Dictionary:

clothing

  (klō'THĭng)

1. Clothes considered as a group; wearing apparel.
2. A covering.

Exercise has become extremely popular and sports clothes manufacturers have been quick to respond to consumer demand. Each sport has its own specific clothing requirements, but the most important consideration for the general exerciser is that clothes are comfortable, that they allow the body to breathe normally, and that they stretch to allow maximum freedom of movement. There is no need to buy expensive designer sports clothes, some of which are more suited to the poser than the exerciser. Loose-fitting cotton T-shirts, high-cut elasticated shorts, and one-piece leotards with tights which fit snugly over the legs are popular and fulfil the basic requirements. It is also important to wear a tracksuit or shell suit at the start and end of an exercise session to prevent chills. If the temperature is very low, the best way to keep warm is by wearing two or more layers of clothes. The inner layer should allow sweat to escape so that you will not get wet. The outer layer should be wind-resistant, waterproof, and ideally should also let sweat escape. Up to 40 per cent of body heat can be lost through the head, so you should wear a hat in cold weather. You should not overdress or you might overheat during exercise. It is a good idea to wear an outer layer which can be zipped open for quick cooling off.

Gloves are a very useful accessory for several sports. Weight-lifters use fingerless gloves to improve grip and to prevent blisters forming; cyclists use padded gloves to reduce the risk of injuring the delicate structures in the palm of the hand when gripping handlebars for long periods; and runners often put on thin woollen gloves to keep their hands warm in cold weather.

Probably the most important parts of the body to clothe properly are the feet. Padded socks made from cotton or a cotton-wool mixture absorb sweat and help protect the feet from blisters and other injuries. A wide range of footwear is available, but it is important to obtain shoes specifically designed for your activity and which suit your own requirements (see training shoes).

Those exercising as part of a weight reduction programme should avoid rubberized or plastic suits as they prevent heat loss and can be very dangerous. Despite claims to the contrary, these suits do not accelerate fat loss. See also clo unit.

noun

Articles worn to cover the body: apparel, attire, clothes, dress, garment (used in plural), habiliment (often used in plural), raiment. Informal dud (used in plural), tog (used in plural). Slang thread (used in plural). See put on/take off.

Overview of traditional and modern clothes in the Middle East.

Most contemporary Muslim societies reflect both old and the new realities. Resurgence of religion and nationalist attitudes of the postcolonial (twentieth-century) era are reflected in the modes of clothing. The traditional modes remain strongly defended and sometimes enforced by the governments of some Islamic nations. The great shift in political, social, and religious participation of women in many Muslim nations has affected clothing styles as well. In the twentieth century, there were two opposing models for Muslim women: the Westernized
lifestyle prominent among minor upperclass and elites, and the more restrictive, traditional "Islamic" way of life for the majority of women. A third, alternative lifestyle that has attracted a large number of Muslim women is both Islamic and modern, the result of more education and an understanding of the difference between the patriarchal interpretation of Islam and the text of the Qurʾan by the religious ulama.

Historical Background

Very little has been written regarding the dress of Arabs in classical historical literature. In terms of the Near Eastern people, more visual evidence survived
in forms of stone carvings. The earliest evidence of Arab clothing from the first and second millennia B.C.E. shows that scant clothing was worn with a variety of headdresses. Men and women wore almost identical clothing in the early Islamic era of the seventh century and the time of jahiliyya (pre-Islamic era), as is still the case today among non-urban inhabitants of the Middle Eastern regions.

Arab material culture was influenced by contact with other great empires. Arab Muslim rulers influenced the clothing styles of the countries they ruled, while the fashion styles of the countries ruled influenced the rulers. Many customs regarding clothes have roots in ancient Near Eastern (Iranian plateau, Iraq) superstition found also in the Talmud, and still are practiced as they were during the jahiliyya. From the time of the Prophet (seventh century forward), early Islamic clothes fashions were an extension of the preceding period, with some modifications for new Islamic moral codes after the prophet Muhammad. The clothes of the villagers and bedouins of the Middle East are simpler, more functional, and more suitable to the climate and geography of the regions than those of urban dwellers, who are far more conscious of conservative modes of behavior.

