Elizabethan Era Research Paper

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Elizabethan Era Clothing “The difference between style and fashion is quality” (Giorgio Armani). All the classes wore somewhat the same types of clothing pieces. What color and types of fabrics used within the clothing depended on what class a man was. The wealthier the man leads to better fabric, which means better the quality. Clothing was divided by social class, the three classes included the wealthy class, the middle class, and the peasant class. Queen Elizabeth decided to pass Sumptuary Laws which were a guide of separation of clothing depending what class a person was. (Mcclean). Social class functions to display what wealthy men wore, to illuminate the fact that average men imitate the highest class, and to show that lower men did not have the ability to…show more content…
To start, wealthy men had the most vibrant colors (Benson et al.) The vibrant colors were often saved for this class because they were the most expensive to obtain. These colors often were purple meaning royalty, gold being loyalty, and white symbolizing purity (Branch et al.) Furthermore, most men wore the same style of clothing items. Depending on what class a man was, the types of fabrics used within the clothing would fluctuate. The fabrics commonly used in shirts were silk, fur, and velvet (“LoveToKnow”). Silk is still a luxurious fabric to this day, but now it is commonly used throughout the world instead of just being used in one class. In addition, men enjoyed accessorizing their extraordinary outfits, they fancied making themselves look as dressed up as possible. Men liked glamming up their outfits with boots, beautiful jewelry, and big silk hats (“LoveToKnow”). And, men always took pride in their hair, they always made it look the best it could. The wealthy class were a fashion role model for the other classes, especially the middle class. The wealthy found it quite easy to express themselves through their style because of all their

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