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HOW WE GOT HERE
It is very entertaining to consider the strange styles of the ancient Romans, and there is no doubt that their clothing gives us more pleasure, because of its distance in time, than does that of modern people, which we have continuously before our eyes.
CESARE VECELLIO
Cesare Vecellio wrote these words about the dress of ancient Rome in 1590 (Rosenthal and Jones 2008: 67). His book, entitled Habiti Antichi et Moderni (Clothing Ancient and Modern), was the first to present a comprehensive dress history. This chapter reviews literature from the earliest sixteenth-century costume books to the proliferation of fashion history titles today. It explains the development of Eurocentrism in the study of dress history and its recognition by dress scholars in the 1980s, reflecting the premise of Eric Wolf’s Europe and the People Without History ([1982] 1997). The rise of cultural and critical studies and the resultant acceptance of fashion as a legitimate subject by multiple disciplines are discussed. An account of the current state of the intellectual field includes the description of a paradigm shift that has taken place since 2010. The chapter closes with a call for attention to a global fashion history.
Early writings to 1900
Historians in ancient civilizations occasionally noted the dress of other cultures, especially when it differed from their own. For example, in 98 CE the Roman historian Tacitus described the dress of the inhabitants of Central Europe (“Germania”) as “the skins of wild beasts” (Owen-Crocker 2004: 18). To Tacitus, acculturated to the draped woven clothing of Roman civilization, the skins and furs of animals signified Germania’s “barbarianism.” But such accounts were rare prior to the invention of the printing press in Europe in 1439. All books before that time were single-issue “manuscripts,” handwritten and sometimes decorated with illustrations. Termed “illuminated manuscripts” in Europe, comparable documents existed in Mesoamerica, South Asia, Far East Asia, and Islamic cultures. Illustrations from such manuscripts are used to exemplify themes in this book. These manuscripts, some of which were religious in nature, serve as a visual record of contemporary dress, but their creators offered little in the way of commentary.
Sixteenth-century costume books
Cesare Vecellio’s Habiti Antichi et Moderni was the first history of dress. It came out toward the end of a long run of costume books. Approximately twelve books were published between 1562 and 1601 in multiple editions and translations (Olian 1977). The successful genre began with Recueil de la diversité des habits published in Paris in 1562. Recueil illustrated the contemporary dress of urban Italy and France as well as Turkey, Egypt, India, Persia, Africa, and Greece (Olian 1977: 22).
The costume book genre grew out of travelogues, etiquette books, and costume engravings. In 1528, Baldesar Castiglione recorded the customs and manners of Venetian court life in The Book of the Courtier, which was translated and reprinted for distribution to other European courts. Of the travelogues, Nicolas de Nicolay’s Navigations was among the best. Nicolay journeyed to Turkey, Greece, the Mediterranean Islands, and North Africa as France’s royal geographer, observing customs and costumes along the way. First published in Lyon in 1527, Navigations appeared in Latin, German, and Italian editions (Olian 1977: 25). Its sixty costume plates offered a valuable resource for other authors, who did not visit Turkey. The Ottoman Empire, which stretched from the Middle East to North Africa and Hungary during the reign of Suleiman the Magnificent (1494–1566), inspired great curiosity among Europeans. In Figure 4.1, we see Nicolay’s illustration of a Turkish gentlewoman; she is in her house overlooking the seraglio. The fashionably dressed woman wears a patterned robe, striped sash, headdress, necklace, and chopines (elevated footwear). The chopines show the influence of Venetian styles on Turkish fashion. Both Venice and Istanbul were among the world’s top luxury markets in the sixteenth century; fashion news must have traveled easily between these two cities.
Figure 4.1 “Noble Woman of Turkey.” Nicolas de Nicolay, 1580. Courtesy of Travelogues, Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation, Athens, Greece. Available online: http://www.eng.travelogues.gr/item.php?view=40363. This Turkish woman is fashionably dressed in a patterned robe, striped sash, headdress, necklace, and chopines.