In the urban Middle Eastern regions, Western styles of dress for the most part have replaced traditional clothing. Westernization of the Middle Eastern clothes styles is in itself unique and innovative at times and, importantly, accepted by the indigenous population. Traditional items of clothing mix with Western styles. For example, it is common to see Arab men of the Gulf region wearing the traditional long, ankle-length jillaba, or dishdasha, kaffiya, and agal along with a Western-style man's suit jacket and dress shoes.

Headgear

Among the most important items of clothing for men is the headgear, and the most common form of head dress for men is the imama, or turban. Historically, turbans were used for purposes other than merely covering the head - for example, for hiding objects, tying down a person, or using as a prayer rug. Turbans were wrapped in a variety of styles, as well. It was customary to leave a corner of the imama free to serve as a veil to protect the wearer against heat, dust, and the evil eye, and to conceal the wearer's identity. The locus of a man's honor and reputation was his head; therefore, to cover the head was proper and dignified and to leave it uncovered was considered shameful. In the book Palestinian Costumes Shelagh Weir notes: "Men swore oaths on their turbans, and the removal of a man's turban in anger was a slur and provocation and could necessitate material compensation."

The turban has long been worn by both Muslims and non-Muslims. The English word turban derives from the Persian dulband via the Turkish turban or tulbent. In Persian, the most common word for turban is amama, from the Arabic form of the word imama. Other less commonly known Persian terms for imama are mandil and dastar-e-sar.

The imama is usually wrapped around a small cap, which is placed at the crown of the head. This small cap is called aragh chin (Persian sweat collector), tubior araqiyya in Arabic. The early turban did not have the symbolic significance that it gained later, when it became associated with Islam and came to be referred to as "the badge of Islam" (sima al-Islam), "divider between unbelievers and believers" (hadiza bayn al-kufr wa al-iman), and "crowns of the Arabs" (tidjan al-arab).

According to an old Arab tradition, removal of a man's imama signified losing his manhood and abandoning his morals. Exceptions to this rule included removing the turban for prayer, to show before God, and for punishment, to show the public that the punished man is not respected. There are contradictory hadiths (Islamic traditions) regarding wearing or not wearing imama. In early Islamic times, the turban was forbidden to a person in a state of ihram (during the Hajj rituals).Turbans had to be removed before entering Mecca as a sign of humility and respect before God. The prophet Muhammad's turban was named al-sihab, "the cloud," and the prophet Muhammad was known as sahib al-imama, meaning "Master of the state turban," which is significant in terms of religious and community leadership. Numerous terms found in Arabic literature refer to different manners of wearing the turban: al-saʿb, al-masaba, al-mikbar, al-mashwad, and al-khamar.

In some Middle Eastern cultures, turbans were associated with sexual and social maturity. For example, in Palestinian culture, different types of headgear marked stages of maturity, and usually young boys were not allowed to wear a turban. The turban remained important even after the death of its wearer, and a traditional Muslim stone grave may have a mark with a turban. Non-Muslims who were ruled by Muslim Arab rulers were required to follow certain sumptuary laws regarding their garments. Among such obligations were the caliphs' orders to wear "the interchange," which referred to headgear, outerwear, shoes, and belts that would differentiate believers from nonbelievers in public. Non-Muslims were required to use special marks on their turbans to segregate them visually from Muslims.

In addition to marked turbans, the size and color of the turban was a badge of identification for certain classes and ages of people. The color associations have changed over time and place with various Muslim Arab rulers. For example, black turbans were associated with officials during the Abbasid period (ca. 750 - 950), and red was a sign of high rank. The Safavid court of Iran during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries adopted a particular form of turban that contained a tall, red stick at its center. This red stick became a religious and political divider between the official Shiʿite court of
Iran and its rival, the Ottoman Turks. Safavid soldiers wearing red-stick turbans were known as qizel baş ("red heads"), by the Turks. Religious and learned scholars wore smoothly wrapped flat, white turbans. Yellow was reserved for Jews, blue for Christians. Apparently, at various times the colors red and purple were also reserved mostly for Jews and Christians.

