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 While antique fashion reached its "rococo" in the late Roman styles, medieval fashion, after going through its intrinsic circle, reached its own rococo - "Gothic rococo". The late Gothic fashion came to its zenith at Dukes' of Burgundy court (in Czechia it was at the court of Vatslav IV). The refined taste, pomposity and splendor of new fashion were expressed in rich decoration and ornament of noble dress.
However, Burgundy fashion was not original. It combined some elements
of Italian and Czech styles, which spreaded here during the ruling of
Vatslav IV. But signs from the Middle Ages were most vivid in the
Burgundy fashion. They appear in the abundance of colors and numerous
eccentric details. This tendency was stronger in man's clothing than in
women's. A short jacket, also called pourpoinf, which was worn in
addition to tight pants, enabled to emphasize naturalistic components
even more - a peeping shirt, underwear, and pants outlining man's body
in details - and rather practical components - for example, additional
belts, suspenders and so forth.
Artists of the late Middle Ages
depicted all those details with great enthusiasm, as well as pants,
called Mi-Parti or "divided", typical for the late Middle Ages and its
flirtation. Color combinations of men's pants often had a symbolic
meaning. Thus, dark-blue and green colors, rarely used for everyday
clothes, were symbols of love: dark-blue - of faithfulness, and green
of admiration. According to a well-known French tailor of the XV
century, casual dresses were made mainly from gray, black and violet
fabrics. But party dresses abounded with contrasting details. Red color
dominated, and white color hold the second place. Every color
combination was acceptable. In his "Recollections" (1435 - 1488),
Olivier de la Marche mentions a lady wearing a violet silk dress who
arrived on a horse covered with dark-blue silk, accompanied by three
men wearing clear red suits with green hoods. Black color was very
popular at that time, especially, for velvet dresses. Black velvet was
used for the court clothing as well. It is known that Duke of Burgundy,
Philip the Kind, used to wear only suits of black color and his
nobility followed him in that. The king Raney D' Anjou loved
combinations of black, gray and white colors. Gray and violet colors
combined with black were also in fashion. Dark-blue and green colors
did not enjoy popularity, but yellow and brown seemed ugly at that
time. Whether it was aesthetical or symbolic, the exact reason for such
dislike of those colors is not known. Gray and brown were considered to
be the colors of melancholy while green color was used for the formal
occasions.
However, beginning from the second half of the XV century,
once elegant combination of black and white was displaced again by the
combination of yellow and dark-blue. In XVI century the whimsical and
daring combinations of colors of the late Middle Ages disappeared
completely. An Austrian chronicler of the XV century gave a nimble
description of that variety of colors, and he noted that everyone wore
clothes to his own liking. One person had a jacket of two colors,
another one had the left sleeve considerably wider than the right one,
sometimes it was wider than the entire jacket length. Some garments had
sleeves decorated with strips of different colors and silver bells
attached by silk cords. Some people wore multicolored scarves,
decorated with embroidered silk or silver letters. Others finished the
hem of a dress with one-color cloth, or trimmed it with a colored
border round the dress or cuts and tassels. Cloaks were so short, that
they did not snuggle even the sides. These short cloaks were worn on
every occasion. However, special ceremonies demanded special clothes
like a long cloak, called houpelande, which, probably, appeared as a
replacement for labor-consuming in approximately 1360. Tailors
began to make them most likely for fear of losing their jobs.
Therefore, they had complex cut and rich trim, and such cloaks became
clothing for formal occasions both for men and women. They were
decorated with collars and furs, and often had belts. Thus, entire
figure from its neckline to ankles was covered with expensive cloth or
brocade. In contrast to those loose cloaks, women's underwear, more
complex in cut, became even more tight.
And female figure was depicted
otherwise, than at the end of the XIV century. Breast became highly
raised and coming out forward, due to the highly raised waistline and a
deep V-cut which decreased the dress bodice. Decollete was sometimes
covered by an insert, strictly, it was a lower shirt. Those inserts in
Czech were called prsniks (from the word "prs" - breast). Deep tails of
heavily folded skirt transformed into trains, similar to the previous
epoch. However, heads were decorated in the most expressive way with
fashionable hats, which rather rapidly were replacing one another. And,
probably with veil stayed in fashion the longest, coming
through their analogs into the XVIII century. Snazzy clothing of that
epoch was made of brocade, cloth, expensive velvet, decorated with
embroidry and furs.
Fur, initially used to protect from cold, in the
Middle Ages, was considered the most beautiful decoration, and it had a
higher value for trimming than gold and precious stones, which remained
on dresses of past epochs as, to some degree, a rudiment of "barbarous"
fabric overestimation. But nevertheless, in the late Middle Ages these
dresses were considered excessively expensive by the highest church and
secular high officials and, therefore, they repeatedly spoke against
them. The Czech guardians of morality and priests also fought against
French and Italian fashion spreading in Czechia. They were dissatisfied
with the royal court as well. Preachers condemned clothing of that time
as sinful, vile and obscene, and they also attacked it for generating
arrogance in some, and envy in others. Luxury in clothing made them
worry about the future of the Czech economy. They spoke bitterly
against any excesses in dresses, especially church apparel. Hussite
movement, and later Reformation, opposed pompous church festivals, an
important part of church life in Italy and other Catholic countries.
They were enemies of any luxury in clothing. But neither church
prohibitions and calls nor efforts to limit luxury could stop the new
wave of fashion, which reached Czechia after the Hussite wars. Fight
against the eccentricity in fashion began again. And first of all it
atacked women, their trains and covers. Peter Khelchitskiy was
surprised by the amount of cloth, necessary for making a woman's skirt
with a train. Master Ian Rokitsana, Prague archbishop, the contemporary
of Jirji from Podebrad, in his book of sermons also spoke out against
Gothic trains, which contemporaries called "tails". And still that
fashion was held over to the beginning of the XVI century. According to
preserved judicial papers, even in 1503 Barbara from Vhrlabi charged
her servant for a theft of her red dress made of Italian cloth "with
the tail". Excessive decoration and colorfulness of man's clothing
resulted in the ordinance of 1447 by the Prague burgomaster prohibiting
Prague students from wearing such dresses; he ordered them to wear
simple dresses, and not expensive ones, like townspeople wore.
Burgomaster's order was followed by royal fearful prohibition. Jirji
from Podebrad prohibited wearing of sharp-nosed footwear, and he
requested to prohibit its production by shoemakers. But just as trains,
sharp-nosed foot-wear was held over to the XVI century. Bohuslav
Gasishteynskiy from Lobkovitsy in 1502 complained that 'in Czechia
pointed boots were still worn'. All these voices, opposing the extremes
of Gothic fashion, were codified in Augsburg Seym decisions, and in
1503 they were discussed at the Prague Emperor College of Carl IV. The
calls of the morality guardians, later implemented in laws,
involuntarily paved the road for new tendencies in fashion - the
Renaissance fashion.
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