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Elizabethan England

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Clothing in Elizabethan England

Liza Picard describes the laws, trends and standards of hygiene that determined who wore what in Elizabethan England.

Status symbols

Cloth of gold and silver, tinselled satin, woollen cloth embroidered with gold and silver, sables and other furs... the clothes worn by the rich make any fashionista's mouth water. But that list was taken from one of a series of Proclamations against 'excess of apparel'. Who was allowed to wear what was supposed to be strictly controlled. It was essential that the Queen's subjects should know their place, and dress accordingly, so that no one could be misled.

The 1597 Proclamation went into minute detail. Only earls could wear cloth of gold, or purple silk. No one under the degree of knight was allowed silk 'netherstocks' (long stockings) or velvet outer garments. A knight's eldest son could wear velvet doublets and hose, but his younger brothers couldn't. A baron's eldest son's wife could wear gold or silver lace, forbidden to women below her in the pecking order.

Proclamation against Excess of Apparel by Queen Elizabeth I

Elizabeth I issued numerous proclamations about clothing. This edict, from 1574, details the colours and fabrics people could wear according to their social rank. Only barons and others of high degree could wear 'golde' or 'tinseld sattern'.

Furs in bewildering variety were similarly controlled. Elizabeth and her favourite the Earl of Leicester enjoyed the softness of sables. She had hers from an unexpected source - Ivan the Terrible, Tsar of Russia, who sent them, as well as two ermine gowns, with a proposal of marriage. She kept the furs but refused the proposal.

Proclamations do not always change human behaviour. Great offence was caused by prostitutes who dared to flaunt themselves in rich garments. Young apprentices who were supposed to dress in modest blue were apt to burst out in colours, such as popinjay blue or lusty-gallant red. 'Great ruffs' and over-long swords were regularly forbidden, too, and as regularly worn.

Rapier, c. 1600

Swords, such as this ornate rapier, were an important part of male dress.

Usage terms © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Held by© Victoria and Albert Museum

Ruffs

Ruffs were worn by both sexes, by old and young, courtiers and working people. They began as a simple frill at the neck of a full-cut shirt, where it was gathered into a neck band. They culminated in the astonishing structures worn by Elizabeth in her state portraits. At first they sagged limply round the neck, until someone hit on the idea of starching them - an art in which the Dutch excelled. Successive restorers of portraits have made all the ruffs in ancestral portraits a uniform white, but in fact they were tinted pink or yellow, much more becoming. Blue seems to have been reserved for prostitutes.

Doctor Lopez is accused of poisoning Elizabeth I

This illustration, from a 1627 book recounting an Elizabethan scandal, shows two men wearing large ruffs.

Portrait of William Herbert, 3rd Earl of Pembroke, 1617

Pembroke, a favourite at King James's court, wears a handsome white ruff.

Usage terms Royal Collection Trust © Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, 2016 / Bridgeman Images

Women's dress

Working women wore fitted bodices and long full skirts. For the more fashionable, the bodice was stiffened to lie flat across the bosom, and skirts were often divided in front to show an underskirt. The edges of the skirt could be adorned with jewelled borders. A fashionable Elizabethan woman's wardrobe was complex. Sleeves, bodice, ruff, skirt, underskirt - all came as separate pieces which were held in place by pins, and could be reassembled with other elements to look quite different. The Queen was always pleased to accept presents of valuable garments, such as a pair of sleeves embroidered with pearls, or a ruff with matching cuffs.

Photograph of Mark Rylance in Olivia costume in Shakespeare's Globe's production of Twelfth Night, 2002

Mark Rylance dresses for the role of Olivia, showing the many parts of an Elizabethan woman's outfit.

Usage terms © Photo of John Tramper, courtesy of Shakespeare's Globe

Portrait of Mary Fitton, c. 1595

This fashionable lady was soon to become a maid of honour at Elizabeth I's court. Each piece of her complex outfit - the sleeves, bodice, ruff and skirt - was a separate bit of clothing.

Skirts were held out on a frame or 'farthingale'. If you couldn't afford a farthingale, a 'bum roll' tied round your waist under the skirt would do almost as well.