Men in the prime of life wore turbans in bright, warm colors; men of fifty exchanged their colored turbans for plain white ones. Until the early part of the twentieth century green turbans were worn by hajjis (men who have made the pilgrimage to Mecca) and by sada (men who claim descent from the house of the prophet Muhammad) to indicate a religious status with high social value. The extensive use of green turbans by illegitimate users led to the replacement
of the green turban with the black turban, to distinguish the legitimate sada. In Iran after the Islamic Revolution of 1978, where separation of mosque and state is nonexistent, identification as a cleric denotes access to power, so it is significant that white turbans are associated with theologians and scholars, and black turbans indicate an association of the wearer to the house of the prophet Muhammad. There is no way to guarantee the legitimacy of the turban color vis à vis its intended meaning by its wearer. In general, the public trusts the wearer on this issue.

Because the turban originally was considered a part of a man's attire, traditionally, Arab men objected to women wearing this symbol of manhood. However, some literary references indicate that women at times in various parts of the Arab world wore turbans for certain occasions, perhaps in the privacy of the home. Young women sometimes wore turbans to appear more attractive, and when a woman gave birth to her first baby, she wore a turban comprised of six yards of material. After the second baby, she wore a turban with six additional yards. Northern Iraqi women wore turbans made of printed material and decorated with Ottoman Turkish gold coins. The practice of women wearing turbans is not unusual. and it is present even in the modern history of fashion, where there is an affinity for "exotic" headgear.

Another popular form of Arab headgear is the agal, which is a ringed cord or rope that goes over the headscarf worn by men in the Arabian Peninsula, Iraq, Syria, and Palestine. The head rope was originally a camel hobble (the word agal means "to hobble") that was carried on the head when not in use. Later, this rope came to distinguish the bedouins of north and central Arabia (and the ruling families descended from them) from other bedouins. The earliest reliable report on the agal dates back to the early eighteenth century, from a picture depicting the imam Abdullah Ibn Saʿud wearing an elaborate and highly decorative type of agal that is sometimes called mugassab.

Along with the agal, men wear the Arabic kaffiya (or pocu, pronounced poshu in Turkish and the dialect of the Turkish Kurds). The kaffiya (also sham-agh or hatta) is a head cloth folded diagonally and secured on the head by the agal. Men from the Arabian Peninsula, Syria, Iraq, and Palestine wear the kaffiya. It comes in a variety of designs and colors that denote tribal affiliation. In modern history it has acquired another layer of meaning as a symbol of solidarity among Palestinians and their supporters in their quest for political and geographical autonomy. It is sometimes worn in defiance, as if a substitute for the long outlawed Palestinian flag. Like the black-and-white kaffiya of Yasir Arafat, chairman of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, which is worn by both Palestinian men and women as a sign of unity, the pocu has the same symbolic meaning for independence of the Kurds under the autonomy of the Turkish government. The pocu is also black and white, which are the colors associated with urban Kurdish intellectual men and women. It signifies political leftism, cultural freedom, and rights to an independent state. Both the pocu and kaffiya are draped over the shoulders by men and women, worn like a scarf on the head by women, or worn in the traditional manner with the agal by men only.

Another popular headdress for men is the fez, a word derived from Fez, a city in Morocco where it traditionally is manufactured. It is a brimless, cone-shaped, flat-crowned hat that usually has a tassel made of silk. The fez is made of red felt and is worn in Syria, Egypt, North Africa, and Palestine. Another name for the fez is tarbush or tarboosh. It was banned during the Tanzimat period in Turkey (beginning in 1839), when dress regulation took place. However, the tarbush also played a significant political role after the Young Turk Revolution of July 1908.

