As the semester gets underway, we’re pleased to offer this new episode of Southampton History Speaks! In this episode you can listen to Maria Hayward talk to Rachel Herrmann about the clothing of Charles II and Henry VIII, how early modern males turn our ideas of accessorizing upside down, and about what sorts of material culture students can use in their own research and writing.

You’ll learn that portraiture of the early sixteenth century was all about displaying the bulk of the upper body, whereas by the second half of the sixteenth century artists were more concerned with depicting the upper body’s shape. You’ll find out how the clothing of Charles II differed from Henry VIII’s, and if you wondered who really liked wearing drab colours, you’ll know by the end of the episode. You’ll hear how early modern males turn our ideas of accessorizing upside down, and about what sorts of material culture students can use in their own research and writing. Finally, you can listen to Maria talk about her collaborative work with Cambridge historian Professor Ulinka Rublack and TONY award-winning  costume designer and dress historian Jenny Tiramani as they asked questions about the sartorial life of an ordinary accountant on the make.

You can right-click on this episode link to open it in a new window and stream the podcast without having to download it, or you can subscribe to the podcast in iTunes U. If you want to learn more about History at the University of Southampton, you can visit our website, follow us on Twitter, or like us on Facebook. We continue to welcome feedback about things we can do to improve, or about topics you’d like to see covered in future. A list of suggested reading is also included below. Thanks for stopping by!

Suggested Reading

Early modern clothing: different approaches

Arnold, Patterns of Fashion: the Cut and Construction of Clothes for Men and Women c. 1560-1620, (London and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1985).

Arnold, Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’d, (Leeds: Maney, 1988).

Arnold, S. Levey, and J. Tiramani, Patterns of Fashion 4: The Cut and Construction of Linen Shirts, Smocks, Neckwear, Headwear and Accessories for Men and Women c. 1540–1660 (London: Macmillan, 2008).

Baumgarten, What Clothes Reveal: The Language of Clothing in Colonial and Federal America, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2002).

Breward, The Culture of Fashion: A New History of Fashionable Dress, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995).

R. Jones and P. Stallybrass, Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001).

North and J. Tiramani eds., Seventeenth Century Women’s Dress Patterns 1, (London: V&A Publishing, 2011).

Ribeiro, Dress and Morality, (London: Holmes and Meier Publishers, 1986)

Styles, ‘Dress in history: Reflections on a contested domain’, Fashion Theory, 2.4, (1998), pp. 383-90.

Taylor, The Study of Dress History, (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002).

J. Vincent, Dressing the Elite: Clothes in Early Modern England, (London: Berg, 2003).

J. Vincent, The Anatomy of Fashion: Dressing the Body from the Renaissance to Today. (Oxford and New York: Berg, 2009).

Ulinka Rublack

Rublack, Dressing Up: Cultural Identity in Renaissance Europe, 9Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010).

Rublack, ‘Matter in the material renaissance’, Past and Present, 219, (2013), pp. 41-84.

Rublack and M. Hayward eds., The First Book of Fashion: The Book of Clothes of Matthaeus Schwarz and Veit Konrad Schwarz of Augsburg, (London: Bloomsbury, 2015).

Henry VIII and the 1547 inventory

A. Hayward, Rich Apparel: Clothing and the Law in Henry VIII’s England, (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2009).

A. Hayward and P. Ward eds., The Inventory of King Henry VIII: Volume 2 Textiles and Dress, (London: Harvey Miller for the Society of Antiquaries, 2012).

R. Starkey ed., The Inventory of King Henry VIII: Volume 1 The Transcript (London: Harvey Miller for the Society of Antiquaries, 1998).

Stuart clothing

Ribeiro, Fashion and Fiction: Dress in Art and Literature in Stuart England, (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2005).

Staniland, ‘The king on the scaffold’, History Today, 49.1, (1999), pp. 41-43.