Von Herberstein seems to have kept his robes in his palace in Vienna, along with his collection of Russian and oriental weapons, illustrated in his history of Russia:[10] these, and stuffed specimens of Aurochs, then almost extinct, and European bison, formed the first museum of costume and natural history on record.
With the development of ceremonial, some of the princely courts of Germany had illustrations prepared of what should be worn by the officials of different grades (fig. 5). Several copies of each of these Hofkleiderbücher—books giving rules or standards for correct court dress—were no doubt issued, but none seems to have been printed for the general information of the public. The first printed book on tailoring, by Juan de Alcega, was published in 1588 and includes diagrams showing how to cut ceremonial robes from the roll of cloth,[11] but there are no illustrations of what the completed garments should look like.
Figure 5.—Leaf from a book of court costumes showing back and front view of a gentleman’s dress. German, second half of the 16th century. (Courtesy of Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam.)
The history of fashion plates, therefore, is to be followed in less specialized works. In the 16th century, with the improvement of communications and the continuation of voyages of discovery, great interest developed in the costume and way of life of other nations. It is in this connection that the word “fashion” was first used in its modern sense. In an address to King Henry VIII, a petitioner in 1529, deploring the sinfulness of the people of England, wrote:[12]
The pryncypall cause [of sin] is their costly apparell and specially their manyfolde and divers changes of fasshyons which the men and specially the women must weare uppon both hedde and bodye: sometyme cappe, sometyme hoode, now the French fasshyon now the Spanyshe fasshyon and then the Italyan fasshyon and the Myllen [Milan] fasshyon, so that there is noo ende of consuminge of substance . . . .
Foreign fashions were being imitated by English ladies. Inventories[13] in the Public Record Office in London show that the English queens had robes cut in
Spanish, Milanese, or French styles. As for men, it was said that they could not make up their minds what to wear, and a popular caricature shows an Englishman standing naked with a roll of cloth under his arm and a pair of tailor’s shears in his hand, saying:[14]
I am an English man, and naked I stand here,