Also common among men in the Middle East region is the sidara, an Iraqi cap commonly made of black velvet, black lamb's wool, or black felt. The sidara is brimless, has a crown at the center, and folds like a pocket around the crown of the cap. It resembles the hat worn by the cadets in the U.S. military. This cap at one time was very popular with middle-class, upper-middle-class, and elite members of Iraqi society. The sidara lost its popularity after the 1958 deposition of the last king and the establishment of the Republic of Iraq. Muslim men of the subcontinent of India wear a similar hat in black as a sign of Muslim identity.

The kippah, commonly worn by Jewish men in the Middle East, is a skullcap that is also known in Yiddish as the yarmulke. Ashkenazic Jews wear the yarmulke at all times, and Sephardic Jewish men generally do not. In Israel, wearing a yarmulke also has social significance: Not wearing a yarmulke is like stating, "I'm not religious." The style of yarmulke in Israel can also indicate political and religious affiliation.

The most common headdress for Muslim women is some form of a veil. The generic term for veil, known by Muslims regardless of their cultural and linguistic heritage, is hijab. The hijab refers to a physical veil, a tangible item covering the hair and face of a woman. The word is of Arabic origin, from the verb hajaba, "to hide from the view, to conceal." Hijab also refers to the Muslim woman's dress code in accordance with interpretation of Islamic law. Muslim women around the world wear various forms of veils, each community according to its own cultural and religious interpretations, so there is no universal form of veiling among Muslim women. Other common interchangeable words for veil are yashmek, purda, chador, paranja, burqa, bushia, niqab, pece (pronounced peeche in Turkish), and khimar. Each represents some specific form of head or face veil commonly used by Muslims of various nationalities. The chador, which in Persian literally means "tent," is a form of hijab (head veil), consisting of a full-length semicircular piece of material. It is placed on top of the head and covers the entire body. It is held in place with one hand at all times. Sometimes a corner of it is pulled over the face to cover part of the mouth.

Other Clothing

Other important clothing for men and women are forms of long dress, wrap, outerwear gown, or caftan. The most common outerwear garment is the aba or abaʿa, also known as rida, which is an ankle-length loose mantle or coat worn by Arab men over the shoulders. The aba opens at the front with no fastening device and has two openings for the arms to be pulled through. Piping sewn on the aba goes around the entire edge of the garment and around the sleeves. Customarily the aba is draped over the shoulders rather than worn as a coat. The fabric used for making the aba or rida identifies its region of origin, and a clear distinction is not made between fabric and garment. Traditional wraps or mantles are worn in most traditional Islamic societies, yet there is a considerable variety of draping styles from one region to another. Wearing an aba has religious associations in some regions of the Islamic world such as Iran or Egypt. In Iran, a man wearing an aba and turban is identified as a non-secular person associated with the mosque and theological schools.

Another form of wrap or cloak is the burnoose, which is a large, one-piece, hooded cloak worn by men throughout the Maghrib (Northern Africa). The burnoose is also used in religious ceremony as the chasuble of the Coptic priests in Egypt. Yet another common form of cloak or wrap is the haik, which is a large, voluminous outer wrap, usually white, worn by both sexes throughout the Maghrib. The dishdasha is a long, A-line, ankle-length, long-sleeved, light-colored shirt worn by Arab men in the Gulf region. A similar style of man's garment commonly worn by men in Egypt is the jillaba.

Bibliography

Esposito, John L., ed. The Oxford History of Islam. Oxford, U.K.: Oxford University Press. 1999.

Lindisfarne-Tapper, Nancy, and Ingham, Bruce, ed. Languages of Dress in the Middle East. Surrey, U.K.: Curzon Press, 1997.

Shirazi, Faegheh. The Veil Unveiled: Hijab in Modern Culture. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2001.

Shirazi-Mahajan, Faegheh. "The Semiotics of the Turban: The Safavid era in Iran." Journal of the International Association of Costume 9 (1992): 67 - 87.

Weir, Shelagh. Palestinian Costumes. Austin: The University of Texas Press, 1989.