Elizabeth's portraits show her wearing a staggering amount of jewellery, especially pearls. She bought the six ropes of pearls that had belonged to Mary Queen of Scots. New ones were coming in by the chestful from the New World, and needed only boring and polishing to be ready to wear. Diamonds needed careful cutting, and were never so prized. Other stones might be worn as charms. Sapphires and unicorn's horn averted the plague, coral was useful against witchcraft. A bezoar protected against poison, but was hardly attractive; the best came from the intestines of Persian goats.

Sieve Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I, c. 1583

Queen Elizabeth in a lavish gown with ruff and jewellery.

Usage terms © Portrait of Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603) in Ceremonial Costume (oil on canvas), Zuccari, or Zuccaro, Federico (1540-1609) / Pinacoteca Nazionale, Siena, Italy / Bridgeman Images

One essential garment for the English climate had not yet been invented: the raincoat. A starched ruff would collapse if it got wet. If you were going to a party you would carry your ruff - also known as a 'band' - in a bandbox, and get your maid to pin it on when you got there. A hooded cloak would keep off the worst, but unless it had been made colour-fast by that elusive alum, you risked arriving in a puddle of leaking dye.

Men's dress

'Except it were a dog in a doublet you shall not see any so disguised as are my countrymen of England', wrote a contemporary historian, and indeed the Elizabethan era saw men's clothes depart more widely from their physique than in any other time. At least if you had good legs - and they were important - you could show them off up to crotch level. Next to your skin, a white linen shirt, which might support your ruff unless it had become a separate item by then.

Photograph of Michael Brown as Viola/Cesario and Rhys Meredith as Sebastian in Shakespeare's Globe production of Twelfth Night, 2002

Designer Jenny Tiramani took inspiration from contemporary portraits to create costumes that resembled fashions for young men in c. 1600.

Usage terms © Colin Willoughby / ArenaPal

Portrait of a young man among roses by Nicholas Hilliard, c. 1587

If you had good legs, you could show them off up to crotch level.

Usage terms © Victoria and Albert Museum, London
Held by© Victoria and Albert Museum

There were extreme fashions which surely were not always followed by every man, and did not always last long. Sleeves were swollen far beyond the shoulder line, kept that shape by mountains of stiffening and padding ('bombast'). The doublet was cut tight across the chest, swelling out at diaphragm level and back again, making an ugly - to our eyes - 'peasecod' shape, unrelated to the natural body.

The doublet had a skirt, of varying length, under which were ties ('points'), or hooks, onto which the breeches were tied or hooked. The breeches of a working man were baggy and knee-length, like old-fashioned plus fours. The fashionable Elizabethan could opt for short 'hose' (breeches), at groin level: or longer ones covering his thighs, or even down to knee level. But they were all padded, so that they looked like melons or marrows, and made it difficult to walk gracefully, let alone dance. That was not all; they were 'paned' - cut into narrow panels, joined at the waist and hem, with a coloured lining showing in the spaces between the panes. The great days of the codpiece were declining, giving way to a modest buttoned or lace-up opening; but they were still useful as somewhere to keep pins - they were heavily padded - or your purse, and maybe a refreshing orange or two. Both doublet and hose were decorated by 'pinking': slits cut in the fabric, in a pattern, with a differently coloured lining pulled through the slits in little puffs.

The Life of a Satirical Puppy Called Nim

17th-century male fashion: in this satire, a young dandy called Nim shows off his new suit of clothes.

Portrait of Henry Wriothesley, 3rd Earl of Southampton, c. 1600

The Earl of Southampton (1573-1624) was well-known for his showy, expensive clothes. In this painting, he wears a silk doublet, hose, coloured garters and embroidered gloves.

Usage terms NPG L114
Private collection; on loan to the National Portrait Gallery, London

The ensemble was completed by a hat or cap with a feather or a jewel, and a cloak, varying from a useless waist level to a practical full length.

Personal hygiene

For a modern lavatory, read 'close stool': a padded box with a hole in it, the lid making a comfortable back. For lavatory paper, read 'old linen rags'.

