The new shape of head-dress becomes popular, and the upstanding collar
to the gown is almost universal.
The gowns themselves, though retaining the same appearance as before,
full skirts, no trains, big sleeves, and split to show the
under-gown, have the top part of the gown covering the bosom made of
a separate material, as, for instance, a gown of fine cloth will have
collar and yoke of velvet.
Women wear neat linen caps, made very plain and close to the head,
with small ear-pieces.
[Illustration: {Three men of the time of Mary}]
On the shoulders there is a fashion of wearing kerchiefs of linen or
silk, white as a rule; white, in fact, is frequently used for dresses,
both for men and women.
The custom of carrying small posies of flowers comes in, and it is
interesting to see the Queen, in her portrait by Antonio More,
carrying a bunch of violets arranged exactly as the penny bunches
sold now in our streets.
There was, in most dresses, a great profusion of gold buttons, and the
wearing of gold chains was common--in fact, a gold chain about the
neck for a man, and a gold chain girdle for a woman, were part of the
ordinary everyday dress.
[Illustration: {Two types of head-dress for women; two types of
collar}]
You will realize that to one born in the reign of Henry VIII. the
appearance of people now was very different, and, to anyone as far
away as we are now, the intervening reigns of Edward and Mary are
interesting as showing the wonderful quiet change that could take
place in those few years, and alter man's exterior from the appearance
of a playing-card, stiff, square, blob-footed, to the doublet and hose
person with a cart-wheel of a ruff, which recalls to us Elizabethan
dress.
[Illustration: A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF QUEEN MARY (1553-1558)
The habit of wearing flowers in the opening of the dress was
frequent at this time, was, in fact, begun about this reign. One can
easily see in this dress the ground-work of the Elizabethan fashion,
the earliest of which was an exaggeration of this costume.]
ELIZABETH
Reigned 45 years: 1558-1603.
THE MEN
[Illustration: {A man of the time of Elizabeth}]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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