— FAEGHEH SHIRAZI

Clothing and fashion underwent several transformations in the early modern world, reflecting the changing social, political, religious, and economic forces of which they were a part and an expression. Though major shifts in patterns of production and consumption and the emergence of more varied fabrics and textiles had already taken place in the late Middle Ages, the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries represented a culmination of these trends as well as a distinct and dynamic period in which clothing became an innovative and rapidly changing style form in its own right. Reflecting a heightened clothes-consciousness, men and women constructed their identity by wearing garments that reshaped their bodies and created around them a fluid circulation of meanings. In this sense, clothing, as one writer put it, constituted a "worn world: a world of social relations put upon the wearer's body." At the same time, just as clothing served as a form of personal (if heavily restricted) self-inscription, larger historical developments of the time—changing warfare, the Protestant Reformation, even the emergence of national identity—influenced the choice of a slashed sleeve or a ballooning doublet.

The Early Modern Culture Industry: Production, Consumption, and Sumptuary Laws

Though textile centers had existed throughout Europe since the Middle Ages, the birth of the fashion industry originated in the city-states of Italy, where international trade, commercial innovation, and economic growth had coalesced since the twelfth century. The Crusades had opened the way for contact with Asia and, with it, the importation of more varied and luxurious fabrics. In northern Italian states such as Venice and Florence, import-export businesses coexisted with centers of fabric production that created huge fortunes and an accompanying consumer class eager for personal, status-enhancing display. Beginning in the fifteenth century especially, the hedonistic desire to spend on the part of those with more disposable wealth combined with a business strategy of "planned obsolescence" to produce clothes of a distinct cut, piecing, and fit that could be adopted and discarded as "fashion" by wealthy elites who suddenly did not wish to be seen in garments that could be considered out-of-date and behind the style curve of their rivals.

Constraints were placed on the circulation of clothing, however. Though they extended back to the Bible, early modern sumptuary laws had been formulated in the late Middle Ages to regulate consumption of luxury items and to reinforce existing social, economic, and occupational divisions by narrowly delineating items such as clothing or jewelry that an individual could wear. Intended to counter extravagance—which could be loosely defined, though silk, velvet, and brocades were strictly offlimits to the lower classes—laws also served the purpose of encouraging domestic production and protecting the manufacturing sector of a given country while upholding self-proclaimed standards of morality and decency. As a method of social control, sumptuary legislation also upheld hierarchies in a world where class distinctions, at least at the higher levels, could become blurred at times. Wealthy mercantilists, for example, gained economic strength during the early modern period, and proceeded to express themselves in the outer trappings of wealth. The result was a kind of egalitarianism of extravagance, as expressed by the wife of Phillipe Le Bel, who is said to have exclaimed, "I thought I was the Queen, but I see there are hundreds." In Tudor England, on the other hand, finer social distinctions were reinforced by injunctions, for example, that "None shall wear cloth of gold or silver, or silk of purpose color except Earls, all above that rank, and Knights of the King (and then only in their mantles)." Those on the margins—especially those on the margins—were also targeted for sartorial restriction: thus were Jews compelled to don either a star-shaped yellow badge or a yellow hat known as a bareta, while in Venice common prostitutes were required to proclaim their station through patches as well as bells, hats, or striped hoods. Sumptuary laws could be subverted or evaded, however, among those of the lower orders. To bypass the law that limited commoners to one color, some individuals as well as noblemen began to slash their garments—doublets, sleeves, hose—to expose the contrasting colors of the interior linings. Courtesans also could sometimes overcome such restrictions and, in fact, mimic the altogether more cloistered noblewomen with their own lavish stylings, down to the extreme shoes known as chopines, whose platforms could extend the length of three feet, elevating the woman to towering proportions and requiring her to support her stride with two sturdy male handlers.