Former ages were rarely keen on washing. A deodorant could be made from camomile, wormwood and alum, which may have worked. (Alum is an ingredient in most modern deodorants.) But how often was it used? An advice book of 1547 suggests that after you've got out of bed and stretched, and coughed, and spat, and defecated, and put your breeches on, 'comb your head... and wash your hands and wrists, your face and eyes and your teeth with cold water' - and that was that. A really fastidious person might clean her teeth with burned rosemary wood, to 'make the teeth white and flee (drive out) the worms in them', which as everyone knew caused holes and toothache.

Cosmetics

Ceruse, a thick white toxic paste containing mercury, gave a smooth complexion until it melted and turned grey, shiny and smelly. Its pallor could be corrected by a round dab of vermilion on the cheeks. The Queen relied increasingly on ceruse.

Liza Picard researches and writes about the history of London. She spent many years working in the office of the Solicitor of the Inland Revenue and lived in Gray's Inn and Hackney, before retiring to live in Oxford.

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Clothing in Elizabethan England | The British Library

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By using this site, you agree we can set and use cookies. For more details of these cookies and how to disable them, see our cookie policy. Clothing in Elizabethan England Liza Picard describes the laws, trends and standards of hygiene that determined who wore what in Elizabethan England.

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Article on Shakespeare's influence on Vocabulary

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Article on Shakespeare's influence on Vocabulary

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If you missed Shakespeare's 450th birthday, you can be sure he'd have had a zinger of a putdown to sling your way. Or better yet, a whole string of them. "Thou art a boil, a plague sore, an embossed carbuncle in my corrupted blood" might just do it, borrowed from King Lear railing against his daughter, Goneril. Or perhaps he'd settle for more aloof damnation, along the lines of Orlando's insult to Jaques in As You Like It: "I do desire we may be better strangers."

That isn't a wish likely to be granted to Shakespeare any time soon. Yes, his 450th birthday has been and gone already, but it's worth noting that all over the world, people paused to acknowledge it in the first place. In fact, during his 52 years on earth, he enriched the English language in ways so profound it's almost impossible to fully gauge his impact. Without him, our vocabulary would be just too different. He gave us uniquely vivid ways in which to express hope and despair, sorrow and rage, love and lust. Even if you've never read one of his sonnets or seen a play - even if you've never so much as watched a movie adaptation - you're likely to have quoted him unwittingly. It's almost impossible to avoid.

Of course, fellow artists readily draw on him for paintings, operas and ballets. Shakespeare's influence is evident in popular as well as high culture: singer-songwriter Nick Lowe's 1970s earworm, Cruel to be Kind, took its title from lines Hamlet addressed to his mother. "I must be cruel only to be kind," the Prince of Denmark tells her in a wriggling kind of apology for killing a courtier and meddling in her new relationship. Hamlet also yielded the title of Agatha Christie's theatrical smash, The Mousetrap, and Alfred Hitchcock's evocative spy thriller, North by Northwest. And then there's David Foster Wallace's iconic novel, Infinite Jest, Ruth Rendell's Put on by Cunning, Philip K. Dick's Time Out of Joint and Jasper Fforde's Something Rotten. That one play alone has inspired other writers in numerous genres, at far-flung ends of the literary spectrum.

And what of Shakespeare's other plays? Well, when Mumford and Sons named their album Sigh No More, they were borrowing a phrase from Much Ado About Nothing. As for Iron Maiden's song Where Eagles Dare, how many of their fans recognise it as a quote from Richard III?
Famous phrases
These catchy titles barely gesture to Shakespeare's influence on the minutiae of our lives. If you've ever been 'in a pickle', waited 'with bated breath', or gone on 'a wild goose chase', you've been quoting from The Tempest, The Merchant of Venice and Romeo and Juliet respectively.

Next time you refer to jealousy as "the green-eyed monster," know that you're quoting Othello's arch villain, Iago. (Shakespeare was almost self-quoting here, having first touched on green as the colour of envy in The Merchant of Venice, where Portia alludes to "green-eyed jealousy.")

