page_title: 1550–1600 in Western European fashion
section_title: Underwear
hierarchical_section_title: 1550–1600 in Western European fashion / Women's fashion / Underwear
caption_attribution_description: English: Portrait of Elizabeth Wriothesley née Vernon, Countess of Southampton, in her private boudoir, wearing an embroidered jacket or waistcoat over a rose-colored corset or simple bodice and decorated petticoat, combing her hair with a dog at her feet.
context_page_description: Fashion in the period 1550–1600 in Western European clothing was characterized by increased opulence. Contrasting fabrics, slashes, embroidery, applied trims, and other forms of surface ornamentation remained prominent. The wide silhouette, conical for women with breadth at the hips and broadly square for men with width at the shoulders had reached its peak in the 1530s, and by mid-century a tall, narrow line with a V-lined waist was back in fashion. Sleeves and women's skirts then began to widen again, with emphasis at the shoulder that would continue into the next century. The characteristic garment of the period was the ruff, which began as a modest ruffle attached to the neckband of a shirt or smock and grew into a separate garment of fine linen, trimmed with lace, cutwork or embroidery, and shaped into crisp, precise folds with starch and heated irons.
context_section_description: During this period, women's underwear consisted of a washable linen chemise or smock. This was the only article of clothing that was worn by every woman, regardless of class. Wealthy women's smocks were embroidered and trimmed with narrow lace.  Smocks were made of rectangular lengths of linen; in northern Europe the smock skimmed the body and was widened with triangular gores, while in Mediterranean countries smocks were cut fuller in the body and sleeves.  High-necked smocks were worn under high-necked fashions, to protect the expensive outer garments from body oils and dirt. There is pictorial evidence that Venetian courtesans wore linen or silk drawers, but no evidence that drawers were worn in England.
  Stockings or hose were generally made of woven wool sewn to shape and held in place with ribbon garters.
  The true corset, called a vasquine in Spanish, arose in the first half of the 16th century in Spain.  The fashion spread from there to Italy, and then to France and (eventually) England, where it was called a pair of bodies, being made in two parts which laced back and front.  The corset was restricted to aristocratic fashion, and was a fitted bodice stiffened with reeds called bents, wood, or whalebone.
  Skirts were held in the proper shape by a farthingale or hoop skirt. In Spain, the cone-shaped Spanish farthingale remained in fashion into the early 17th century. It was only briefly fashionable in France, where a padded roll or French farthingale (called in England a bum roll) held the skirts out in a rounded shape at the waist, falling in soft folds to the floor. In England, the Spanish farthingale was worn through the 1570s, and was gradually replaced by the French farthingale. By the 1590s, skirts were pinned to wide wheel farthingales to achieve a drum shape.
caption: Elizabeth Vernon at her dressing table wears an embroidered linen jacket over her rose-pink corset, 1590s.
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