This exhibition explores the evolution of courtly clothing from the "Fashion Revolution" around 1330 to the flowering of the Renaissance in France following the accession of King François I in 1515. During this period, the modern notion of changing fashion was reborn. Because few actual garments from the Middle Ages survive, we use the art of this era — illuminated manuscripts and early printed books — to reveal its evolving styles. Concentrating on France and Flanders, this show also makes the occasional foray into England, Germany, and Holland. In addition, the exhibition touches on the potential impact of political unrest and social upheaval on the history of fashion during one of the world's more calamitous eras. The vicissitudes of the Hundred Years' War, the occupation of Paris by the English, and the arrival of the Italian Renaissance in northern Europe, for example, influenced clothing styles. Also explored here are the ways in which artists used clothing (garments actually worn) and costume (fantastic garments not actually worn) to help contemporaneous viewers interpret a work of art. The garments depicted were often encoded clues to the wearer's identity and moral character.

This exhibition is generously underwritten by a gift in memory of Melvin R. Seiden and by a grant from the Samuel H. Kress Foundation.

Major support is provided by The Coby Foundation, Ltd., with additional assistance from the van Buren family in memory of Dr. Anne H. van Buren, and from the Janine Luke and Melvin R. Seiden Fund for Exhibitions and Publications.

The Fashion Revolution Explodes
ca. 1345–50
The four young men in this miniature are all dressed at the height of the new fashion. They wear the new short garment, the cote hardy: buttoned down the front, it is tight at the skirt, bodice, and sleeves. All sport chaperons, two of which are dagged (cut into decorative strips). Some wear delicate shoes, while the youth in blue wears chaussembles: hose with leather soles. The two women at the left wear the open surcot. The woman in blue wears the closed surcot, furnished with a lined slit for access to the kirtle. She also wears tippets: thin decorative bands of cloth falling from the elbow.

Jacques de Longuyon, Vows of the Peacock, in French
Belgium, Tournai, ca. 1345–50
245 x 175 mm
Gift of the Trustees of the William S. Glazier Collection, 1984; MS G.24, fols. 25v–26r

The "Fashion Revolution" began around 1330 with the invention of the set-in sleeve. Earlier garments were T-shaped, with sleeves of a piece with the body or sewn on a flat seam. The new technique (still in use today) cut sleeves with rounded tops and gathered them along basted threads into armholes in the bodice. This new tailoring, combined with the use of multiple buttons, made possible a snugly fitted bodice and tight sleeves. While providing more freedom of movement, the new garment for men—the cote hardy—also revealed the shapes of the wearer's torso and arms. The "Fashion Revolution" gave birth to men's modern dress, creating an outfit that was sharply differentiated from the dress of women.

Women's fashions, however, were also affected. Tighter bodices and sleeves became popular, as did exposed necks and shoulders. The sides of the outer garment, the surcot, now sometimes featured seductively large, peek-a-boo openings.

Men—and some women—turned the chaperon (a hood with an attached cape and tail) into a fashion accessory that lasted over a hundred years.