Fashion Definitions — fashion history, brands and industry terms from Apparel Search
Elizabethan fashion belongs to the reign of Queen Elizabeth I, 1558 to 1603, when the queen herself set the standard of beauty: light or naturally red hair, a pale complexion and red cheeks and lips. Women's outer clothing generally consisted of a loose or fitted gown worn over a kirtle or petticoat, with bodices stiffened into a cone or flattened triangular shape ending in a V at the waist. Surface ornament grew abundant, especially among the aristocracy: shirts and chemises were embroidered with blackwork and edged in lace, heavy velvets and brocades carried applied bobbin lace, gold and silver embroidery and jewels, and skirts were held in shape by the farthingale or hoop skirt.
A very exciting time ruled by the queen of fashion. Nice to see a woman in charge of the world...
The ideal standard of beauty for women in the Elizabethan era was to have light or naturally red hair, a pale complexion, and red cheeks and lips. Pale, white skin was desired because Queen Elizabeth was in reign and she had the naturally red hair, pale complexion, and red cheeks and lips.
Women's Fashion of the Elizabethan Era
Women's outer clothing generally consisted of a loose or fitted gown worn over a kirtle or petticoat (or both). An alternative to the gown was a short jacket or a doublet cut with a high neckline. The narrow-shouldered, wide-cuffed "trumpet" sleeves characteristic of the 1540s and 1550s in France and England disappeared in the 1560s, in favor of French and Spanish styles with narrower sleeves. Overall, the silhouette was narrow through the 1560s and gradually widened, with emphasis as the shoulder and hip. The slashing technique, seen in Italian dress in the 1560s, evolved into single or double rows of loops at the shoulder with contrasting linings. By the 1580s these had been adapted in England as padded and jeweled shoulder rolls.
The general trend toward abundant surface ornamentation in the Elizabethan Era was expressed in clothing, especially amongst the aristocracy in England. Shirts and chemises were embroidered with blackwork and edged in lace. Heavy cut velvets and brocades were further ornamented with applied bobbin lace, gold and silver embroidery, and jewels. Toward the end of the period, polychrome (multicolored) silk embroidery became highly desirable and fashionable for the public representation of aristocratic wealth.
Elizabethan Fashion Accessories
In addition to fabulous clothing, fashion accessories during the Elizabethan era were also important.
The fashion for wearing or carrying the pelt of a sable or marten spread from continental Europe into England in this period; costume historians call these accessories zibellini or "flea furs". The most expensive zibellini had faces and paws of goldsmith's work with jeweled eyes.
Queen Elizabeth received a fabulous zibellino as a New Years gift in 1584.
Gloves of perfumed leather featured embroidered cuffs.
A close-fitting linen cap called a coif or biggins was worn, alone or under other hats or hoods, especially in the Netherlands and England. Many embroidered and bobbin-lace-trimmed English coifs survive from this period. The French hood was worn throughout the period in both France and England. Another fashionable headdress was a caul, or cap, of net-work lined in silk attached to a band, which covered the pinned up hair. This style of headdress had also been seen in Germany in the first half of the century.
Married and grown women covered their hair, as they had in previous periods. Early in the period, hair was parted in the center and fluffed over the temples. Later, front hair was curled and puffed high over the forehead.
Wigs and false hairpieces were used to extend the hair.
Folding fans appeared late in the period, replacing flat fans of ostrich feathers.
A bit of history for your reference of the time:
The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603).
The Elizabethan age contrasts sharply with the previous and following reigns. It was a brief period of internal peace between the English Reformation and the religious battles between Protestants and Catholics and then the political battles between parliament and the monarchy that engulfed the remainder of the seventeenth century.
Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history.
Elizabethan fashion begins with one woman's appearance. The ideal standard of beauty for women in the era was light or naturally red hair, a pale complexion, and red cheeks and lips — desired because Queen Elizabeth had them, pale white skin being fashionable because the queen reigned with it. A monarch's body became the template for her court's faces, and cosmetics, hair colouring and dress all worked toward that template. The clothing system beneath the face was layered and architectural. The universal base was the washable linen chemise or smock, the only article of clothing worn by every woman regardless of class — wealthy women's embroidered and lace-trimmed, plain women's plain — worn under everything to protect expensive outer garments from body oils and dirt. Over it went the kirtle or petticoat, whose visible front panel, the forepart, was made of richer fabric since it showed beneath the gown. Over that, the gown itself: loose or fitted, in England called a French gown, with short half sleeves or long sleeves, floor length or trailing a train.
The Elizabethan silhouette was engineered at two points. The bodice was stiffened into a cone or flattened, triangular shape ending in a V at the front of the waist — Italian fashion uniquely keeping a broad U shape — sometimes high-necked, sometimes with a broad, low, square neckline filled by a partlet of fine lawn. The stiffening technology was the corset, called a vasquine in Spain, where it arose in the first half of the 16th century, spreading through Italy and France to England, where as a pair of bodies it was made in two parts lacing back and front, stiffened with reeds called bents, wood or whalebone, and restricted to aristocratic fashion. The skirt was engineered by the farthingale: the cone-shaped Spanish farthingale, briefly fashionable in France where a padded French farthingale or bum roll held skirts out in a rounded shape, worn in England through the 1570s and gradually replacing the Spanish form, until by the 1590s skirts were pinned to wide wheel farthingales to achieve a drum shape. Sleeves tell the same story of widening: the narrow-shouldered, wide-cuffed trumpet sleeves of the 1540s and 1550s disappeared in the 1560s for narrower French and Spanish sleeves, slashing evolved into rows of loops at the shoulder, and by the 1580s England wore padded and jeweled shoulder rolls. Decade by decade, the fashionable body widened at shoulder and hip while the waist stayed a hard V.
The period's general trend was abundant surface ornamentation, expressed especially among the aristocracy as public representation of wealth. Shirts and chemises were embroidered with blackwork and edged in lace; cut velvets and brocades were further ornamented with applied bobbin lace, gold and silver embroidery and jewels; toward the end of the period, polychrome silk embroidery — multicoloured — became highly desirable. Embroidery was also currency at court: embroidered partlet and sleeve sets were frequently given to Elizabeth as New Year's gifts. Accessories carried the same display into smaller objects. The zibellino, a sable or marten pelt worn draped or carried, might have a face and paws of goldsmith's work with jeweled eyes and pearl earrings; Elizabeth received a fabulous one in 1584. Gloves were of perfumed leather with embroidered cuffs; heads were covered by the embroidered linen coif, the French hood or a silk-lined net caul; folding fans appeared late in the period, replacing flat ostrich feather fans. Even travel was dressed: sturdy overskirts called safeguards for riding, hooded cloaks for weather, and the flaring, decorated cassock or Dutch cloak. In an age historians call England's golden age, clothing was the medium in which rank, loyalty and wealth were published daily — and the queen, in red hair and white skin, was its front page.
A woman's outer clothing generally consisted of a gown, loose or fitted, worn over a kirtle or petticoat, over a washable linen chemise or smock — the one garment worn by every woman regardless of class. Bodices were stiffened into a cone shape and skirts held out by a farthingale.
The farthingale was the hoop skirt that held Elizabethan skirts in their proper shape. The cone-shaped Spanish farthingale gave way in England to the French farthingale or bum roll, and by the 1590s wide wheel farthingales pinned skirts into a drum shape.
A zibellino, or flea fur, was a fashionable accessory: the pelt of a sable or marten draped at the neck, hung at the waist or carried in the hand, the most expensive fitted with goldsmith-work faces and paws and jeweled eyes. Queen Elizabeth received one as a New Year's gift in 1584.