14th and 16th Centuries
Fashion, Bodies, and Medieval Transformations
By Denis Bruna
It is not uncommon to read that fashion was invented in the Middle Ages, more specifically in the 14th century. Although some lasting clothing innovations from that time may indeed confirm this hypothesis, it sometimes seems more like an assertion. By the 14th century, there was already a clear differentiation between men’s and women’s clothing, and a distinct silhouette had emerged that metamorphosed and evolved over time, thus revealing a specific style of dress for each moment. But we must temper our enthusiasm, for if it is possible to elevate the 14th century to the noble status of precursor, it is at least partly due to the fact that it is characterized by an unprecedented number of written documents, and even more so pictorial ones, which allow us to assess the various changes in a given piece of clothing, as well as remarkable evolutions in the silhouette. Certain older texts, less numerous and less verbose, lead us to suspect striking transformations in clothing that could, eventually, push the history of fashion back a few decades, if not a century. In his book L’Europe au Moyen Age, Georges Duby, basing himself on young nobles in sumptuous garments and with affected gestures in the illuminated calendar *Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry*, painted by the Limbourg brothers between 1410 and 1416, speaks of "elegant" men and women, "frills," "refinements," sophisticated and extravagant costumes, and even haute couture. The historian is right to state that this haute couture – which we should instead consider a new concept of dress, to avoid the dangers of anachronism – "disguises the body, wrapping it in unreality, masking the attributes of men and women." It is precisely at the end of the Middle Ages, more than in any previous era, that one can measure the extent to which clothes wrap, disguise, and mask the body. Once adjusted, medieval clothing could reveal the body in a faithful and formal way, like a glove that fits the hand and adapts to its anatomy. However, instead of revealing the shapes of bodies by following their labyrinths of curves and counter-curves, these garments often suggested different shapes, falsifying the body that supported them. Clothing removed a little here, added a little there; in short, it created a new body. Thus, the natural body ceased to exist; what we had was a cultural body, emerging through a silhouette characteristic of a moment in time. Perhaps this is the moment to elaborate on the idea of fashion at the end of the Middle Ages, not as the emergence of a new type of garment, but rather as the development of a more concrete consciousness of the figure and a new concept that conceived of clothing as the creator of the body. Of course, this idea did not originate in the Middle Ages – women in Ancient Rome compressed their breasts with strips of fabric known as *mamillare* –, but this impulse seems to take on a new reality in the 14th and 15th centuries. Furthermore, the era matters little, for without the body, clothing has no shape of its own, other than that of a corpse or a lifeless mass of fabric. Some examples are quite eloquent, such as the Roman toga, the Indian sari, the loincloth, or the oriental turban, to name but a few, which, without the body that supports them, are simply pieces of fabric of greater or lesser length, to which shape and life are given through skillful techniques of wrapping, folding, and tying.
This idea of the body as a sculpture and clothing as its modeling is even more expressed in the Middle Ages with the emergence of a whole series of garments, some visible and others hidden, intended to modify the silhouette. In the feminine wardrobe, the *bliaut*, for example, emerged at the end of the 12th century – a long, wide tunic, adjusted at the waist by means of laces in the front or back, in order to support and lift the breasts. The rigid and vertical silhouette, often attributed to the 16th century, achieved through the excessive use of whalebone corsets by the aristocracy, found its first elements in the Middle Ages. In the 13th century, in the *Roman de la Rose*, Guillaume de Lorris and Jean de Meung evoke the role of the wide, adjustable band used to support the breasts:
And if her breasts are too large? A band will help her. Stretching over the bust, tightening the waist, to fasten them, sew them, or support them, so that she can go out and have fun.
The word *espartilho* (corset) appears in the 14th century, but it did not have the same shape or purpose at that time. It was softer and less restrictive than the 19th-century version, and designated a dress with a fitted bodice worn over a chemise. In the mid-15th century, the bodice worn by the Virgin in the Melun Diptych by Jean Fouquet offers an eloquent example of this. Very tight at the waist, with laces in the front, the corset stiffened the torso and highlighted the beginning of a skirt or the bottom of an A-line dress. Thus, by introducing the marked waist, firm breasts, and rounded hips, the Middle Ages invented the prototype of the female figure in the West, molded over the centuries, like a long and almost immutable reign, by numerous artifices: whalebones, corsets, and girdles on the top, petticoats, hoops, and crinolines on the bottom. Today, the same result could be achieved through surgery. The figure of the medieval man played a decisive role in the history of the Western silhouette. In the second half of the 14th century, the doublet enhanced the chest with layers of padding and even armor, offering the first documented examples that allow us to trace the long history of increasing the width of male shoulders. Over time, this transformed into the bold padded belly of the 16th century, the *justaucorps*, a knee-length coat padded at the chest of the 18th-century man, and the padded vests of the 19th-century dandies, to name just a few examples. In the Middle Ages and later, these new garments provoked criticism and outrage. The comments are diverse. Some mocked the new tight-fitting dresses of the 14th and 15th centuries, which raised the breasts to the edges of extremely deep necklines with deliberate erotic intent. Around 1460, Georges Chastellain painted an unflattering portrait of Agnès Sorel, who was so concerned with her appearance that, in his opinion, "there was no princess more richly adorned than she... in all of Christendom."
