In all such clothes as are mentioned above every rich stuff of cloth, silk, wool, and frieze may be used, and fur linings and fur hats are constant, as also are furred edges to garments.
There was a slight increase of heraldic ornament, and a certain amount of foreign diaper patterning on the clothes.
THE WOMEN
Now the lady must needs begin to repair the ravages of time and touch the cheek that no longer knows the bloom of youth with—rouge.
This in itself shows the change in the age. Since the Britons—poor, simple souls—had sought to embellish Nature by staining themselves blue with woad and yellow with ochre, no paint had touched the faces of the fashionable until this reign. Perhaps discreet historians had left that fact veiled, holding the secrets of the lady’s toilet too sacred for the black of print; but now the murder came out. The fact in itself is part of the psychology of clothes. Paint the face, and you have a hint towards the condition of fashion.
Again, as in the case of the men, no determined cut shows which will point to this age as one of such and such a garment or such an innovation, but—and this I would leave to your imagination—there was a distinction that was not great enough to be a difference.
The gowns were loose and flowing, and were gathered in at the waist by a girdle, or, rather, a belt, the tongue of which hung down in front; but as the end of the reign approached, the gowns were shaped a little more to the figure.
A lady might possess such clothes as these: the gowns I have mentioned above, the sleeves of which were tight all the way from the shoulder to the wrist, or were loose and cut short just below the elbow, showing the tight sleeves of the under-gown.
Shoes very elaborately embroidered and pointed at the toes.
A rich cloak made oblong in shape and very ample in cut.