This costume history information consists of Pages 365-382 of the chapter on the
mid 17th century dress in the 25 YEAR REIGN era of
Charles The Second 1660-1685 and taken from English Costume by Dion Clayton Calthrop.
The 36 page section consists of a text copy of the book ENGLISH
COSTUME PAINTED & DESCRIBED BY DION CLAYTON CALTHROP. Visuals,
drawings and painted fashion plates in the book have a charm of their
own and are shown amid the text. The book covers both male and female
dress history of over 700 years spanning the era 1066-1830.
This page is about restoration dress in
the reign of Stuart King Charles II 1660-1685.
For the Introduction to this book see this
introduction written by Dion Clayton Calthrop. I have adjusted
the images so they can be used for colouring worksheets where pupils add
some costume/society facts.
England, apparently with a sigh of relief, lays aside her hair shirt,
and proves that she has been wearing a silk vest under it. Ribbon-makers
and wig-makers, lace-makers, tailors, and shoemakers, pour out thankful
offerings at the altar of Fashion.
One kind of folly has replaced
another; it is only the same goddess in different clothes. The lamp that winked and flickered before the stern black figure in Geneva
bands and prim curls is put to shame by the flare of a thousand candles
shining on the painted face, the exposed bosom, the flaunting love-locks
of this Carolean deity.
We have burst out into periwigs, monstrous, bushy; we have donned
petticoat breeches ruffled like a pigeon; we have cut our coats till
they are mere apologies, serving to show off our fine shirts; and we
have done the like with our coat-sleeves, leaving a little cuff
glittering with buttons, and above that we have cut a great slit, all to
show the marvel of our linen.
There were two distinct forms of dress for men in the reign of
Charles II. In the years immediately after the monarchy restoration
short jackets and frilled ribbons abounded. This shows the dress
favoured by many men during the first half of the reign. The main feature of
is the volume of ribbon groups and ribboning, a short sleeve jacket to
display the fulsome sleeve of the full shirt.
We tie
our cravats in long, stiff bows or knot them tight, and allow the wide
lace ends to float gracefully.
Feather Hats, Shoes & Cloaks
Our hats, broad-brimmed and stiff, are loaded with feathers; our
little cloaks are barred with silk and lace and gold cord; our shoes are
square-toed and high-heeled, and are tied with a long-ended bow of
ribbon.
Ribbon reigns triumphant: it ties our periwigs into bunches at the
ends; it hangs in loops round our waists; it ties our shirt-sleeves up
in several places; it twists itself round our knees.
It is on our hats
and heads, and necks and arms, and legs and shoes, and it peers out of
the tops of our boots. Divines rave, moralists rush into print, to no
purpose.
The names seem to convey a sense of luxury: dove-coloured silk
brocade, Rhingrave breeches, white lutestring seamed all over with
scarlet and silver lace, sleeves whipt with a point lace, coat trimmed
and figured with silver twist or satin ribbon; canvas, camblet, galloon
and shamey, vellam buttons and taffety ribbons.
The cannons, those
bunches of ribbons round our knees, and the confidents, those bunches of
curls by our ladies' cheeks, do not shake at the thunderings of
Mr. Baxter or other moral gentlemen who regard a Maypole as a stinking
idol. Mr. Hall writes on 'The Loathsomeness of Long Hair,' Mr. Prynne on
'The Unloveliness of Lovelocks,' and we do not care a pinch of rappe.
Little moustaches and tiny lip beards grow under careful treatment,
and the ladies wear a solar system in patches on their cheeks.
The Ladies
The ladies soon escaped the bondage of the broad Puritan collars, and
all these had hid was exposed.
Ladies Sleeves
The sleeves left the arms bare to the
elbow, and, being slit above and joined loosely by ribbons, showed the
arm nearly to the shoulder. The sleeves of these dresses also followed
the masculine fashion of little cuffs and tied-up linen under-sleeves.
The bodices came to a peak in front and were round behind.
The Skirts
The skirts
were full, satin being favoured, and when held up showed a satin
petticoat with a long train.
The ladies, for a time, indulged in a
peculiar loop of hair on their foreheads, called a 'fore-top,' which
gave rise to another fashion, less common, called a 'taure,' or bull's
head, being an arrangement of hair on the forehead resembling the close
curls of a bull.
