wardrobe

Dictionary: ward·robe (wôr'drōb') pronunciation

A tall cabinet, closet, or small room built to hold clothes.
Garments considered as a group, especially all the articles of clothing that belong to one person.
1. The costumes belonging to a theater or theatrical troupe.
2. The place in which theatrical costumes are kept.
The department in charge of wearing apparel, jewelry, and accessories in a royal or noble household.

[Middle English warderobe, from Old North French : warder, to guard + robe, garment; see robe.]

Search unanswered questions...

Enter a word or phrase...

British History: wardrobe

Top

Financial institution. As its name suggests, the wardrobe was originally the place in which the king's robes were placed for safe keeping, and where cash was held from which the king's personal expenses might be paid. The keeper of the wardrobe was also the treasurer of the household; he received moneys for its upkeep, checked the accounts of its departments, and rendered them to the Exchequer. The wars of Edward I and his successors boosted the wardrobe's significance further by making it the equivalent of a war treasury which travelled with the campaigning king. Subsequent rulers, however, continued to use the wardrobe for both regular household and military expenses although the Yorkist and early Tudor kings placed greater emphasis on the chamber for their private and ‘secret’ expenses.

WordNet: wardrobe

Top

Note: click on a word meaning below to see its connections and related words.

The noun has 3 meanings:

Meaning #1: a tall piece of furniture that provides storage space for clothes; has a door and rails or hooks for hanging clothes
Synonyms: closet, press

Meaning #2: collection of clothing belonging to one person

Meaning #3: collection of costumes belonging to a theatrical company

Wikipedia: Wardrobe

Top

For other uses, see Wardrobe (disambiguation).

This article does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed. (January 2008)

Wardrobe

A wardrobe (sometimes called an "armoire" the french word) is a standing closet used for storing clothes. The earliest wardrobe was a chest, and it was not until some degree of luxury was attained in regal palaces and the castles of powerful nobles that separate accommodation was provided for the sumptuous apparel of the great. The name of wardrobe was then given to a room in which the wall-space was filled with cupboards and lockers, the drawer being a comparatively modern invention. From these cupboards and lockers the modern wardrobe, with its hanging spaces, sliding shelves and drawers, evolved slowly.

History

A Chinese Ming Dynasty compound wardrobe made of rosewood, latter half of the 16th century.

Intricately carved French Oakley style Tallboy with under cabinet instead of a chest of drawers.

In its movable form as an oak "hanging cupboard" it dates back to the early 17th century where it was an early export product to England from America since English Forest lands were over forested or reserved for the navy. Consequently, these were sometimes referred to as an Oakley. For probably a hundred years such pieces, massive and cumbrous in form, but often with well-carved fronts, were produced in moderate numbers; then the gradual diminution in the use of oak for cabinet-making produced a change of fashion in favor of the more plentiful American walnut. (Ironically, the virgin American forests became successively Oak, then Maple with successive deforestation episodes.)

Walnut succeeded oak as the favourite material for furniture, but hanging wardrobes in walnut appear to have been made very rarely, although clothes presses, with drawers and sliding trays, were frequent.

During a large portion of the 18th century the tallboy was much used for storing clothes.

Wardrobe size; a common feature was to base future size on the eight small men method. A considered good size double wardrobe would thus be able to hold within its capacity, eight small men.

A modern fitted wardrobe.

In the nineteenth century the wardrobe began to develop into its modern form, with a hanging cupboard at each side, a press in the upper part of the central portion and drawers below. As a rule it was often of mahogany, but as satinwood and other hitherto scarce finely grained foreign woods began to be obtainable in considerable quantities, many elaborately and even magnificently inlaid wardrobes were made.

Where Chippendale and his school had carved, Sheraton, Hepplewhite and their contemporaries achieved their effects by the artistic employment of deftly contrasted and highly polished woods.

The first step in the evolution of the wardrobe was taken when the central doors, which had previously enclosed merely the upper part, were carried to the floor, covering the drawers as well as the sliding shelves, and were often fitted with mirrors.

		Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more
		British History. A Dictionary of British History. Copyright © 2001, 2004 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. Read more
		WordNet. WordNet 1.7.1 Copyright © 2001 by Princeton University. All rights reserved. Read more
		Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article "Wardrobe". Read more
		Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved. Read more

wardrobe

History

See also