Folger Finds: Fashion in the Tudor court

Fashion is front of mind—and social media feed!—with this month’s Met Gala. We’re also thinking about fashion at the Folger with our exhibition, How to Be a Power Player: Tudor Edition, which explores the “rules” of succeeding as a courtier. Spoiler alert: dress to impress!

A powerful pair

The portraits in the exhibition—some small and some large—show well-dressed noble men and women from the period, like the ones above of Henry Wriothesley, Third Earl of Southampton, and Elizabeth (Vernon) Wriothesley, Countess of Southampton.

You may remember that Shakespeare dedicated his best-selling poems—Venus and Adonis and Lucrece—to Southampton. Elizabeth Vernon, Southampton’s wife, was one of Elizabeth I’s chief ladies-in-waiting. When the queen learned of Southampton and Vernon’s secret marriage, she imprisoned them in the Fleet Prison for four months. Their daughter Penelope Wriothesley was born during this time.

In their portraits, Southampton wears the George pendant (St. George slaying the dragon) signaling his status as a Knight of the Order of the Garter, while her jewels include a diamond-studded “S” for Southampton in her necklace and bracelet.

Garter style

One of the exhibition cases details the elaborate and costly outfit worn by the Knights of the Most Noble Order of the Garter, of which Southampton was a member.

Becoming a Knight was one of the highest honors you could receive in Tudor England. Capped at 24 knights (plus the monarch, the Prince of Wales, and a few foreign heads of state), this elite club was full of unique rituals. During the installation ceremony, a knight offered up his left leg to receive a diamond-encrusted navy-blue velvet garter with gold buckles and edges, buckled below his knee. The garter was embroidered in gold with the Latin motto Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense (Shame on him who thinks evil of it).

Joining the Order was an expensive undertaking. Knights needed to commission an elaborate and costly outfit, shown above, to wear at their installation and at subsequent annual ceremonies on St. George’s Day (April 23). It included a mantle, a surcoat, a hood, a ribbon with a “George,” and a collar with a “Great George.” Georges were bejeweled depictions of St. George (the patron saint of England and of the Order) slaying the dragon.

Ruff rules

One of the exhibition cases—“Rule #12: Dress for Success”—looks at fashion do’s and don’ts for the period, including regulations around the wearing of ruffs.

Queen Elizabeth appreciated fine dress among her senior advisors, but it had to befit their specific ranks, titles, and wealth. “Sumptuary laws” were official dress codes that limited who could wear which fabrics, colors, and furs. Your outfit announced your position in the political and social order of Tudor England. The most frequent violations were related to excessively padded trunk hose (puffy shorts stuffed with padding) and ridiculously large ruffs.

By the 1570s, floppy collars had transformed into gravity defying and totally impractical neck art, thanks to the introduction a decade earlier of starch paste and wireframes to stiffen linen. Platter-sized cartwheel and figure-eight ruffs were the height of fashion. Ruffs became so large that Elizabeth, who loved a ruff herself, finally decreed in 1580 that anyone wearing “such great and excessive ruffs” should stop attiring themselves in such a “monstrous manner.”

Ruffs were viewed as a sign of excess and vanity not only in England but also across Europe. In the anti-Catholic Dutch print, shown above, published at the height of the French Wars of Religion, French Catholics are ridiculed for wearing large ruffs. The ruffs supposedly represent their foolish and arrogant minds.

Text excerpted from the Folger exhibition, How to Be a Power Player: Tudor Edition, curated by Heather Wolfe.