Clothing and social inequality in early modern Europe: introductory remarks

Abstract

In the European society of the Ancien Régime lifestyle was an effective pointer to the social class to which a family and its members belonged. Social hierarchies were reflected in patterns of consumption: the upper classes had a definite need for ostentation, since lavish spending made their position at the top of the social scale manifest. Clothing had a decisive function in this connection: clothes were undoubtedly the most visible marks of high living, embodying a whole series of status signals – the quality of the cloth, the richness of the accessories, the colours – clearly identifying the social rank of the wearer. Yet a number of recent studies on pre-industrial consumerism have shown that in England – chiefly, but not alone among European societies – a taste and feeling for consumer goods caught on among other social classes besides the upper. It follows that the correspondence between clothing – or more broadly, a consumer pattern – on the one hand, and rank, on the other, is not something one can apply mechanically. The web of connections between dress and social hierarchy in early modern Europe was highly complex and varied, as the ensuing remarks briefly suggest.