Soft Silhouette of 17th Century

Fashions changed relatively slowly in the 17th century; but with the demise of the rigid farthingale petticoat, the trend in the mid-1620s to mid-1630s was toward a more bulky, soft silhouette. To allow for easier movement, waistlines on doublets and women's bodices rose higher, and the padding on both doublets and bodices was removed. The starched ruffs and whisks that once encircled the neck were replaced with the softer, more comfortable falling and standing bands. Women's sleeves began to rise, showing first the wrist and then the entire forearm. During this period dresses could be made up of three separate parts: a bodice, a petticoat, and a gown  over the top (which might be gathered up to reveal the petticoat below). Another style was to wear the gown hanging from the shoulders.

>> 17th Century Dress


As with men’s fashion, the ruff gave way to the broad falling collar edged with elegant handmade lace. Only in the Dutch United Provinces (now the Netherlands) was the ruff retained as the neck wear of choice. Men's breeches lost their bagginess and became slimmer and easier to move in.

People continued to value rich materials and exquisite design, but they set aside the rigid formality of earlier years and didn't add ornament for ornament's sake. Overall, the trend through the first sixty years of the century was toward looseness, comfort, and elegance.

The fabric used in European fashionable dress in the 17th century was produced in many countries, with silk satin and velvet designed and woven in France and Italy, and linen for shirts and smocks made in the Netherlands and Germany.

Baroque and Rococo (1625-1789)

Opulence, grandeur, heavy ornamentation, and rich colors were the defining characteristics of fashion throughout Europe in the 17th century. No one demonstrated this baroque style to greater effect than King Carl Gustav of Sweden, who wore such a richly decorated doublet at his coronation in 1654 that the fabric beneath the embroidery was completely invisible. The baroque style was set at the royal court in France, where the stiff-bodiced, heavy-skirted court dress known as the grand habit was established in the splendor of Louis XIV’s Versailles. The fabrics for these stately clothes were produced across Europe, but the French silk industry, centered in Lyon, dominated. Farther afield, the influx of goods from Asia via trading organizations such as the Dutch East India Company, founded in 1602, meant that printed cottons and painted silks from India and China flooded the European fashion market.

Henrietta Maria (1609-69)

Rococo Lightness
By the 18th century there was a move in the decorative arts toward a lighter, more flowing aesthetic known as the rococo, which was reflected in fashion. This could be seen in the curving lines of the silk designs produced by such craftspeople as Anna Maria Garthwaite and the Spitalfields silk weavers in London, many of them Protestant Huguenots who had fled religious persecution in France. Gone was the boned bodice and skirt, to be replaced first by a loose, full-skirted gown known as a mantua, and then by an open robe and petticoat. Men’s doublet and hose had disappeared too, giving way to coat and breeches. >>18th century clothing

Rococo Dress in the Movie Marie Antoinette