The dresses worn by the favorites of Charles VII are synonymous with "obscenity" and "dissolution," for "the shoulders [were bare] and the breasts too, down to the nipples." During the second half of the 14th century, the poet Eustache Deschamps criticized:
Newly cut dresses,
With nipples and bust
By the way of the neckline
So enhanced
With even more reason to suggest
Pleasure and desire
with them to bed.
The short, tight doublets worn by men did not escape the scathing pens of certain authors who often considered them "dishonest" and "shameless." In the 14th century, Geoffrey Chaucer noted that they could be so short "that they did not even cover men’s private parts, generating evil thoughts." Clothing could, in this way, transgress the established order and become dangerous. Faced with such novelties – seen as subversive by all – moralists, chroniclers, and other scathing witnesses called for the adoption of appropriate measures. However, the novelties in clothing hid a different kind of disturbance. For applying a certain type of artifice here or there was not limited to modifying the clothing; it ultimately implied the deformation of the body. Indeed, the doublet puffed up the chest, the padded belly hid the stomach, the whalebone corset tightened the waist, the bustle widened the hips, and the codpiece enlarged the penis.
Similarly, very long garments with various details, such as flowing sleeves, exaggerated tails, and fringes, were also criticized. For example, Chastellain lamented the fact that Agnès Sorel wore "tails one-third longer than those of any princess in the kingdom." By giving the body another shape, clothing offended God. In the medieval West, the body was considered the work of God, the Creator’s creation, a mirror of the Almighty, to the point that deforming the body of man was seen as an intervention in the body of God. Around 1440, the poet Martin Le Franc scolded extravagantly dressed women for "transfiguring" the "well-made work of God." This may seem old-fashioned, and we can imagine some readers shrugging their shoulders and dismissing the Middle Ages as "medieval." But the deformation of clothes and the body has often been criticized, even if it has ceased to be synonymous with outrage against God. In the 17th century, when petticoat breeches were fashionable at the court of Louis XIV, Molière described this wide garment, which resembled a short skirt, as a "madness." In our day, sagging pants, which are falling out of favor among teenagers, are in some ways similar to petticoat breeches. Of course, except for the volume of both pieces, they don't really seem to have anything in common: one originates from a style recently imported from the United States – in honor of prisoners whose belts had been confiscated – and which is still popular in some French schools; while the other, it is believed, was imported to the French court by the Count of Saim during the 17th century. Even so, these pieces have suffered the same accusations made against petticoat breeches three hundred years ago. Like an echo of the shameless medieval doublet, the sagging pants worn today by our teenagers are sometimes the target of criticism and even banned, as they reveal their underwear or boxers. Since 2009, several Florida cities have passed laws prohibiting the wearing of sagging pants in public, and offenders risk a one hundred and fifty dollar fine. In New York, a police officer recently fined a man from the Bronx because he was wearing pants "well below his waist." We can, in passing, thank the judge who presided over the case for concluding that "justice has nothing to say when it comes to fashion." In France, there has been no case against sagging pants taken to court, but many elementary and middle schools have banned them. Of course, people deplore visible and indiscreet boxers, but it is not just that: sagging pants transgress because they "hinder walking," explains a journalist. Thus, they join petticoat breeches, which Molière described as "large rolls where the legs are placed every morning, as if in a trunk," causing the wearer to "walk with legs apart as if they were the beams of a windmill." These two garments, separated by more than three hundred years, are not mere obstacles to walking. They disturb the established order, for they make no mystery at all about what is found between the legs, transforming those who wear them and modifying their bodies. And although they no longer represent an offense to God, these garments transfigure anatomy and confer a disproportion to the silhouette, which can still disturb certain sensibilities.
I brought you this chapter from the book so that we can give more emphasis to the silhouette and its history throughout the ages.
What do you have to say? Comment below.
Fashion is much more than simple clothing. It is the art of reinterpreting the silhouette, of telling stories through every detail, of transforming the body into personal expression. Each piece we wear is a statement about who we are, how we see ourselves, and how we wish to be seen by the world.
Since the most remote centuries, clothing has functioned as a tool for transformation. It does not just cover the body – it sculpts it, redefines it, reinvents it. A corset, a marked waist, a strategic cut: these are choices that modify not only the external appearance, but also the way we move, feel, and exist in space.
In the history of clothing, we see that each era imposed its own ideals of silhouette. What was considered beautiful, desirable, or even morally acceptable varied radically. The criticisms and resistance that a new fashion faced reveal how much clothing transcends aesthetics – it challenges norms, questions the established, and provokes visceral reactions.
The wardrobe is, therefore, a living archive. Each piece tells a different version of ourselves – the version we want to show on a given day, in a given context, in a given phase of life. Combining elements, choosing colors, adjusting proportions: all of this is personal interpretation, continuous creation.
Because fashion is not imposition. It is freedom. The freedom to transform, to experiment, to find in the silhouette we create a more honest reflection of who we really are.
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