Allow yourself to "gossip" (A Midsummer Night's Dream), and you're quoting him. "The be-all and end-all" is uttered by Macbeth as he murderously contemplates King Duncan, and "fair play" falls from Miranda's lips in The Tempest. And did I mention that he invented the knock-knock joke in the Scottish play?

Some phrases have become so well used that they're now regarded as clichés - surely a compliment for an author so long gone. "A heart of gold"? You'll find it in Henry V, while "the world's mine oyster" crops up in The Merry Wives of Windsor.
Life imitates art
His impact endures not only in the way we express ourselves, but how we experience and process the world around us. Had Shakespeare not given us the words, would we truly feel "bedazzled" (The Taming of the Shrew)? Had he not taught us the word "gloomy" (Titus Andronicus), would it be a feeling we recognised in ourselves? And could we "grovel" effectively (Henry VI, Part II) or be properly "sanctimonious" (The Tempest) had he not shown us how?

Victorian word expert F Max Muller estimated that Shakespeare used 15,000 words in his plays, a portion of which he invented himself by merging existing words and anglicising vocabulary from foreign languages. By contrast, Milton used a mere 8,000 and the Old Testament is made up of 5,642. Meanwhile, an unschooled agricultural worker of the day would have said all that he had to say in fewer than 300 words.

Recently, two antiquarian booksellers in the US declared that they'd found a book they believe to be Shakespeare's dictionary. The book, which was on eBay, was a copy of John Baret's Alvearie, a popular late-16th-Century dictionary in four languages. It's densely annotated throughout but the clincher, they believe, is the handwritten 'word salad' on the tome's blank back page, a sheet filled with a mix of French and English words, some of which ended up in Shakespeare's plays.

Scholars have argued back and forth over just how many of these words and phrases Shakespeare actually coined, and how many he merely popularised by bedding them down in a memorable plot. In the past few years, quantitative analysis and digital databases have allowed computers to simultaneously search thousands of texts, leading scholars to believe that we may have overestimated his contribution to the English language.

According to a 2011 paper by Ward EY Elliott and Robert J Valenza of America's Claremont McKenna College, new words attributed to Shakespeare have probably been over-counted by a factor of at least two. The OED is coming to reflect this: in the 1950s, Shakespeare's tally of first-use citations stood at 3,200. Today, it's around 2,000.

In some ways, this makes Shakespeare's flair and originality all the more impressive. His linguistic arsenal didn't contain vastly more than those of his contemporaries, and yet his are the stories we remember. Not that 2,000 is bad going, especially when so many of those words saturate our everyday speech.

How did he manage it, you might wonder? It's partly his turn of phrase. Would "fashionable" have caught on had not set it in such a wry sentence as this in Troilus and Cressida? "For time is like a fashionable host, that slightly shakes his parting guest by th' hand." Then there's the fact that these words are voiced by some unforgettable characters - men and women who, despite the extraordinary situations in which they tend to find themselves, are fully and profoundly human in both their strengths and frailties. It's little wonder that critic Harold Bloom titled his 1998 book on the man Shakespeare: The Invention of the Human.

If the mark of a great writer is that they're still read, then perhaps the mark of a genius is that they're still spoken, too.
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How Shakespeare influences the way we speak now

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If you missed Shakespeare's 450th birthday, you can be sure he'd have had a zinger of a putdown to sling your way. Or better yet, a whole string of them. "Thou art a boil, a plague sore, an embossed carbuncle in my corrupted blood" might just do it, borrowed from King Lear railing against his daughter, Goneril.

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Shakespeare's Influence on the English Language

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Sign in to EBSCO Research Services to gain access to your library or organization’s subscription of EBSCOhost Databases, Discovery Service and Explora.

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This is a short video on William Shakespeare and a little bit about his life.

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Only worn indoors

Covered

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in 1582 William Shakespeare got married to Anne Hathaway a 26 year old woman who was about to have a baby before the marriage

Shakespeare had 2 children who were twins a boy and a girl and the boy lived for 11 years while the daughter lived a long life who married and had children

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Felt

Worn both indoors and outdoors

decorated with jewels and feathers

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William Shakespeare: A biography

Since William Shakespeare lived more than 400 years ago, and many records from that time are lost or never existed in the first place, we don't know everything about Shakespeare's life. For example, we know that he was baptized in Stratford-upon-Avon, 100 miles northwest of London, on April 26, 1564. But we don't know his exact birthdate, which must have been a few days earlier.

