BRIEF HISTORY OF CLOTHES

Tudor Clothes:

For rich Tudors fashion was important. Their clothes were very extensive. For the poor clothing must be durable and practical. All classes had wool. But the varying quality. The rich wore fine quality wool. The poor had coarse wool.

Linen was used to make shirts and underwear. But only the rich could afford cotton and silk clothing. Rich Tudors also embroidered their clothes with silk, gold or silver thread. Rich 16th century women dressed in silk stockings.

In the 16th century men wearing short pants-like garments called breeches. They also wore tight-fitting jackets called doublets. A second coat is called a jerkin was worn over a double blow. Over jacket rich men wearing a dress, or later in the 16th century a cloak or mantle.

But instead of a double blow many of the workers was wearing a loose tunic. It was easier to work in. Some workers had a Laerkollert called a buff-jerkin. Men also socks and woolen socks, which was called the snake.

Women wore a kind of petticoat called a smock or shift or chemise made of linen or wool and a wool dress over it. A woman's dress was made of two parts, a dress or corset as clothing or a skirt. Sleeves were held with laces and separated. Working women wore a linen apron.

In the late 16th century, many women had a frame made of whale bone or wood under their dress called a farthingale. If they could not afford a farthingale women wearing a padded roll around the waist is called a bum roll.

In the 16th century women did not bear panties. But men sometimes went linen shorts. 

In the 16th century all had hats. Poor women often wore a linen cap called a coif. After 1572 by law, had all the men except nobility to wear a woolly hat on Sundays. This law was enacted to provide wool hat makers plenty of work!

In the 16th Century buttons were usually for decoration. Clothing was held together with laces or legs. Furs in Tudor times included cat, rabbit, beaver, bear, badger and Cutter. 

The Tudors used mostly vegetable dyes as madder for red, blue or Woads of walnut for brown. But you have to use a chemical called a corrosive to "fix" the dye. The mordant changed color of the dye as a plant called the weld was used with alum to yellow, but if used with iron and tin produced green shades.

The most expensive colors were bright red, purple and indigo. Poor people often dressed in brown, yellow or blue. Moreover, in the 16th Scarlet century was not a color, it was the name of a fine, expensive wool.

Women who could afford it would hang in a container of fragrant spices on their belt. This was called a pomander and hidden nasty smell in the streets! But it is a myth that in Tudor times people were very dirty and smelly. Most people tired to keep themselves clean (see Historical Myths), but it was difficult to keep free of vermin. On the wreck of the Mary Rose many lice combs were found. A bone ear scoop and a bone manicure sets were also found.

Clothes in the Middle Ages:

In the 12th and 13 century clothes were still very basic. In the Middle Ages, men wore tunics. Some men wore shorts and all bar 'snake' (socks and stockings). 

The women were dressed in a nightgown-like linen cloth. But they did not bear panties. They wore a long tunic (to their ankles), and over the second garment, a dress. Women held their dresses with a belt tied around the waist.

In the Middle Ages both sexes wearing clothes made of wool, but it varies in quality. Wool can be good and expensive or coarse and cheap. From the mid-14th century laws determine what materials the different classes could wear to stop middle-dressing 'above themselves'. (Poor people could not afford to wear expensive cloth anyway!). But most people ignore the law and bar, what clothes they wanted.

In the late 14th and 15 century clothes were far more extensive. Fashion in the modern sense began. For the wealthy styles changed rapidly. Women wore hats and men produce much with shoes on.

Poor people were practical clothes. If it was wet and muddy they wore wooden shoes. 

17th Century Clothing:

At the beginning of the 17th century men wore stiff collars known as the black fish. Women wore frames made of wood or whalebone under their dresses. Farthingale but it was quickly dismissed and ruff evolved into a high lace collar (for those who could afford it!).

In the 17th century men wore knee-length trousers like garments called breeches. They are also dressed in stockings and boots.

On the upper body men went linen shirts. In the early 17th century, they had a kind of jacket called a doublet with a jacket on top. Men wore their hair long. They also had a beard.

In the late 17th century, was a man, a double blow to the west, and men wearing a dress over it. With breeches it was almost like a suit. Men were now clean shaven and they wore wigs.

