The women approach with a crimson over-gown and slips it over the Queen’s head—it is open in front to show the rich petticoat, and it has great stuffed wings, epaulettes, or mahoitres on the shoulders. The tight-fitting bodice of the gown is buttoned up to the throat, and is stuffed out in front to meet the fall of the hoops; it has falling sleeves, but the real sleeves are now brought and tied to the points attached to the shoulders of the gown. They are puffed sleeves of the same material as the under-gown, and the falling sleeves of the upper gown are now tied with one or two bows across them so that the effect of the sleeves is much the same as the effect of the skirts; an embroidered stuff showing in the opening of a plain material. These are called virago sleeves.
This done, the strings of pearls are placed around the Queen’s neck, and then the underpropper or supportasse of wire and holland is fastened on her neck, and the picadillie ruff laid over it. The Queen exchanges her slippers for cork-soled shoes, stands while her girdle is knotted, sees that the looking-glass, fan, and pomander are hung upon it, and then, after a final survey of herself in the glass, she calls for her muckinder or handkerchief, and—Queen Elizabeth is dressed.
So in this manner the Queen struts down to posterity, a wonderful woman in ridiculous clothes, and in her train we may dimly see Mr. Higgins, the tailor, who named a street without knowing it, a street known in every part of the civilized world; but, nowadays, one hardly thinks of connecting Piccadilly with a lace ruff....
SHAKESPEARE AND CLOTHES
There are not so many allusions to Elizabethan dress in the plays of Shakespeare as one might suppose upon first thought. One has grown so accustomed to Shakespeare put on the stage in elaborate dresses that one imagines, or one is apt to imagine, that there is a warrant for some of the dresses in the plays. In some cases he confounds the producer and the illustrator by introducing garments of his own date into historical plays, as, for example, Coriolanus. Here are the clothes allusions in that play:
‘When you cast your stinking greasy caps,
You have made good work,
You and your apron-men.’
‘Go to them with this bonnet in your hand.’
‘Enter Coriolanus in a gown of humility.’
‘Matrons fling gloves, ladies and maids their scarfs and handkerchers.’
‘The kitchen malkin pins her richest lockram[A] ’bout her reechy neck.’