Up until Vecellio’s publication in 1590, none of the costume books investigated the dress of past civilizations. Cesare Vecellio was a Venetian, a cousin to the great Renaissance artist Titian. He made his living as an artist, printmaker, and engraver (Sherrill 2009). The first edition of Habiti Antichi et Moderni included 420 wood block prints of costumes from Europe, Asia, and Africa. The second edition, published in 1598, added the New World, which altered the title to read “the clothing, ancient and modern, of the whole world” and increased the number of plates to over 500 (Rosenthal and Jones 2008). For the illustrations of older forms of Italian dress, Vecellio used surviving artwork as sources; for contemporary dress, he recorded what he saw in this travels. He did not venture outside Italy except for a trip to Augsburg, Germany; for the Turkish and North African plates, he copied from published sources without attribution. For example, Nicolay’s “Turkish Gentlewoman” in Figure 4.1 reappears in reverse as Vecellio’s “Turkish Woman” (Paulicelli 2014: 115). For the New World prints, he used sources such as John White’s watercolors of North Carolina’s Indians reprinted by De Bry.
Vecellio wrote the text including introductory information on fibers, fabrics, and other materials. Originally published only in Italian, the second edition (1598) added Latin so that educated people outside of Italy could read it. It was reissued in 1664. A French edition with redrawn plates appeared in 1859/60, affirming its importance as a source of information.
Vecellio happened to be in the right place at the right time with the right product. Europe’s exploration beyond its borders and the widening trade with Asia and North Africa created curiosity about the world’s peoples and places. Vecellio’s book appeared just as Venice and the Ottoman Empire had begun to decline in power. He affirmed Italy’s importance in world history by illustrating its dress, both historic and contemporary.
This detailed description of Vecellio’s work is relevant for the current discussion on two accounts. First, his perspective incorporates the notion of fashion, and second, he did not restrict himself to Europe in illustrating fashionable dress. Thus, his work included fashion systems beyond Europe.
Although he used the word habiti, which is translated as “clothing,” he commented repeatedly about the changing nature of dress, that is to say fashionable behavior, in all cultures. He cited the multiplicity of dress styles in ancient Rome and contemporary Venice. For instance, in describing the dress of ancient times, he said, “Rome was subject to changing princes and leaders, so it is no wonder that both men and women kept transforming their clothing and adopting new styles of dress” (Rosenthal and Jones 2008: 60). About Venetian women of former times, he explained: “Wearing of the style illustrated here did not last long among women, though to begin with they had liked it because they thought it was new” (Rosenthal and Jones 2008: 148).
Regarding the “habits” worn by non-Europeans, Vecellio did not distinguish them as “traditional” or “slow changing.” Although both the images and the text came from other sources, his phrasing connotes the same appreciation for non-European dress as for the accoutrements of Venetians. About the American Indians, he wrote that their “extremely beautiful” feather garments were “skillfully and artfully made, in such a variety of well-matched color that for this reason and for their rarity, they can be considered the most delicate and sumptuous clothing to be found anywhere” (Rosenthal and Jones 2008: 57).
Vecellio included numerous images of the famous courtesans of Venice and Rome. Surely their stylish appearance piqued the curiosity of his readership. About the courtesan illustrated in Figure 4.2, he said, “Modern Roman courtesans dress in such fine style that few people can tell them apart from the noblewomen of that city.” He described their gowns as satin and velv
et trimmed with gold buttons, with “low necklines that expose their entire breast and neck, adorned with beautiful pearls, necklaces and ruffles of brilliant white” (Rosenthal and Jones 2008: 88). He also commented on their bleached blonde hair. These women had a recognizable style that situated them in time and space on the same level as the nobility despite their lower social status. With these comments, Vecellio recognized that fashion is “a market driven cycle of consumer desire and demand” (Paulicelli 2014: 96).
Figure 4.2 “Cortigiane Moderne.” Woodcut by Cristoforo Guerra, tedesco, da Norimberga. From Cesare Vecellio, Habiti antichi, et moderni di tutto il mondo. Venice: Presso Damian Zenaro, 1590. Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University. In the best known of the sixteenth-century costume books, Vecellio noted that Roman courtesans dressed in the latest fashions, making it difficult to distinguish them from noblewomen.
