Corsets and Codpieces: A History of Outrageous Fashion, from Roman Times to the Modern Era

by Karen Bowman

On festival days it was common for young unmarried girls to wear flower g...

dou...

Beginning as a simple stitched and quilted double-layered lining which came to be known as ‘doubling’, it was worn to protect the skin under the chain mail or metal breastplate of medieval armour.

Basically unchanged for over 300 years, the doublet is easily recognised as a snug-fitting item which supported a man’s hose, kept him warm and gave him shape, with the only difference down the years being its style and cut.

Buttons down the front were the only fastenings, sleeves were generally attached (unlike women’s), they had collars and depending on the era decorative tabs at the waist and/or shoulder.

For working people the doublet would rarely be stiffened, or over padded, as it would hinder free movement but for those whose clothing was ‘state of the art’ they were highly decorated, with fine needlework and embroidery and adorned with jewels, spangles and pearls.

The ‘slashed’ or ‘pinked’ doublet became a favourite.

Ideas abound as to just what triggered this flamboyant ornamentation, the most popular being that Swiss and Bavarian mercenaries, more popularly known as Landsknecht or Lansquenet, in 1477 mended their tattered uniforms with strips of fabric from the banners and pennants from the tents of a vanquished enemy.

Another suggestion is that after a battle the soldiers could only be paid with the spoils of a city, which happened to be sumptuous cloth with which they plugged the holes of their tattered clothing thus creating the multi-coloured attire.

Whatever the reason for the custom, by 1520 the fashion had spread across Europe, with tunics, gowns, hats, bodices and doublets for both men and women receiving this treatment, the luxurious fabrics on display via th...

Doublets were styled to demonstrate masculinity with emphasis on broad shoulders and slim hips, sometimes with ‘girdles’, the equivalent of the later female corset, worn...

peascod, or goose-bellied doublet, which came to England from Holland in the 1570s and was stuffed in such a way as to give a man the impres...

Their elaborate dress, which was deliberately slashed at the front, back and sleeves, singled them out and was, it is thought, the inspiration for the slashed doublets and hose of the Tudor and Elizabethan periods.

To ‘turn a fine leg’ was also the intention of every sixteenth- and seventeenth-century gentleman, the opportunity to do just that presenting itself once knee-length Tudor hose began to rise sharply from the bottom up stopping eventually at thigh level.

Whereas at the start of the century all emphasis was on the chest, by its close this had changed radically.

Unlike the Middle Ages when hose were purely a leg covering, now they had separated into two garments: upper hose or breeches and nether hose or stockings.

Trunk hose

‘Slops’

guardes. Galligaskin or gally-hose breeches

French hose,

plunderhosen,

On 6 May 1562, by advice of her Council and ‘upon the Queen’s Majesty’s commandment’, Elizabeth I revised several of her sumptuary laws.

It was decreed that as the ‘monstrous and outrageous greatness of hose’ had crept ‘of late into the realm’ it was, from the day of the order, illegal for any tailor or hosier to use any more than 1¾yd of material to make any one pair of hose and that the lining should only be of one kind. Such linings were not to be loose or bolstered, ‘but to lie just unto their legs’, in other words a man was not to be so vain as to use his hose to ostentatiously display his wealth or to attract the ladies.

To ensure hose were properly ‘policed’ the Mayor of London ordered that civil officers of Westminster and outlaying towns and villages were appointed to interview all hosiers or tailors and explain the new rules applying to the size of gentlemen’s hose.

The codpiece already mentioned in the previous chapter changed dramatically in the Tudor period.

From a mere means of preserving a man’s modesty it became a prominent feature of a man’s wardrobe.

In Italy, the codpiece was called a sacco and in France a braguette.

As time passed the object became shaped and padded, designed to emphasise rather than to conceal, reaching its peak in terms of size and decoration in the 1540s.

Highly decorative they were often be-decked with ribbons and bows, while some were even used to hold money ...

Large decorative codpieces, of course, also hid the devastating effects of syphilis.

Known as the Great Pox, syphilis had always had its place in the ancient world but reached epidemic proportions in the sixteenth century in Europe.

Italians called it the Mal Françoise, the English referred to it as the French Pox and the French the Mal de Naples.

The codpiece would have been able to work on two levels, both as a container for greasy ointments which would stain outer clothing and disguise the bandages and it allowed the afflicted to be camouflaged among his friends at a time when wearing codpieces was universal.

For centuries after the old adage of ‘One night with Venus, six months with Mercury’ was a warning to those about to embark upon numerous sexual encounters.

