14th century THE MIDDLE AGE

IN EUROPE

REGION

INTRODUCTION• Fashion in fourteenth-century Europe was

marked by the beginning of a period of experimentation with different forms of clothing.

• The draped garments and straight seams of previous centuries were replaced by curved seams and the beginnings of tailoring, which allowed clothing to more closely fit the human form. Also, the use of lacing and buttons allowed a more snug fit to clothing.

FABRICS USED• Wool was the most important

material for clothing, due to its numerous favorable qualities, such as the ability to take dye and its being a good insulator

• Woodblock printing of cloth was known throughout the century, and was probably fairly common by the end; this is hard to assess as artists tended to avoid trying to depict patterned cloth due to the difficulty of doing so. Embroidery in wool, and silk or gold thread for the rich, was used for decoration.

• Silk was the finest fabric of all. • The well-off could afford

woven brocades from Italy.• Fur was mostly worn as an

inner lining for warmth; inventories from Burgundian villages show that even there a fur-lined coat (rabbit, or the more expensive cat) was one of the most common garments.

Men’s clothing • Shirt :The innermost layer of clothing were

the breeches, a loose undergarment, usually made of linen, which was held up by a belt.Next came the shirt, which was generally also made of linen, and which was considered an undergarment, like the breeches.[

• Hose  made out of wool were used to cover the legs, and were generally brightly colored, and often had leather soles, so that they did not have to be worn with shoes. The shorter clothes of the second half of the century required these to be a single garment like modern tights, whereas otherwise they were two separate pieces covering the full length of each leg. Hose were generally tied to the breech belt, or to the breeches themselves, or to a doublet.

• A doublet was a buttoned jacket that was generally of hip length. Similar garments were called cotehardie,.[These garments were worn over the shirt and the hose.

• An overgown, tunic, or kirtle was usually worn over the shirt or doublet. As with other outer garments, it was generally made of wool.Over this, a man might also wear an over-kirtle, cloak, or a hood. Servants and working men wore their kirtles at various lengths, including as low as the knee or calf. However the trend during the century was for hem-lengths to shorten for all classes.

HEADRESS • Man wearing a chaperon, Italy, late 14th

century

• During this century, the chaperon made a transformation from being a utilitarian hood with a small cape to becoming a complicated and fashionable hat worn by the wealthy in town settings. This came when they began to be worn with the opening for the face placed instead on the top of the head.

• Belts were worn below waist at all times, and very low on the hips with the tightly fitted fashions of the latter half of the century. Belt pouches or purses were used, and long daggers, usually hanging diagonally to the front.

WOMEN’S CLOTHING• The innermost layer of a woman's

clothing was a linen or woolen chemise or smock, some fitting the figure and some loosely garmented, 

• Women also wore hose or stockings, although women's hose generally only reached to the knee.

• Gowns and outerwear• Over the chemise, women wore a loose or

fitted gown called a  kirtle, usually ankle or floor-length, and with trains for formal occasions. Fitted kirtles had full skirts made by adding triangular gores to widen the hem without adding bulk at the waist. Kirtles also had long, fitted sleeves that sometimes reached down to over the knuckles.

• Various sorts of overgowns were worn over the kirtle. When fitted, this garment is often called a cotehardie and might have hanging sleeves and sometimes worn with a jeweled or metal worked belt.

• Outdoors, women wore cloaks , often lined in fur.

• The Houppelande was also adopted by women late in the century. Women invariably wore their Houppelandes floor-length, the waistline rising up to right underneath the bust, sleeves very wide and hanging, like angel sleeves.

HEADRESS• Married women in Northern and

Western Europe wore some type of headcovering.

• The barbet was a band of linen that passed under the chin and was pinned on top of the head; it descended from the earlier wimple which was now worn only by older women, widows, and nuns.

• The barbet was worn with a linen fillet or headband, or with a linen cap called a coif, with or without acouvrechef  (Kerchief)or veil overall.

FOOTWEAR• Footwear during the fourteenth

century generally consisted of the turnshoe, which was made out of leather. It was fashionable for the toe of the shoe to be a long point, which often had to be stuffed with material to keep its shape. A carved wooden-soled sandal-like type of clog or overshoe called a patten would often be worn over the shoe outdoors, as the shoe by itself was generally not waterproof.