page_title: 1400–1500 in European fashion
section_title: Dress, kirtle, and chemise
hierarchical_section_title: 1400–1500 in European fashion / Women's fashion / Dress, kirtle, and chemise
caption_attribution_description: Français&#160;: L'inscription «&#160;Marie de Bourgogne, 1457-1482&#160;» est apocrypheEnglish: The inscription has been added a long time later. It is apocryphal
context_page_description: Fashion in 15th-century Europe was characterized by a series of extremes and extravagances, from the voluminous robes called houppelandes with their sweeping floor-length sleeves to the revealing doublets and hose of Renaissance Italy. Hats, hoods, and other headdresses assumed increasing importance, and were draped, jewelled, and feathered.
  As Europe continued to grow more prosperous, the urban middle classes, skilled workers, began to wear more complex clothes that followed, at a distance, the fashions set by the elites. It is in this time period that we begin to see fashion take on a temporal aspect. People could now be dated by their clothes, and being in "out of date" clothing became a new social concern. National variations in clothing seem on the whole to have increased over the 15th century.
context_section_description: Women's fashions of the 15th century consisted of a long dress, usually with sleeves, worn over a kirtle or underdress, with a linen chemise or smock worn next to the skin.  The sleeves were made detachable and were heavily ornamented.  The long-waisted silhouette of the previous period was replaced by a high-waisted style with fullness over the belly, often confined by a belt.  The wide, shallow scooped neckline was replaced by a V-neck, often cut low enough to reveal the decorated front of the kirtle beneath.
  Various styles of overdresses were worn. The cotehardie fitted smoothly from the shoulders to the hips and then flared by means of inserted triangular gores.  It featured sleeves tight to the elbow with hanging streamers or tippets. The tight fit was achieved with lacing or buttons. This style faded rapidly from fashion in favor of the houppelande, a full robe with a high collar and wide sleeves that had become fashionable around 1380 and remained so to mid-15th century. The later houppelande had sleeves that were snug at the wrist, making a full "bag" sleeve.  The bag sleeve was sometimes slashed in the front to allow the lower arm to reach through.
  Around 1450, the dress of northern Europe developed a low V-neck that showed a glimpse of the square-necked kirtle.  The neckline could be filled in with a sheer linen partlet.  Wide turn-backs like revers displayed a contrasting lining, frequently of fur or black velvet, and the sleeves might be cuffed to match.  Sleeves were very long, covering half of the hand, and often highly decorated with embroidery.  Fine sleeves were often transferred from one dress to another.  The term robe déguisée was coined in the mid-1400s to describe garments reflecting the very latest fashions, a term which endured into the 16th century.
  In Italy, the low scoop-neck of the early decades gave way to a neckline that was high in front with a lower V-neck at the back at mid-15th century.  This was followed by a V-neckline that displayed the kirtle or gamurra (sometimes spelled camorra).  Sleeveless overdresses such as the cioppa were popular, and the gamurra sleeves displayed were often of rich figured silks.  The cotta was a lighter-weight underdress for summerwear.  A sideless overdress called the giornea was worn with the gamurra or cotta.  Toward the end of the period, sleeves were made in sections or panels and slashed, allowing the full chemise sleeves below to be pulled through in puffs along the arm, at the shoulder, and at the elbow.  This was the beginning of the fashion for puffed and slashed sleeves that would last for two centuries.
  The partlet, a separate item to fill in a low neckline, appeared in this period, usually of sheer fabric (linen or possibly silk) with an open V-neckline. Some partlets have a collar and a back similar to the upper part of a shirt.  Burgundian partlets are usually depicted worn under the dress (but over the kirtle); in Italy the partlet seems to have been worn over the dress and could be pointed or cut straight across at the lower front.
  Two uniquely Spanish fashions appear from the 1470s. The verdugada or verdugado was a gown with a bell-shaped hoop skirt with visible casings stiffened with reeds, which would become the farthingale.  The earliest depictions of this garment come from Catalonia, where it is worn with pieced or slashed sleeves and the second new style, a chemise with trumpet sleeves, open and very wide at the wrist.
  The sideless surcoat of the 14th century became fossilized as a ceremonial costume for royalty, usually with an ermine front panel (called a plackard or placket) and a mantle draped from the shoulders; it can be seen in variety of royal portraits and as "shorthand" to identify queens in illuminated manuscripts of the period.
caption: Mary of Burgundy wears a headdress comprising a truncated-cone hennin, a jewelled padded roll, and a sheer veil.
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