attend to appearance.
Published to accompany an exhibition that will open at Buckingham Palace in May, In Fine Style features works by, among many others, Rembrandt, Rubens, Lely, and Holbein, and is the first book to examine Tudor and Stuart fashion through the use of art.
Review
and#8220;Ribeiro presents a banquet of fascinating images . . . and her book is not to be put down lightly. Recommended.and#8221;and#8212;
Library JournalReview
and#8220;Aileen Ribeiro discusses the use of color, accessories and#8230; fashion trends and the many details that make this book stunning.and#8221;and#8212;
History MagazineReview
and#8220;A sumptuously illustrated, large-format catalogue by Anna Reynolds provides an excellent accompaniment to the exhibition. The photographs include many enlarged details, making it possible for the reader to focus on very specific features of the fashions described. . . . The high-quality close-up reproductions of the portraits also make it possible to examine the technique of the various painters, including how they conveyed information about texture, sheen, or construction,. The quality of the catalogueand#8217;s text is equal to that of its illustrations: Reynolds has provided a fuller and more nuanced analysis of the same range of topics presented in the exhibition.and#8221;
Synopsis
Relatively few garments survive from before the eighteenth century, and the history of costume in the preceding centuries must therefore rely to a great extent on literary and visual evidence. This book, the first of its kind, examines Stuart England through the mirror of dress. It argues that both artistic and literary sources can be read and decoded for important information on dress and the way it was perceived in a period of immense political, social, and cultural change.
Focusing on the rich visual culture of the seventeenth century, including portraits, engravings, fashion plates, and sculpture, and on literary sourcesand#151;poetry, drama, essays, sermonsand#151;the distinguished historian of dress Aileen Ribeiro creates a fascinating account of Stuart dress and how it both reflected and influenced society. Supported by a wealth of illustrative images, she explores such varied themes as court costumes, the masque, the ways in which political and religious ideologies could be expressed in dress, and the importance of London as a fashion center. This beautiful book is an indispensable and authoritative account of what people wore and how it related to Stuart Englandand#8217;s cultural climate.
About the Author
Aileen Ribeiro is professor of history of art and lectures on the history of dress at the Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London. She is the author of numerous books, including The Art of Dress: Fashion in England and France, 1750and#150;1820; Ingres in Fashion: Representations of Dress and Appearance in Ingresand#8217;s Images of Women; and Dress in Eighteenth-Century Europe, 1715and#150;1789, all published by Yale University Press.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. Dress and Its Meanings
2. Dressing Women
3. Dressing Men
4. Dressing Children
5. Painting Dress
6. Fashion across the Borders
7. Painted for Battle and the Hunt
8. Playing a Part
Notes
Glossary
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Index