By the early seventeenth century, costume books had faded in popularity. European powers were establishing colonies around the world, and sailors from faraway places appeared in the ports of Venice, London, and Antwerp in their native garb (Olian 1977: 37). Books about foreign dress were no longer novel or interesting to readers.
Costume history books from 1600 to 1900
After the popularity of costume books waned, no significant developments in publishing dress history occurred until the eighteenth century. Engravers produced illustrations of French court fashions and masquerade costumes, but like most of the earlier publications, the emphasis was on images rather than words.
Joseph Strutt, an engraver and antiquarian, wrote the first English-language costume history book. Titled Dress and Habits of the English People, it was published in two volumes over the years 1796–99. Strutt drew and engraved all the images himself from manuscripts in the British Museum and the Bodleian Library, or from other original sources. Previously, he had published works on English manners, customs, and armor from which he derived some of the images for Dress and Habits of the English People.
Strutt’s Dress and Habits of the English People is considered his most important work. Billed as covering dress history from the Saxons to the close of the seventeenth century, nothing preceded it. He was starting from scratch. Strutt strove for accuracy by using historical sources. He read ancient historians; he quoted from the likes of Herodotus. He did not identify the “birth of fashion.” However, he established a pattern of coverage for the ancient world that would persist for centuries: he started with ancient Egypt, then moved to Assyria, Persia, Greece, and Rome before settling in on the Anglo-Saxons. A new edition was issued in 1842 demonstrating its long-lasting contribution to fashion history. It is worth noting that Dress and Habits of the English People has religious overtones. Strutt referenced Adam and Eve and their lack of clothing in the introduction and commented that after God clothed “our primeval parents,” a “vast variety of dresses” arose (Strutt 1842: i). Christianity is another underlying factor that restricted fashion history to the West, where Christianity is the dominant religion. Thus, non-Christians were excluded from dress histories of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
The nineteenth century saw increased interest in histories of costume. In 1823, James Robinson Planché, an English dramatist and antiquarian, criticized the lack of accuracy in the costuming of Shakespeare’s plays on the London stage. As a result, producers hired him to research and create historically accurate costumes. In 1834, he published a history of British dress from the earliest period to the close of the eighteenth century. He wrote on other decorative arts topics, finally producing his most ambitious historical work, A Cyclopedia of Costume, or Dictionary of Dress, in 1879 (Figure 4.3). This two-volume work included a dictionary of costume terms starting with “abacot” (a hat) and ending with “zibelline” (sable fur). Volume 2 was a chronological history, beginning with Rome. Like Strutt, Planché consciously focused on the dress of Christian nations, subtitling his work as a “general chronological history of the costumes of the principal countries of Europe, from the commencement of the Christian era to the accession of George III.”
Figure 4.3 “The Dream of Life. Italian Costume of the 14th Century.” James Robinson Planché. A Cyclopedia of Costume, or Dictionary of Dress. Vol. 2. London: Chatto and Windus, 1879. Planché acknowledged the source from which he took this image: “From a fresco painting by Orcagna in the Cloisters of the Campo Santo of Pisa.”
The historicism of the Victorian era rekindled an interest in past fashion, especially that of the Gothic era. Planché’s work found a ready audience with theatrical costumers, who followed his lead in designing more accurate costumes for the stage. Simultaneously, Queen Victoria and her consort, Prince Albert, began staging fancy dress balls for which the wearing of costumes representing historic English monarchs and nobles strengthened links to Britain’s past. Artists who created history paintings consulted Planché. Like Strutt before him, Planché sourced his illustrations from period artworks. The scene in Figure 4.3, for example, is from a fresco by Orcagna in the Cloisters of the Campo Santo of Pisa.
