ABSTRACT
Focusing on the English, French and Spanish courts during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, this chapter isolates thematic points of continuity to examine how royal female dress operated as a non-verbal form of communication, and how it built and augmented patron–client relationships and kinship bonds. In reaffirming dress as a meaningful tool in diplomacy, ceremonial and identity formation, it discusses some of the ways in which women strategically used wardrobe goods to signal categories of identity, such as political allegiance and dynastic belonging, in addition to confirming their wealth and regal status. In doing so, this chapter considers some of the distinctive, identifying features of national fashion, but it remains cognisant of the permeability of fashion’s borders as people, dolls, fabrics and garments regularly flowed between early modern court spaces.
