Dress returned to elaborateness. Gentlemen wore Cavalier-style long wigs with curls, despite the church's dislike of wigs. This could hide the short hair of a former Puritan Roundhead. In 1666, Charles introduced a new mode of inexpensive court dress which was made entirely from English textiles. This gave rise to gentlemen's weskits to below the knee with a coat of the same length and full sleeves. Stockings and shoes replaced the long fitted boots. Charles set a court tradition of men wearing a scarf tied around the neck. Ladies often wore their hair in masses of ringlets with little corkscrew curls on each side of their heads, and later piled their hair up elaborately on their heads. They wore satin or silk dresses fitted at the waist with a pointed bodice, and full skirt. The shoulder line was low and the sleeves full and open at the front with fastenings of jeweled clasps. The only fast colors were reds, blues, purple, and yellow, but not green. They kept their hands warm in muffs. Women wore perfume, rouge, and face patches. Some women put on a lot of make-up. Many men dressed effeminately with rouge, face patches, heavily scented clothing, muffs, and many ribbons of many colors. The facial beauty patches were in shapes such as stars, crescent moons, and hearts; they diverted attention from the common smallpox scars. There were Oxford shoes, which laced up the front through eyelets. The members of the House of Commons dressed like the gentry and assumed their manners. There was exaggeration in all complimentary and ceremonial language.
The gentry were beginning to be thought of as a "squirearchy". They owned about half the land of the country.
The population according to class was as follows:
Number of Social Ranks, Household
Household
Households Degrees, Titles size
yearly
income
in pounds
160 Temporal lords 40 3,200
26 Spiritual lords
20 1,300
800 Baronets
16 880