The loose curls on the forehead were called 'favorites'; the long locks arranged to hang away from the face over the
ears were called 'heart-breakers'; and the curls close to the cheek were
called 'confidents.'
This change
separates the old world of dress from the new; it is the advent of
frocked coats, the ancestor of our frock-coat.
It finishes completely
the series of evolutions beginning with the old tunic, running through
the gown stages to the doublet of Elizabethan times, lives in the half
coat, half doublet of Charles I, and ends in the absurd little jackets
of Charles II, who, sartorially, steps from the end of the Middle Ages
into the New Ages, closes the door on a wardrobe of brilliant
eccentricity, and opens a cupboard containing our first frock-coat.
It is not really necessary for me to remind the reader that one of the
best companions in the world, Samuel Pepys, was the son of a tailor.
Possibly - I say possibly because the argument is really absurd - he may
have inherited his great interest in clothes from his father. You see
where the argument leads in the end: that all men to take an interest in
clothes must be born tailors' sons. This is no more true of Adam, who
certainly did interest himself, than it is of myself.
Pepys was educated at St' Paul's School, went to Trinity College,
Cambridge, got drunk there, and took a scholarship. He married when he
was twenty-two a girl of fifteen, the daughter of a Huguenot.
He was
born in 1633, three years after the birth of Charles II, of outrageous
but delightful memory, and he commenced his Diary in 1660, the year in
which Charles entered London, ending it in 1669, owing to his increasing
weakness of sight.
He was made Secretary to the Admiralty in 1672,
in 1673 he became a member of Parliament, was sent to the Tower as a
Papist in 1679, and released in 1680. In 1684 he became President of the
Royal Society, and he died in 1703, and is buried in St' Olave's,
Crutched Friars.
Pepys mentions, in 1660, his coat with long skirts, fur cap, and buckles
on his shoes. The coat was, doubtless, an old-fashioned Cromwellian coat
with no waist.
Later he goes to see Mr. Calthrop, and wears his white suit with silver
lace, having left off his great skirt-coat. He leaves Mr. Calthrop to
lay up his money and change his shoes and stockings.
He mentions his scarlet waistclothes, presumably a sash, and regards Mr.
John Pickering as an ass because of his feathers and his new suit made
at the Hague.
He mentions his linning stockings and wide cannons.
This
mention of wide cannons leads me to suppose that at this time any
ornament at the knee would be called cannons, whether it was a part of
the breeches or the stockings, or a separate frill or bunch of ribbons
to put on.
On July 1, still in the same year, comes home his fine camlett cloak and
gold buttons; also a silk suit. Later he buys a jackanapes coat with silver buttons. Then he and Mr. Pin, the tailor, agree upon a
velvet coat and cap ('the first I ever had'). He buys short black
stockings to wear over silk ones for mourning.
On October 7 he says that, long cloaks being out of fashion, he must
get a short one.
He speaks of a suit made in France for My Lord costing
£200. He mentions ladies' masks.
In 1662 his wife has a pair of peruques of hair and a new-fashioned
petticoat of sancenett with black, broad lace.
His new lace band is so neat that he is resolved they shall be his great
expense. He wears a scallop. In 1663 he has a new black cloth suit, with
white linings under all - as the fashion is - to appear under the
breeches.
The costume plate shows a woman who has adopted the fair golden locks
hairstyle and twirled into ringlets which are tied with a ribbon
which is dressed
over a frame at the sides.
The Queen wears a white-laced waistcoat and a crimson short
petticoat. Ladies are wearing hats covered with feathers.
God willing, he will begin next week to wear his three-pound periwig.
He has spent last month (October) £12 on Miss Pepys, and £55 on his
clothes. He has silk tops for his legs and a new gown. He has a
close-bodied coat, light-coloured cloth with a gold edge. He sees Lady Castlemaine
in yellow satin with a pinner on.
In 1664 his wife begins to wear light-coloured locks.
In 1665 there is a new fashion for ladies of yellow bird's-eye hood.
There is a fear of the hair of periwigs during the Plague. Even in the
middle of the Plague Pepys ponders on the next fashion.
