🎀 5 Pieces of Elizabethan Ladies’ Court Fashion We’re Secretly Glad to Leave Behind!
- Dorothea Dickerman
- May 20
- 5 min read
Elizabethan court fashion? Stunning. Iconic. Gloriously dramatic. Prescribed by the period’s Sumptuary Laws which dictated the fabric, furs and colors you could wear based on your rank.
Also? Utterly impractical.
Everything a noblewoman wore was expensive—painstakingly embroidered, sometimes with threads wrapped tightly with thin gold and silver wire — and every seam, hem and tuck hand-stitched. Fabrics like silk, velvet and very fine wool felt, well, . . . sumptuous! Pieces could be mixed and matched for variety. A single ensemble might include a pair of stays called “bodies” (stiffened with baleen whale jaw cartilage), a farthingale, petticoats, a bodice, skirts, stomacher, detachable sleeves, forepart, pinned jewels and more.
The downside? Each piece was nearly impossible to clean. And the whole ensemble was heavy.
While the final result dazzled—commanding the attention of courtiers and poets alike—some of those fashion choices? Absolutely bonkers.
Here, in ascending order, are five Elizabethan ladies' court fashion nightmares we're very glad to leave in the wardrobe in history’s attic.
👗 Warning: In addition to whale cartilage, this list contains sharp objects and structural engineering challenges.
5. 🎄 The Farthingale: The Tudor Hoop Skirt from Hell
“ When didst thou see me heave up my leg and make water against a gentlewoman’s farthingale? Didst thou ever see me do such a trick?”
— Launce (to his dog), Two Gentlemen of Verona, IV.iv
What is a farthingale, you ask? Imagine strapping an upside-down basket to your waist. A very large, willow-branch basket, covered in layers of fabric and shaped like an inverted Christmas tree. Congratulations—you’re wearing a farthingale.
Popularized by Katherine of Aragon and her Spanish entourage in the early 1500s, the farthingale evolved outward until it resembled a giant wagon wheel by the latter part of Elizabeth I’s reign. Enveloped in layers of petticoats and skirts, the “wheel farthingale” created breathtaking silhouettes and was useful as a personal defense device to keep unwanted suitors with bad breath and ill-trained dogs at (more than) arms-length. But wearing one was a logistical nightmare.
Stairs? Forget it. Narrow doors? Good luck. The garderobe (aka toilet)? We don’t even want to imagine.
Queen Elizabeth, famously nimble, once spun around in a wheel farthingale inside a tiny house just to prove to her embarrassed host that it was large enough for her. But for the rest of us? Not a chance.
To the rag heap of history with the farthingale.
4. 🩹 The Stomacher: Painfully Pretty
“Unpin that spangled breastplate which you wear . . .”— John Donne, Elegy XIX: To His Mistress Going to Bed
Despite the ominous name, a stomacher didn’t cause indigestion—it just stabbed you in the gut with pins.
This triangular piece of expensive cloth, stiffened and decorated with embroidery or jewels, was pinned (yes, with actual pins) to a woman’s bodice. The stomacher had no functional purpose beyond being pretty — except camouflaging a surprise pregnancy. There were quite a few surprise pregnancies in Elizabeth’s court. To sample the unwanted surprises in just one year, check out these posts:
But there was another bonus to the stomacher: if you were rich or royal, you could showcase your favorite bling against your embroidered stomacher . . . while praying the pins didn’t jab when you danced.
Ouch. Unless in desperate need of camouflage, pitch the stomacher.
3. 🌹 Perfumed Gloves: Fashion Forward or Allergy Attack?
“Gloves as sweet as damask roses, masks for faces and for noses.”— Autolycus, The Winter’s Tale, IV.iv
Gloves weren’t just accessories—they were status symbols. Especially when embroidered with gold thread and scented like an entire apothecary.
Gifting them to Queen Elizabeth became trendy as early as 1563 when the Portuguese ambassador to France apologized that the pair he sent her were less than the best quality. No worries, she received dozens of pairs of perfumed gloves later—from ambassadors, earls, even university masters. Edward de Vere, the 17th Earl of Oxford wowed her with scented gloves from Italy in 1576. They were luxurious. Expensive. And . . . overpowering.
In July 1578, the Queen received a pair from Cambridge University’s officials while attending an outdoor event. She showed her appreciation by holding them to her nose and then put one on her hand. She waived. But she had put the glove on only halfway and she immediately beat a retreat indoors complaining of the heat.
Have you ever tried wearing leather gloves in July? While they were drenched in perfume? As someone with allergies, I say: Courtly hands and stuffy noses, hard pass.
Toss the perfumed gloves.
2. 📍 Pins & Anglets: Where the *&%! Did That Thing Go?
“Pins and poking-sticks of steel, what maids lack from head to heel.”— Autolycus, The Winter’s Tale, IV.iv
Here’s a secret from inside the Elizabethan wardrobe: while buttons, laces and ties, hooks and eyes were used, something else held those elaborate gowns, jewels, and sleeves together. Pins. And anglets—tiny metal casings at the ends of the laces that tied everything up.
Lose one, and you could delay the Queen’s progress. Literally.
Elizabeth’s pins and anglets were made of gold and silver, often tipped with diamonds and other precious stones. When one of them dropped to the palace floor, it was a national emergency. You don’t just shrug and move on when a gemstone rolls under a bench.
Let’s hear it for zippers, snaps, and the miracle of elastic. Pitch the pins and anglets (remove jewels first).
1. 🎯 The Ruff: Tudor Torture Collar
“With ruffs and cuffs and farthingales and things…”— Petruchio, The Taming of the Shrew, IV.iii
The ruff is the undisputed champion of Elizabethan fashion absurdity.
Stiffened with starch, folded like an accordion, and worn as a tight, scratchy choker, the ruff framed your face like a very fashionable pie crust. They grew bigger and bigger, until by the 1580s, they literally made your head look like it rested on a dinner plate. For the larger ruffs, requiring up to six yards of fabric, you needed to insert “poking sticks of steel” – just like Shakespeare says - to hold their shape.
Feeding yourself was a challenge. Walking in the rain? A disaster. A drooping ruff was the ultimate social embarrassment—imagine your foremost fashion statement wilting in real time.
And to maintain your ruffs? You needed a hot poker to curl those hundreds of pleats, special starch, and an army of laundresses. No wonder King James was known for wearing his last three meals on his collar.
Raise your thanks and never look back. Goodbye forever, ruff!
🕰️ Continue Your Streak of Tudor Truths
If you’ve survived this romp through the ruffled, ruffed, pinned and angleted, you deserve a reward. Good news—there’s more where this came from.
✅ Peek behind the curtain of Elizabethan court drama
✅ Meet the real-life women who inspired Shakespeare’s heroines
✅ Explore the secret literary lives of noblemen (and, in a future post, their manly fashion statements that we wish would return!)
📜 Subscribe and follow along here for more tales of lace, lies, and literary intrigue. Because history’s best-dressed secrets whisper. 🤫
If you liked this post, use the buttons below to share!