We do know that Shakespeare's life revolved around two locations: Stratford and London. He grew up, had a family, and bought property in Stratford, but he worked in London, the center of English theater. As an actor, a playwright, and a partner in a leading acting company, he became both prosperous and well-known. Even without knowing everything about his life, fans of Shakespeare have imagined and reimagined him according to their own tastes.

Looking for more in-depth information? Need something you can cite? Read an essay about Shakespeare's life from the Folger Shakespeare Editions. Read essay

Early life: Birth and childhood

William Shakespeare was probably born on about April 23, 1564, the date that is traditionally given for his birth. He was John and Mary Shakespeare's oldest surviving child; their first two children, both girls, did not live beyond infancy. Growing up as the big brother of the family, William had three younger brothers, Gilbert, Richard, and Edmund, and two younger sisters: Anne, who died at seven, and Joan.

Their father, John Shakespeare, was a leatherworker who specialized in the soft white leather used for gloves and similar items. A prosperous businessman, he married Mary Arden, of the prominent Arden family. John rose through local offices in Stratford, becoming an alderman and eventually, when William was five, the town bailiff-much like a mayor. Not long after that, however, John Shakespeare stepped back from public life; we don't know why.

Shakespeare, as the son of a leading Stratford citizen, almost certainly attended Stratford's grammar school. Like all such schools, its curriculum consisted of an intense emphasis on the Latin classics, including memorization, writing, and acting classic Latin plays. Shakespeare most likely attended until about age 15.

A horn book in the Folger collection, similar to one that Shakespeare might have learned to read from

Marriage (to Anne Hathaway) and children

A few years after he left school, in late 1582, William Shakespeare married Anne Hathaway. She was already expecting their first-born child, Susanna, which was a fairly common situation at the time. When they married, Anne was 26 and William was 18. Anne grew up just outside Stratford in the village of Shottery. After marrying, she spent the rest of her life in Stratford.

In early 1585, the couple had twins, Judith and Hamnet, completing the family. In the years ahead, Anne and the children lived in Stratford while Shakespeare worked in London, although we don't know when he moved there. Some later observers have suggested that this separation, and the couple's relatively few children, were signs of a strained marriage, but we do not know that, either. Someone pursuing a theater career had no choice but to work in London, and many branches of the Shakespeares had small families.

Shakespeare's only son, Hamnet, died in 1596 at the age of 11. His older daughter Susanna later married a well-to-do Stratford doctor, John Hall. Their daughter Elizabeth, Shakespeare's first grandchild, was born in 1608. In 1616, just months before his death, Shakespeare's daughter Judith married Thomas Quiney, a Stratford vintner. The family subsequently died out, leaving no direct descendants of Shakespeare.

London theater

For several years after the birth of Judith and Hamnet in 1585, nothing is known for certain of Shakespeare's activities: how he earned a living, when he moved from Stratford, or how he got his start in the theater.

Following this gap in the record, the first definite mention of Shakespeare is in 1592 as an established London actor and playwright, mocked by a contemporary as a "Shake-scene." The same writer alludes to one of Shakespeare's earliest history plays, Henry VI, Part 3, which must already have been performed. The next year, in 1593, Shakespeare published a long poem, Venus and Adonis. The first quarto editions of his early plays appeared in 1594.

For more than two decades, Shakespeare had multiple roles in the London theater as an actor, playwright, and, in time, a business partner in a major acting company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men (renamed the King's Men in 1603). Over the years, he became steadily more famous in the London theater world; his name, which was not even listed on the first quartos of his plays, became a regular feature-clearly a selling point-on later title pages.

Final years and death

Shakespeare prospered financially from his partnership in the Lord Chamberlain's Men (later the King's Men), as well as from his writing and acting. He invested much of his wealth in real-estate purchases in Stratford and bought the second-largest house in town, New Place, in 1597.

