How 16th-century powerdressing augmented the legend of Gloriana
Words JENNIFER DALEY
Elizabethan dress was often abundant with rich textiles and jewels, as evidenced by the era’s namesake. Queen Elizabeth of England (1533-1603) understood the transformational power of dress, and she closely controlled her image through carefully selected clothing and textiles. Like her father, King Henry VIII, Queen Elizabeth portrayed her power through monumental sartorial ensembles. In this portrait, her broad shoulders, created by layers of sumptuous fabric aided by padding to maintain mass, depict the strength of the monarch. Her silhouette is as strong and stable as her reign. Like a regal cape, her hanging sleeves fall from her shoulders to the floor in magnificent excess.
Her dress is a metaphor for the era that she defined. Excessive and triumphant, the Elizabethan era was a golden age in which literature flourished and included luminaries such as William Shakespeare (1564-1616). It was also a time of great naval dominance led by figures such as Sir Francis Drake (c. 1540-1596). Trade and economic expansion was strengthened during the Elizabethan era when Queen Elizabeth granted a royal charter to The East India Company in 1600, which assured a monopoly of trade between England and Asia. From 1600 onward, for centuries The East India Company imported into England luxury goods such as spices and tea as well as exotic textiles including cottons and silks.
In this portrait, Queen Elizabeth is wearing a skirted fashion known as a wheel farthingale or drum-shaped French farthingale. This dress ideal replaced the previous conical farthingale in which the skirt was more streamlined in an A shape. The wheel farthingale, on the other hand, jutted out at the hips and created a wide, heavy drape. The overskirt was hand-pleated with straight pins at the point at which the overskirt met the lower edge of the bodice. The bodice was elongated to a dramatic point during the time of this portrait in 1592 and it would have utilised internal boning to achieve a structured shape. At close inspection, it is apparent that pearls are s