Fashion High and Low

Sumptuary laws ensured that clothes reflected the age's social stratifications, with more variation occurring in the top ranks of society. Men as well as women were especially aware of the manipulative potentialities in dress and public image, and adorned themselves accordingly, but few did so with such notoriety and effect as Elizabeth I of England. Her astonishing wardrobe was a political expression in its own right, and a useful expedient: because much of her power came from projection—which was especially necessary when she witnessed no small number of threats to her throne, as well as limited funds in her treasury—her gowns were designed to impress with jewels and luxurious fabric, and could even be adapted to international fashion styles, depending on whose court—the French, an Italian city-state—she considered diplomatically useful at any one time. Elizabeth's dress in turn trickled down, at least to ladies of the more elevated class, with its status-enhancing ruffles, complicated bell-shaped sleeves, daunting underpinnings, heavily embroidered gowns, V-shaped waistlines, cinched, tight-fitting bodices, and choices of colors that ranged, in contemporary language, from Bristol Red to Puke and Popinjay Green. Men were equally influenced by Elizabeth's sartorial statements, adopting more elaborate embroidery motifs (including the Tudor rose) as well as rich fabrics and, of course, the ruff, which could extend to a foot outward. But male ornamentation—fanciful boots, rich materials, plentiful decoration—had preceded Elizabeth and been expressed most fully with her father, Henry VIII, whose own puffed styles borrowed from the Continent, most notably from the courts of Burgundy and France.

Among elites, shifts in styles occurred frequently over the course of the sixteenth century, moving from the relatively soft linearity of late Gothic and early Italian Renaissance clothing, when dress tended toward greater simplicity and consisted of a relatively restrained albeit beautifully tailored gown topped by huge sleeves, trailing skirts, and a square or rounded neckline. Headdresses completed the picture, and consisted of a sort of net or caul that seems to have contained the hair. Later on, the farthingale, a bell-shaped hoop skirt, dominated women's fashion, contributing to an increasingly stiff female posture. As Aphra Behn wrote in The Lady's Looking Glass, "I have seen a Woman . . . [who] has screw'd her Body in so fine a Form, that she dares no more stir a Hand, lift up an Arm, or turn her Head aside, than if, for the Sin of such a Disorder, she were to be turn'd into a Pillar of Salt; the less stiff and fix'd Statue of the two." With the introduction in the century of the aforementioned ruff, which enshrouded the neck in starch and lace, the effect was to render women as well as men all the more remote and unapproachable in appearance.

From the mid-sixteenth century on, such aesthetic cues were increasingly appropriated from Spain, where clothes forsook the body's natural contours and instead subjected it to even more geometric silhouettes. Dark silks and velvets were especially valued among those who preferred the classical baroque style, for it allowed them to showcase more effectively the precious stones and jewelry with which they adorned themselves, and which were frequently sewn into the fabric itself. The Spanish style was especially evident among men, who could, nevertheless, vary their adornment in the quest to project masculinity, wealth, status, and sexual allure. The shirt undergarment worn by an early modern man tended to be fitted closer to the body than that worn by a peasant, in order to accommodate the nearly always white linen doublet; nether hose, or pants, were a significant shift from the more gowned medieval world, with men opting for knee-length Venetian breeches or what were known as slops, or paned breeches, which puffed at the thigh and were sometimes adorned with a codpiece. Doublets were jacketlike ensembles that were fastened down the front, tended to come with a high neckline, and were topped by a straight-collared, richly ornamented cloak, almost always worn by noblemen. Despite the encroachments of new fabrics, cuts, and silhouettes for the male body, however, gowns were not entirely obsolete, especially in the early period of the age, when they continued to distinguish their wearers as clergy, scholars, or old and respected gentlemen.

Among the lower orders, the standard apparel for women began with a linen undergarment known as a chemise, or shift, a rectangular smock with long sleeves, a low square neck, and a hem that extended to the calf. Over this women wore one or two linen or wool skirts—cotton would not be mass-produced Europe until the eighteenth century—and supported the body and the garment with a snugly fitting (but not oppressively tight) vestlike bodice. Variations existed: for the Flemish market woman, for example, a linen undergarment was overlaid with a sleeveless kirtle—an open-fronted gown laced in the front—and a partlet, an item of clothing worn over the upper torso.

