Dressing Renaissance Florence: Families, Fortunes, and Fine Clothing

by Carole Collier Frick

As portraits, private diaries, and estate inventories make clear, elite families of the Italian Renaissance were obsessed with fashion, investing as much as forty percent of their fortunes on clothing. In fact, the most elaborate outfits of the period could cost more than a good-sized farm out in the Mugello. Yet despite its prominence in both daily life and the economy, clothing has been largely overlooked in the rich historiography of Renaissance Italy. In Dressing Renaissance Florence , however, Carole Collier Frick provides the first in-depth study of the Renaissance fashion industry, focusing on Florence, a city founded on cloth, a city of wool manufacturers, finishers, and merchants, of silk dyers, brocade weavers, pearl dealers, and goldsmiths. From the artisans who designed and assembled the outfits to the families who amassed fabulous wardrobes, Frick's wide-ranging and innovative interdisciplinary history explores the social and political implications of clothing in Renaissance Italy's most style-conscious city. Frick begins with a detailed account of the industry itself―its organization within the guild structure of the city, the specialized work done by male and female workers of differing social status, the materials used and their sources, and the garments and accessories produced. She then shows how the driving force behind the growth of the industry was the elite families of Florence, who, in order to maintain their social standing and family honor, made continuous purchases of clothing―whether for everyday use or special occasions―for their families and households. And she concludes with an analysis of the clothes what pieces made up an outfit; how outfits differed for men, women, and children; and what colors, fabrics, and design elements were popular. Further, and perhaps more basically, she asks how we know what we know about Renaissance fashion and looks to both Florence's sumptuary laws, which defined what could be worn on the streets, and the depiction of contemporary clothing in Florentine art for the answer. For Florence's elite, appearance and display were intimately bound up with self-identity. Dressing Renaissance Florence enables us to better understand the social and cultural milieu of Renaissance Italy.

Genres: History, Fashion History, Renaissance, Nonfiction, Fashion, Italy

368 pages, Paperback

First published September 3, 2002

Reviews

[Jo Walton]

Thorough, diligent, scholarly, and full of closely researched detail. This is a book that's narrow and deep, it's focused on clothes, and how we can use the lens of clothes to appreciate the families of the Florentine Renaissance. This isn't an especially fun read, or very interesting except as research reading, but as research reading it's amazingly useful on all kinds of things, from the social status of a tailor, details of women's lives, and the way grand-daughters might get married in the family colours of their grandmother. The information on sumptuary legislation and the way it was dealt with by constantly changing the fashion slightly "no, this isn't the forbidden kind of edging, the law says nothing about this kind, it was just invented!" makes so much more sense of Savonarola's actions against "vanities". There's also an invaluable table of annual pay for different people, which would be worth the price of the book alone. And I very much liked the visual examples from art, and the discussion of why certain things were visible and invisible in art.

[Mary Catelli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like it says. Though it's interesting, since you have to piece it together. No complete garments survive.

Textiles were a major industry for Florence, but sumptatory laws meant that they deliberately curbed it. One tried to show off by the expensiveness of the dye used and the finest of the cloth.

The importance of trousseaus -- and the counter-trousseau that the bridegroom gave, not to to embarrassed by all the wealth on the bride's side. Convent who took in young girls and taught them to sew and embroider as well as read and write -- and let them go in processions on the feast day of the convent's saint, giving them a chance to marry. (One convent donated the bride's white gown because her husband was poor.)

What professions worked at what. How tailors' prices were set by law -- the only trade so treated. The terms for dyes, not all of which have been identified as a color.

And more.

Can be a bit dry in places.

[Kim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Loved reading about the historic streets where artisans in various clothing trades worked. Tailors favored by the notable families maintained a workshop in the city but also owned home and/or farmland outside the city. Some men spent more on clothing over a lifetime than their wives. Wedding dresses were commissioned for the occasion and considered "on loan" from the husband. The fashion police, originally established to limit displays of luxury, took a sinister turn when their authority was extended to enforcing special dress codes for Jews and prostitutes. Very detailed information, not a quick read.

[Alana White · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wonderful book, well-written and thorough. Indispensable in my research.

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Slow start but gets very interesting after first few chapters. Wonderful scholarship.