The women wore a linen nightgown as garment called a shift. About what they were in long dresses. The dress was in two parts of the upper and skirt. Sometimes women wore two skirts. The upper skirt was picked up to reveal an underskirt.

From the middle of the 17th century it became fashionable for women to wear black patches on their faces, like little stars or crescent moons.

18th Century Clothing:

In the 18th century men wore knee-length dress called a mortgage like pants and socks. They are also wearing jackets and frock coats. They went linen shirts. Both men and women wore wigs and women are three-cornered hats were popular. Males had curious shoes.

Women wore stays (an upper part with strips of whalebone) and hooped petticoats under their dresses.

Fashionable women folding fans.

Fashion was very important for the wealthy, but changed its poor human clothes hardly. 

19 th Century Clothing: 

In the 19th century, apart from cotton shirts, men's clothing consisted of three parts. In the 18th century had knee-length trousers, but in the 19th century men wore trousers. They are also dressed in jackets and coats.

In the early 19th century women wearing light dresses. In the 1830s they had puffed sleeves. In the 1850s, they had a framework of whalebone and steel wire called crinolines under their dresses. In the late 1860s Victorian women began to wear a sort of half Crinoline. The front of the skirt was flat, but it bulged outward at the back. This was called a bustle, and it disappeared in the 1890s.

From the 1840s onwards was fashionable for women to have very small waist, so they wore corsets.

Around 1800 women started wearing underwear for the first time. They were called drawers. Originally, women wearing a couple of drawers to say that they were actually two garments, one for each leg, tied together at the top. In the late 19th century women's drawers were called trousers then just panties.

The Victorians usually wore hats. Wealthy men wore top hats. Middle-class men wearing bowler hats and men dressed in work clothes caps.

Before the 19th century children were always dressed as little adults. In Victorian times did the first special clothing for children seemed like a sailor suit.

A number of inventions that make the clothes were made in the 19 century. The safety pin was invented in 1849. The electric iron was invented by Henry Seely in 1882, but it was not widespread until the 1930s. Dry cleaning was invented in 1855. Zip fastener was invented in 1893.

In 1863 Butterick published the first paper dress pattern.

20th Century Clothing:

In the early 20 century fashionable men wore trousers, vest and jacket. They wore top hats and Homburg.

In 1900, women had long dresses. It was not acceptable for women to show their legs. From 1910 women were hobble skirts. They were so narrow women could only be "soft" along while wearing them. But during the First World War women's clothes became more practical.

Meanwhile, in 1913 Mary Crosby invented the bra. She spent two handkerchiefs joined by bands. In 1915 lipsticks were sold in tubes for the first time.

In the early 1920s, still women wearing panties, which ended below the knee. But during the 1920s knickers were much shorter. By the late 1920s, they ended up well above the knee. In the mid-20th century young women wearing panties.

A revolution in women's clothing was made in 1925. At that time, women wearing knee length skirts. In the mid and late 1920s it became fashionable for women to look boyish. But in the 1930s women's dress became more conservative.

During the Second World War it was necessary to save the material, so skirts were shorter. Clothes were rationed until 1949!

Meanwhile, bikini was invented in 1946. In 1947 Christian Dior introduced the New Look, with long skirts and narrow waist give an 'Hourglass' figures.

During the 1950s women's clothes were full and feminine. But in 1965 Mary Quant invented the mini skirt and clothes were even more informal.

After the First World War, men's clothing became more informal and more relaxed. In the 1920s wide trousers called "Oxford bags" were in vogue. Men also often wear pullovers instead of jackets.

In the 19th century men's underwear covered almost the entire body, extending from the ankles to the neck and wrists. But in the 1920s they began to wear shorts that ended above the knee and sleeveless vests. The first y-fronts went on sale in mid-1930s. 

  

In the second half of the 20 century fashion for both sexes were so varied and changed so fast it would take too long to mention them all. One of the biggest changes were the availability of artificial fibers. Nylon was first made in 1935 by Wallace Carothers and polyester was invented in 1941. It was popularized in the 1950s. Vinyl (a substitute for leather), was invented in 1924. Educators was designed in 1949 by Adolf Dasler.