ABSTRACT
The Tudor age delighted in colour and lavish display, as any portrait of-say-Henry VIII or Elizabeth makes plain. The lively brashness of an exuberant time often fell short of good taste, but its brightness and richness-even its bizarre touches-are signs of sprouting life. The moralists and legislators-the latter trying by sumptuary laws to limit the \vorst indulgence in silks, velvets, and jc\vcllery to those who could afford them-fought a losing battle against the slashed doublets, wide ruffs, enormous (and very unsightly) breeches, massive chains and delicate feathers, the idiotically tall hats and high heels of the dandies who infested Elizabeth's court. The simpler fashions of the earlier reigns, even if often they went in for a sort of tough virility with their unnaturally broad shoulders and tight hose, are beyond question preferable. Women's fashions were rather less gorgeous, except in the hands of the very wealthy and especially the queen herself, but they were even more objectionable: the huge hooped skirts rendered movement difficult, while the tight bodices and deep stomachers squeezed vital organs in a way not exceeded by the worst Victorian tight-lacing. But beautiful or not, sensible or not, all the clothes that mattered were designed to dazzle and overwhelm.