Codpieces also found their way into armour of the sixteenth century and so for a time were an addition to the best full harnesses.

upright, some were padded and used as secret hiding places for items of value, giving rise to the age-old double entendre of keeping safe the ‘family jewels’.

names. Some colours were self-explanatory, such as ‘ash’ used for commoners’ gowns and kirtles along with a grey called ‘rats’. ‘Puke’ was a dirty brown colour and ‘goose-turd green’ not difficult to imagine. Russet was the same then as it is now, but plum was called ‘murrey’ and golden-brown was ‘tawney’. Other yellow shades were named after what they resembled such as ‘primrose’ or ‘straw’, with tan shades named as ‘maiden hair’ for a bright shade and ‘Isabella’ for a light buff. A very light yellow was known as ‘cane’.

Blue became an interesting phenomenon at this time with indigo widely available, inexpensive and easy to transport in the form of dye-cakes. Also, it was relatively permanent compared to many other dyestuffs of the time. As a result, it became a popular dye for the clothing of servants and others of a lower station and began the tradition for blue to be associated with the state of servitude.

Along with the Spanish farthingale, the wasp-waist corset and trunk hose, the ruff is possibly the first item that springs to mind when people consider Elizabethan costume.

Large ruffs were the despair of laundresses as often these were held away from the wearer’s face by hundreds of carefully inserted sticks of wood or bone, and could only be worn once before they had to be washed, ironed and refolded, the tiny sticks painstakingly reinserted. This was to change in 1564 with the arrival of Mistress Dinghen Van Der Plasse, who essentially taught the English how to make starch – a word derived from Middle English ‘sterchen’ meaning to stiffen.

Tutored since the age of 12 in the art of ruff-making by her late father, she used her extensive needlework skills to create ruffs stiffened with starch taken from a secret recipe which used as its main agent the bluebell plant. Soon her new ‘clear’ starch was in great demand as it did not clog-up the loose weave of delicate muslins and other fabrics with unsightly granules, giving her ruffs a much-desired crisp finish.

Mistress Van Der Plasse became a very successful business woman. Patronised by Queen Elizabeth’s household which employed her methods, it wasn’t long before starching houses sprang up all over England

In England it was commonly known as the ‘French Ruff’, whereas in France it was referred to as ‘the English Monster’! At their most extreme, ruffs were a foot or more wide and needed a wire frame called a supportasse or underpropper to hold them at a fashionable angle. Of course, there were those who deplored the fashion and, as one would expect, the Puritan Philip Stubbes made his views known in 1583 in The Anatomie of Abuses:

Towards the end of the 1500s, fashion dictated a more feminine fan-shaped ruff, which was achieved by opening the ruffle in front to expose the neck and cleavage.

it was rumoured that in 1579 Queen Margot, 1st wife of Henry IV of France (1533–1615), when seated at dinner, was obliged to have a spoon with a handle 2ft long for the purpose of passing her soup over her ruff, so as to keep it rigid and immaculate.

The ruff, as well as being perhaps the most recognisable item of the Elizabethan age, dictated the hairstyles of both men and women, most famously short hair for men with a pointed beard, and provided a perfect frame for the face; a face enhanced by what can only be described as deadly make-up. With the Tudors believing that ‘outward beauty was a true sign of inner godliness’, Elizabeth I’s first appearance on the world stage saw her appear as a virgin queen with her hair flowing and an alabaster complexion, the latter being the result of white lead make-up also known as ceruse. The cult of Gloriana had arrived.

Elizabeth was determined to cover the scars she had received from her bout of smallpox in 1562 and so defied those that condemned cosmetics and became a devotee of the smoothing coverage of white lead.

There were other powders available, such as ground alabaster or starch, but they did not produce the perfect luminosity she favoured nor gave the coverage she needed.

Rouge, usually of red ochre, would be applied to re-introduce the faded bloom of youth, and lips would be coloured with a ‘crayon’ of ground alabaster or plaster of Paris mixed with either cochineal or dyes from the East Indian brazil tree, all mixed together and dried into sticks in the sun. An egg-w...

There was even a sixteenth-century ‘chemical peel’ advocated by physician and alchemist Ruscelli. He recommended that a woman use eggs, vinegar, turpentine, camphor, rock alum, quicksilver, lemon juice, tartarum and white onion mixed into a paste and applied to the neck, breast and face letting it ‘drie of itself, at night when you goe to bedde …’. There was, however, a drawback as the concoction had to be left in place for no less than ‘eight daise …’ then removed via another complicated recipe before steaming the face.