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Linsey Woolsey – a contentious cloth
Why contentious?The first question might be, why is linsey woolsey a contentious cloth? The poet John Skelton, in his attack on Cardinal Wolsey, Why Come Ye Not to Court, wrote, “We shall have a tot...
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The fine linens – cambric, lawn and holland – and their clothing use
There were many types of fine linen in the early modern period, but the best known, and apparently most used, were cambric, lawn and holland. Being linen these fabrics were often sold by the ell...
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The coarser linens: dowlas and lockram for shirts and smocks
This looks only at the coarser linens used for shirts and smocks, it does not look at the very coarse linen and hemp fabrics such as canvas. Linen came in a wide variety of types from the finest lawn...
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Frieze cloth and what it was used for
Frieze was a plain weave wool cloth that had been friezed, that is a nap had been raised. Whether the nap was on one side or both is a question. The OED says that it was usually napped on one side...
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Kersey cloth and what clothes it was used for
What is kerseyOver ten years ago I blogged on kerseys, this contains more information. Kersey is a twill woven wool fabric. (1) They are first mentioned in the thirteenth century when there is a...
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Early modern straw hats in England
Are straw hats just straw? Straw when used as a term for hats is not just cereal (wheat, barley, rye, etc.) straw, it covers a whole variety of fibres from bast, (rag) paper, horsehair, ramie, etc....
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Peapods and Gillyflowers: review of the exhibition at Wollaton Hall, Nottingham
Peapods and Gillyflowers is an exhibition at Wollaton Hall, Nottingham, of mainly Elizabethan and Jacobean embroideries. It is on until Sunday 1 November 2026 (weekends, school holidays and Bank...
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The clothing of Catherine Tollemache 1597
IntroductionIn 1597 an extensive inventory was made of Helmingham Hall in Suffolk. This inventory has been transcribed and published by the Suffolk Records Society. (1) The inventory contains ten...
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The 1597 clothing of Lionel Tollemache
IntroductionIn 1597 an extensive inventory was made of Helmingham Hall in Suffolk. This inventory has been transcribed and published by the Suffolk Records Society. (1) The inventory contains ten...
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History off the hanger: a review of the Killerton exhibition 2026.
This is a review of the excellent exhibition History off the Hanger, at Killerton House, Devon. Congratulations to Shelly Tobin and all her team. The Killerton collection of historic dress is the...
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Women’s Clothing (1620-1650), part 2: clothing in wills: section 3: the...
IntroductionThis is the third section of part two of a series of posts on women’s clothing in the period 1620-50 from the information in probates and wills. Part 1 looked at women with a probate...
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Women’s Clothing (1620-1650), part 2: clothing in wills: section 2: the...
IntroductionThis is the second section of part two of a series of posts on women’s clothing in the period 1620-50 from the information in probates and wills. Part 1 looked at women with a probate...
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Women’s Clothing (1620-1650), part 2: clothing in wills: section 1:...
IntroductionThis is the second of two posts on women’s clothing in the period 1620-50 from the information in probates and wills. Part 1 looked at women with a probate estate of less than £30. This...
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Handkerchief buttons and bandstrings
There is a 1640s Cry of London that shows a woman selling “bandestringes or hankercher buttons.” [Figure 1] These accessories where popular in the first half of the seventeenth century, not only in...
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A hidden garment: Englishmen’s waistcoats to the mid seventeenth century
This is a paper given to the International Conference on Euopean Historic Clothing and Textiles, organised by the University of Latvia, 26-28 February 2026.From the fifteenth century to the middle of...
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Women’s Clothing (1620-1650), part 1: the common sort from probate inventories
The parametersThis is the first of two posts on women’s clothing in the period 1620-50 from the information in probates and wills. Part 1 looks at women with a probate estate of less than £30, and Part...
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The clothing of husbandmen 1600-1660
William Harrison in 1577 described the “common sort” of Englishmen as “daie labourers, poore husbandmen and some retailers (which have no free land).” (1) Husbandmen were men who worked the land. They...
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June Swann (1929-2025): a personal appreciation by Pat Poppy
I first met June Swann in the early 1970s when I was a young and new member of the Costume Society. June was already the doyen of shoe historians having been at the Northampton Museum since 1950. The...
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Boothose and boot hose tops (and canons)
BoothoseOne of the things about the seventeenth century fashion for turned over tops to boots was that people had boothose. Boothose, as a practical garment to protect finer stockings from the wear...
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Seventeenth century boots – who owned them, who made them, what did they use...
Who owned boots? As Spufford and Mee indicated not the poor, “this item of footwear received scant acknowledgement by administrators of sixteenth and seventeenth century poor relief.” (1 p. 57)...
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