Surprisingly, more affordable dyestuffs ensured that colors could vary among the lower classes, ranging from pink, fawn, russet, peach, blue, green, and occasionally even bright red, though the latter was frequently associated solely with the upper classes. For a peasant man, on the other hand, the undergarment comprised a linen shirt similarly rectangular in cut—to prevent the linen from unraveling—with long cuffed sleeves and an optional collar. These were usually matched by knee-length breeches often finished with a loose, unstructured, and hip-length vest known as a jerkin, covered in the winter by a wool or linen cloak.

Historical Developments and Fashion

Fashion among the elite tended to be international in scope, to the point where Thomas Dekker compared the "English-mans suit" to a traitor's body: "the collar of his doublet and the belly in France; the wing and narrow sleeue in Italy; the shorte waist hangs over a Dutch botchers stall in Utrich; his huge sloppes speakes Spanish; Polonia [Poland] gives him his bootes; the blocke for his head alters faster than the feltmaker can fit him." The emergence of firmer national boundaries and identities in the early modern period, however, also reflected itself in clothing and in shifting cultural centers, from the Italian city-states to Spain and on to France. During the reign of Louis XIV, and especially from 1660 on, France played an increasingly important role in setting fashion, with gaudiness prevailing in men's dress and exemplified by tiny, open doublets and extremely baggy, knee-length trousers known as rhinegraves. Eventually rhinegraves fell out of fashion, though clothing continued to be decorated with such flourishes as ribbon bows.

Female fashion under Louis XIV was perhaps even more in flux, especially from the 1630s through the 1660s, evolving from high-waisted to long-waisted gowns, low, wide, and horizontal or oval-shaped necklines trimmed in lace, and sleeves set low on the shoulder, opening into a full ruff that ended below the elbow. For all its flourishes, however, women's dress in Louis's France tended to be more subdued and elegant than that of the beribboned male, accentuating in its silhouette the beauty of the female form.

With the emergence of more permanent armies among states, standardized military uniforms began to resurface for the first time since the Roman era. Whereas previously soldiers had either served different armies or were expected to provide their own fighting gear, uniforms now were fashioned to adorn the fighter in times of peace as well as war. Large textile factories in France became increasingly capable of churning out mass quantities of uniformly colored fabric that was cut and decorated by buttons, braiding, and cords in an unvarying manner. Military uniforms also influenced male civilian dress, making the coat or jacket more tight-fitting, with tailored contours, and taming the sleeves into the tubular and simple proportions known today. The soldier's broad-brimmed hat, or tricorn, became fashionable after the Thirty Years' War ended in 1648, as did rows of buttons and broad collars. Because men after the 1650s began to wear their hair much longer, large lace collars were made smaller and then replaced by strips of fabric that were transformed into knotted cravats or silk ribbon bows in the 1670s and 1680s. Jackets were then finished off with a waistcoat called la veste, as well as a knee-length suit jacket called a justaucorps and breeches less voluminous than had existed before. Despite the substitution of uniformed infantry fighting for armored cavalry attacks, metal sheathings continued to flourish at court, taking on more elaborate engravings. During the mid-sixteenth century especially, armor design was increasingly based on the forms and ornament found in classical art. This renaissance of pseudo-antique armor is most invariably associated with the celebrated name of Filippo Negroli, who was to become the most innovative and celebrated of the renowned armorers of Milan. Though Leonardo da Vinci had earlier sketched his fantastic armor and Verrocchio represented armor in sculpture, Negroli and his Milanese family produced unsurpassed embossed and damascened parade armors that entered into the collections (or perhaps even sheathed the bodies) of the dukes of Urbino as well as the Medici, who proclaimed a Negroli helmet "the greatest marvel."

The Protestant Reformation also played an enormous role in shifting fashion, and while it was not uniquely Protestant to condemn the excesses of dress—sumptuary laws were reinforced earlier on the grounds of morality—groups such as Calvinists or Puritans were especially vehement on the subject. According to James Durham, "men's minds are often infected with lascivious thoughts, and lustful inclinations, even by the use and sight of gaudy clothing; and light, loose, conceited minds discover themselves in nothing sooner than in their apparel, and fashions, and conceitedness in them." Because God "commendeth modesty," sobriety must prevail over clothes that "emasculateth or unmanneth" men and the "dressing of hair, powderings, washings, rings [and] jewels reproved in the daughters of Zion."