The English were not the only ones publishing dress histories in the nineteenth century. In France, Camille Bonnard published Costumes des XIII e , XIV e et XV e Siècles (Costumes of the 13th, 14th and 15th Centuries) in 1829–30 in two volumes with 148 color plates by Paul Mercuri (Bonnard 2008). The painters of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood are reputed to have sourced Bonnard for images of medieval and Renaissance dress. In Germany, Hermann Weiss authored Kostümekunde (1864) in two volumes following the usual chronology of ancient, Byzantine, and medieval dress to the Renaissance and beyond.
Why do the dress history surveys often include the ancient cultures of Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome to the exclusion of other great cultures farther away and others that had existed in Europe? Certainly, knowledge of the past was more limited than today due to the development of archaeology as a field in the eighteenth century and its constantly improving investigative technologies. In addition, geographical location affected the scope of coverage. Mesopotamia, bordering on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean, represented the birth of civilization itself. The Egyptian past was long lasting, well preserved, and intersected with Christianity, the predominant European faith. Imperial Rome resonated with the Age of Enlightenment and witnessed the origins of Christianity. Greek culture was considered, and still is by many, as the crucible of philosophy, geometry, and democracy, which grew in importance after 1776.
The publication of dress histories picked up toward the close of the century. In 1882, M. Augustin Challamel’s The History of Fashion in France was translated from French into English. This book concentrated on women’s attire, perhaps foretelling the twentieth century’s penchant for equating fashion with female dress. Interestingly, the book deliberately used the word “fashion” in the title rather than the more usual “costume.” Even the subtitle—“The Dress of Women from the Gallo-Roman Period to the Present Time”—avoids the word “costume.” In defining fashion, the author described it is a “thermometer of the various infinite tastes of the day” (1882: 2). Justifying the focus on France, Challamel claimed that “at present the type of feminine dress always originates in France, into the most distant regions of Europe, and even into Asia and America” (5). Colored plates each consisting of four females dressed in fashions of the period illustrate the volume. In Figure 4.4, the women wear the styles of the early 1600s.
Figure 4.4 The History of Fashion in France, or The Dress of Women from the Gallo-Roman Period to the Present Time. Augustin Challamel. New York: Scribner and Welford, 1882. Plate facing p. 113. The two figures on the left illustrate women’s fashions in 1590 during the reign of Henry IV; the figures on the right display the fashions in 1614 during Louis XIII’s reign.
Auguste Racinet’s Le Costume Historique is notable for its inclusive coverage of dress beyond the West. Its contents included sections on nineteenth-century civilizations outside of Europe as well as traditional costume of th
e 1880s. Originally published in France in periodical form, it was consolidated into a six-volume work in 1888. It was the most wide-ranging and ambitious coverage of dress history since Vecellio, with all illustrations in color. In 2003, the art publisher Taschen reissued it in three languages—English, French, and German—a testament to its relevance in the current era of globalization.
After Racinet, the global encyclopedic approach fell out of favor. Costume histories focused on European culture and civilization after initial chapters on the ancient world.
Publications of national costume had begun prior to 1900 as a vehicle for romantic nationalism. This movement was particularly strong in Europe, where researchers traveled to villages to gather folktales and songs, study local customs surrounding births and weddings, and collect local “peasant” or “folk” dress for newly founded ethnographic museums. Presses eagerly published folk costume and regional dress titles, especially when such publications suited nationalism. An unintended result was that dress publications further split into “traditional dress” (unchanging) and “historic costume” (fashion). Even in Great Britain, the Scottish tartan was treated as traditional dress, despite the fact that it was an invented tradition (Hobsbawm and Ranger 1983).
With the emergence of anthropology as a discipline in the late nineteenth century, a new approach to dress history began. Anthropological publications contribute “scholarship that relates to understanding the place of dress in culture” (Eicher 2000: 59). Historically, the discipline explored non-Western societies. The relationship between colonialism as a program of occupation and dominance by Western nations and the nascent anthropology field, which has been discussed in Chapter 3, at first allowed a divide based on an assumed cultural hierarchy. The geographical divide between European-based cultures and indigenous cultures perpetuated the distinction between Western and non-Western dress.
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