On October 8 the King says he will set a thrifty fashion in clothes. At
this momentous date in history we must break for a minute from our
friend Pepys, and hear how this came about.
Evelyn had given the King
his pamphlet entitled 'Tyrannus, or the Mode'. The King reads the
pamphlet, and is struck with the idea of the Persian coat. A long pause
may be made here, in which the reader may float on a mental cloud back
into the dim ages in the East, and there behold a transmogrified edition
of his own frock-coat gracing the back of some staid philosopher.
Evelyn
had also published 'Mundus Muliebris; or, the Ladies' Dressing-Room
Unlocked.'
On or about October, 1666 there was a clear change which came over men's dress.
John Evelyn introduced Charles II to the new-fashioned vest or body-coat.
So, only one month after the Great Fire of London, only a short time
before the Dutch burnt ships in the Medway, only a year after the
Plague, King Charles decides to reform the fashion.
By October 13 the
new vests are made, and the King and the Duke of York try them on.
On
the fifteenth the King wears his in public, and says he will never
change to another fashion. 'It is,' says Pepys, 'a long cassocke close
to the body, of black cloth and pinked with white silk under it, and a
coat over it, and the legs ruffled with black ribband like a pigeon's
legs'.
Ladies Short Skirts - Stuarts 1666
The ladies, to make an alteration, are to wear short skirts. Nell
Gwynne had a neat ankle, so I imagine she had a hand in this fashion.
On October 17 the King, seeing Lord St' Alban in an all black suit, says
that the black and white makes them look too much like magpies. He
bespeaks one of all black velvet.
Sir Philip Howard increases in the Eastern fashion, and wears a
nightgown and a turban like a Turk.
On November 2 Pepys buys a vest like the King's.
On November 22 the King of France, Louis XIV, who had declared war
against England earlier in the year, says that he will dress all his
footmen in vests like the King of England. However, fashion is
beyond the power of royal command, and the world soon followed in the
matter of the Persian coat and vest, even to the present day.
Next year, 1667, Pepys notes that Lady Newcastle, in her velvet cap
and her hair about her ears, is the talk of the town. She wears a number
of black patches because of the pimples about her mouth, she is
naked-necked (no great peculiarity), and she wears a just au corps,
which is a close body-coat.
Pepys notices the shepherd at Epsom with his wool-knit stockings of
two colours, mixed. He wears a new camlett cloak. The shoe-strings have
given place to buckles, and children wear long coats.
In 1668 his wife wears a flower tabby suit ('everybody in love with
it').
He is forced to lend the Duke of York his cloak because it rains.
His barber agrees to keep his periwig in order for £1 a year. He
buys a black bombazin suit.
In 1669 his wife wears the new French gown called a sac; he pays 55s.
for his new belt. His wife still wears her old flower tabby gown. So
ends the dress note in the Diary.
Reigned twenty-five years: 1660-1685.
Born 1630. Married, 1662, Katherine of Portugal.
This costume history information consists of Pages 365-382 of the chapter on the
mid 17th century dress in the 25 YEAR REIGN era of
Charles The Second 1660-1685 and taken from English Costume by Dion Clayton Calthrop.
The 36 page section consists of a text copy of the book ENGLISH
COSTUME PAINTED & DESCRIBED BY DION CLAYTON CALTHROP. Visuals,
drawings and painted fashion plates in the book have a charm of their
own and are shown amid the text. The book covers both male and female
dress history of over 700 years spanning the era 1066-1830.
This page is about restoration dress in
the reign of Stuart King Charles II 1660-1685.
For the Introduction to this book see this
introduction written by Dion Clayton Calthrop. I have adjusted
the images so they can be used for colouring worksheets where pupils add
some costume/society facts.
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This costume history information consists of Pages 365-382 of the chapter on the
mid 17th century dress in the 25 YEAR REIGN era of
Charles The Second 1660-1685 and taken from English Costume by Dion Clayton Calthrop.
On July 1, still in the same year, comes home his fine camlett cloak and
gold buttons; also a silk suit. Later he buys a jackanapes coat with silver buttons. Then he and Mr. Pin, the tailor, agree upon a
velvet coat and cap ('the first I ever had'). He buys short black
stockings to wear over silk ones for mourning.