The "hethen garments, & Romish rags" of Catholic clergy were also viewed as betraying the precepts—if not the fashion sense—of Jesus and the early apostles. Renaissance popes and cardinals such as Cardinal Francesco Gonzaga (1444–1483) had in fact been profligate, if not unsavory, in their spending habits and choice of dress, with their green or crimson damask gowns and silk slippers earning the ire of Girolamo Savonarola's outraged sensibilities. In comparison to the popes, reformers such as Martin Luther or Thomas Cranmer appeared almost homely in their dark cassocks and simple girdles, while Calvinists or English Puritans took the "plain style" to its extremes, adopting a basic and austere black more appropriate to their religion. The issue of a priest's vestments had in fact been a pressing question in the sixteenth-century clothing controversy in England, when clergy opposed wearing the cap and gown in daily life and the surplice in church; the issue was not a shallow one, as garments were thought to both influence identity and to even align the outer self with one's inner faith.

Theatrical productions, albeit in more altered forms, continued to be accepted (and created) by Protestants, though the more radical among them could inveigh against frivolous masques and entertainments. Clothing certainly contributed to the shaping of theater, and particularly English theater, which spent the greatest amount of its budget on costume. Sumptuous display ensured good box office; at the same time, the presence and circulation of clothes played a central role not only as dramatic devices within plays such as Thomas Middleton's Your Five Gallants, but also situated the identity of central and supportive characters alike. Shakespeare's Twelfth Night, with its sartorial transformations of Viola into Cesario, is perhaps the best-known example that utilizes the gender- and identity-shaping potentialities of clothing. Shakespeare, however, was borrowing from a rich theatrical tradition of transvestism, in which the so-called "woman beneath" or "man beneath" (or "boy beneath") was hidden by the cover of clothes, voice, and gesture. Masques were also forums for such transgressions, and in the sequins and gilded costumes and elaborately patterned and stitched velvet masks, participants found a liberating refuge of subversion, akin to the costumed inversions that existed among the lower orders at Carnival time.

Contemporary clothing practices, of course, mutually influenced early modern attitudes toward the body, including ideals—sometimes blurred ideals—of beauty, ugliness, femininity, and masculinity. Emphasis on women's full figures had prevailed in the earlier era, though the introduction of increasingly restrictive and breast-compressing whalebone bodices reflected or inspired a slimmer ideal, at least in the waist. Men were equally constrained by their own fashions, including the legemphasizing hose, the form-fitting doublet, or even the frequently exaggerated codpiece. In another sense, clothing also served the early modern religious consciousness as a reminder, in Martin Luther's phrase, of the "wretched Fall"; though the nakedness of Adam and Eve was replaced by fig clothing and God-provided animal skins—the "robe[s] of righteousness," according to John Milton—clothes nevertheless served for theologians as a constant evocation, a memory, of one's sin, shame, and death.

Bibliography

Arnold, Janet. Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd. Leeds, U.K., 1988.

Ashelford, Jane. A Visual History of Costume: The Sixteenth Century. London and New York, 1983.

Jones, Ann Rosalind, and Peter Stallybrass. Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory. Cambridge, U.K., and New York, 2000.

Weiditz, Christoph. Authentic Everyday Dress of the Renaissance. New York, 1994.

—SARAH COVINGTON

Artificial covering for protection or decoration or as a livery.

• animal c. — includes rugs for cattle and horses and for Sharlea sheep in sheds. For dogs there is a great variety of decorative clothing limited only by the imagination of the owner. Pleasure horses are also likely to have a wardrobe of rugs including a lightweight cooling-off rug and a waterproof mackintosh, a hood to cover the head and neck, a cap to cover the head only, hoof boots of various sorts, protective leg bandages, a tail sock and eye goggles.
• protective c. — for the veterinarian; this includes coveralls, rubber knee boots, rubber or plastic sleeves and gloves, obstetric gowns, surgical gowns, caps, masks and overshoes.