INFO: Fashion

[Askatla]

Pursuant to a conversation on fashion in +pub today, here's a start for some conversation about clothes, fashion, and the MUSH. None of this is set in stone, but is gleaned from conversations, and some suggestions from personal knowledge, and, of course, the books!

• Women would be expected to have 1-2 court dresses, 2-3 daily wear dresses (possibly one or two more, depending on their finances), and one or two basic gowns for days they're not really going out.
  
• The only time we ever see women in tunics/jerkins/pants is either riding/hunting (Sansa is cited as wearing a jerkin, and ostensibly trousers, when riding; Cersei is cited in hunting greens during AGoT). Currently, the admins have also suggested split skirts, or skirts with breeches beneath: sidesaddles do not exist.
  
• Men would have similar sets/quantities of clothing - court wear, some daily wear, and then their armour and practice attire.
  
• Smallclothes would be in higher numbers, since those would be worn through more quickly and would be more easily replaced.
  

Women's fashion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1400%E2%80%931500_in_fashion

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/Concordance/Section/2.7./

Women in Westeros do have smallclothes (medieval European women did not tend to wear bra bands or underwear, so this is a change!); they would wear a chemise/shift (usually cotton/linen). Over that would be a kirtle, which usually had tight sleeves and possibly embroidery on it, which could be seen with the gown's necklines and/or turned back sleeves. Over this would go, usually, an over gown: depending on the era, it could be a sideless surcote, houppelande, or similar. The above Wikipedia page is for a houppelande, which I think a general +pub conclusion gave as a good point to start from.

Kirtles tended to be re-used; the sleeves might even be replaced periodically if they would show in a gown, so as to eliminate wear-and-tear on only part of a gown (you could have 3 kirtles and 6 sets of sleeves that servants would remove/sew on as needed, so that the parts that saw the most use could be preserved the longest).

Women's hair tends to be kept loose, with limited covering and not related to marriage status. We have citations of head coverings like mesh cauls/jewelled hair nets, but no wimples, hoods, etc.

Lace comes in "Myrish" and... "Myrish". And is extremely expensive. Insets over the bodice on the gown, collars, cuffs, and in ADwD we see an example of lace sleeves worn by a princess.

Accessories might be a girdle (belt) with pouches, and if the mistress of a household, the keys. Servants/stewards would not have access to all the strongboxes, but the mistress (Lady) might have some keys in reserve.

(As a note, if we think about times changing - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1500%E2%80%931550_in_fashion is what we might see during the era of the books, which is about 100-150 years after the1400-1500 in fashion link, and we're 140 years before the books, so...)

Men's fashion:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1400%E2%80%931500_in_fashion

http://www.westeros.org/Citadel/Concordance/Section/2.7./

Nothing exorbitantly fancy - shirts/tunics, doublets, hose, leather jerkins, surcotes. Also, men get breeches (aren't you happy?) and boots, instead of fancy long-toed pointy court shoes.

Any questions, comments, further suggestions, etc.? Let's discuss this and eventually it can grow up to be an Article!