The Fashion Historian

Pomegranate illustration from Dr. Otto Wilhelm Thomé's Flora von Deutschland, Österreich und der Schweiz, 1885. Image from http://www.biolib.de/.

The pomegranate (Punica granatum) is a fruit-bearing shrub, originating from the Middle East and Mediterranean Basin. Throughout history, the pomegranate tree has been used for a variety of purposes. It's bark has been used to cure leather, it's rind and flowers have been used as textile dye, and it's fruit has been prized for its delicious taste and medicinal properties. Images of the pomegranate have permeated visual culture since ancient times. In Ancient Greek mythology, for example, the pomegranate was the food eaten by the dead in the underworld. In the world of fashion history, the pomegranate has had an extraordinary impact on textiles.

Silk from the 15th or 16th century. Museo Civico d'Arte Antica.

This textile shows the so-called "pomegranate motif". This stylized design of a central floral image surrounded by wavy stems has its origins in the Ottoman Empire. Under the reign of Süleyman I, also known as Süleyman the Magnificent (r. 1520-66), the arts flourished, and the textile design of a flowering plant such as carnations, blooming palmettes or pomegranates surrounded by a lattice pattern became extremely popular. These textiles made their way across trade routs to Western Europe where they were prized for their elegant patterns and luxurious materials. These motifs were also adopted by Western European artisans, and dominate textile design of the Renaissance.

Length of brocaded velvet, late 15th century, Italian (Venice). The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Today, it's hard to understand the extreme value textiles held in the centuries before mass mechanized production. Of course in the pre-industrial period, everything was made by hand. Creating textiles with complex designs such as the pomegranate motif took an enormous amount time and incredibly skilled artisans. Furthermore, the rich colors and expensive materials present in many surviving textiles with the pomegranate motif added additional cost. Red and black dyes were among the most expensive dyes on the market. And many textiles incorporated metal-wrapped threads. To create metal-wrapped threads, thin strips of actual gold or silver would be wrapped around a strand of thread (usually silk). When this thread was woven into a fabric, the resulting textile would literally be made of silver or gold. The above textile is a silk velvet with metal-wrapped threads. The rich red color, complex pattern, and use of metal threads would have made this piece extraordinarily expensive.

Portrait of Eleanor of Toledo and her son Giovanni, by Bronzino, c. 1514. The Uffizi.

Textiles were among the most expensive items a person could buy. Textiles with the pomegranate motif were used for clothing (as can be seen in the portraits above and below), furnishing, and ecclesiastical garments. When looking at the art of the period, textiles with the pomegranate motif show up in a large number of portraits and religious art. Their use was not just because the textiles provide a visually interesting pattern. As this post shows, the use of these textiles was also a potent expression of wealth and power.

Portrait of a Girl, by Antonio del Pollaiuolo, c. 1460-65. Gemäldegalerie, Staatliche Museen zu Berlin.

Furthermore, the prevalence of the pomegranate motif in visual culture attests to the connections between cultures all over the globe. Too often people tend to think of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance as a time when cultures were isolated, and global interactions were not present. But the pomegranate motif is just one piece of evidence that proves that a global exchange of ideas and cultures was alive and well.

In the early sixteenth century, men were all about width. Their wardrobe emphasized and enhanced the width of the body, giving a very powerful presence. In today's head to toe post, we'll find out how this look was created.

Portrait of Henry VIII, after Hans Holbein the Younger, c. 1537. In the collection of the Walker Art Gallery.

Here we see the imposing figure of Henry VIII, who ruled England from 1509 to 1547. On his head he wears a biretta, a soft, round, and wide hat. These could be decorated with jewels and feathers, as seen in this portrait.

Henry's basic foundation garment is a white shirt, the collar and cuffs of which can be seen in his painting. Little puffs of undershirt are also visible in the slashing which decorates his outer garments. Over the shirt he wears a doublet, a waist length, tightly fitted garment which opened down the center front. Doublets could be elaborately decorated with slashing and jewels, as can be seen in this image.

On top of the doublet is a jerkin. The jerkin fit over the waist like a vest, with a deep V or U shaped neckline. Below the waist, the jerkin flared out into a skirt. It's a little difficult to differentiate between Henry's jerkin and doublet, but the image below better illustrates the idea. The Ambassador to the left wears a pink doublet and black jerkin.

The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein the Younger, c. 1533. In the collection of the National Gallery, London.

The bulky overcoat worn over the doublet and jerkin is a box coat, so called because it's shaped like a box. Often stuffed with straw to give volume, the box coat featured huge sleeves which gave men a wide and powerful silhouette. Often they were lined in fur, as can be seen in both images (Henry's box coat is lined in brown fur, while the Ambassador's coat is lined with white).

The legs were covered with hose, which had become two separate pieces. Upper stocks covered the top half of the leg, while lower stocks covered the bottom. The differentiation between the two pieces is particularly clear in Henry's portrait. The emphasis on width is continued all the way down to the shoes, called duckbill shoes. Duckbill shoes were flat and square in front, made of leather, and could be slashed for decoration.

The ruff is the fashion item most associated with the Renaissance. It evolved from the collars of the shirts worn by men underneath their doublets. The collars would have a small decorative ruffle around the top, which would add a bit of visual interest. Gradually this ruffle grew larger, becoming its own independent garment.


The Darnley Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I of England, c. 1575

What made the ruff possible was starch. In the early sixteenth century, starch was imported from the Low Countries. But the ruff really began to blossom in the 1560s when starch production came to England. In 1564, Mistress Dinghen van der Plasse moved from Flanders to London, opening up her own starch making business. The business flourished, and soon there were manufacturers all over London. Starch was derived from cereal grains such as wheat or corn, which caused some contention. William Cecil, chief minister to Elizabeth I once said, "Is it not a very lamentable thing that we should bestow that upon starch to the setting forth of vanity and pride which would staunch the hunger of many that starve in the streets for want of bread?"


Sir Francis Walsingham by John De Critz the Elder.

Ruffs were made from starched linen cambric, edged with lace, although as the century wore on, ruffs could be made entirely of lace. Lace was a new textile, having developed in the early sixteenth century. It was immensely time consuming to make, therefore it was EXTREMELY expensive. And while we think of linen as a basic fabric today, the quality of linen in the sixteenth century was highly superior to the quality of linen today. One surviving ruff has linen with a thread count of fifty threads to one centimeter. The fabric was put into a figure 8 pattern, called goffering, and sewn with gossamer threads. The larger ruffs, called cartwheel ruffs, had a basic wire support system called a supportasse or underproper.


Detail of a procession portrait of Queen Elizabeth I of England, c. 1600.

Ruffs were highly luxurious garments. They could take hours to set, and could only be worn once as body heat and the weather would cause it to droop and loose shape. Their placement on the neck affected posture, forcing the wearer to keep their chin up and assume a proud and haughty pose. They were a potent symbol of status and wealth, as anyone who could afford to wear and maintain a ruff was clearly not doing any manual labor.


The Infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, Archduchess of Austria by Frans Pourbus, c. 1599

The ruff continued to be worn in the early 17th century, but was beginning to peter out. By the time King Charles I came to the English throne in 1625, the ruff had disappeared and been replaced by a loose lace collar which draped over the shoulders, called a falling band collar.