Among the last plays that Shakespeare worked on was The Two Noble Kinsmen, which he wrote with a frequent collaborator, John Fletcher, most likely in 1613. He died on April 23, 1616-the traditional date of his birthday, though his precise birthdate is unknown. We also do not know the cause of his death. His brother-in-law had died a week earlier, which could imply infectious disease, but Shakespeare's health may have had a longer decline.

The memorial bust of Shakespeare at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford is considered one of two authentic likenesses, because it was approved by people who knew him. The other such likeness is the engraving by Martin Droeshout in the 1623 First Folio edition of Shakespeare's plays, produced seven years after his death by his friends and colleagues from the King's Men.

Timeline

View a timeline of Shakespeare's life with links to key supporting documents on Shakespeare Documented.
View timeline

The bust of Shakespeare in the Folger Reading Room is a copy of the statue at Holy Trinity Church in Stratford.

Frequently asked questions

Why did Shakespeare leave his wife his "second best bed"?

William Shakespeare wrote in his last will and testament, dated March 25, 1616, "Item I gyve unto my wife my second best bed with the furniture" (furniture is used to refer to the curtains and bedcover which formed part of the complete bed).

This was not an unusual bequest, nor was it likely to have been intended as a snub. The best bed was usually regarded as an heirloom piece, to be passed to the heir rather than the spouse. It is also probable that the best bed would have been reserved for guests, meaning the "second best" was the bed that William and Anne shared.

What did Shakespeare's son die of?

We don't really know how Shakespeare's young son Hamnet died. He had a twin sister named Judith, who lived to adulthood and married, but Hamnet died at the age of 11 and a half. Child mortality was high in the 16th century; there were no antibiotics and many childhood diseases might therefore prove fatal, such as scarlet fever, whooping cough, diphtheria, and even measles. He was buried on August 11, 1596.

What is the inscription on Shakespeare's grave?

GOOD FREND FOR JESUS SAKE FORBEARE,
TO DIGG THE DUST ENCLOASED HEARE:
BLESTE BE Ye [the] MAN Yt [that] SPARES THES STONES,
AND CURST BE HE Yt [that] MOVES MY BONES.

Did Shakespeare have a coat of arms?

Yes, William's father, John Shakespeare, was granted a coat of arms in 1596. It was disputed in 1602 by York Herald, Ralph Brooke, saying that the arms were too similar to existing coats of arms, and that the family was unworthy. However, the challenge was unsuccessful, as the Shakespeare coat of arms appears in later heraldic collections and on William Shakespeare's funeral monument in Holy Trinity Church, Stratford-upon-Avon.

Does Shakespeare have descendants?

William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway had three children. The eldest, Susanna, was baptized on May 26, 1583, and married John Hall in 1607. They had one child, Elizabeth, in 1608. Elizabeth was married twice, to Thomas Nash in 1626, and to John Bernard in 1649. However, she had no children by either husband.

William and Anne also had twins, Judith and Hamnet, who were baptized on February 2, 1585. Hamnet died at age 11 and a half. Judith married Thomas Quiney in 1616, and the couple had three sons: Shakespeare Quiney, who died in infancy, and Richard and Thomas, who both died in 1639 within a month of each other. Since neither of the boys married, there is no possibility of any legitimate descendants from Shakespeare's line.

It is possible, however, to claim a relationship to Shakespeare through his sister, Joan. She married William Hart some time before 1600, and there are many descendants of this marriage alive today, in both the male and female lines.

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Shakespeare's life | Folger Shakespeare Library

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Learn about Shakespeare's life and family: birth in Stratford-upon-Avon, marriage to Anne Hathaway and their children, work in London theaters, and death.

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Only worn indoors

linen

turned up brim

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Childhood and Family:

William Shakespeare was Born in Stratford-upon-Avon, United Kingdom on April 26, 1564

Shakespeare was the oldest of his siblings with 3 younger brothers and 2 younger sisters

John Shakespeare was  the father of William Shakespeare and had the job of a leather worker

Shakespeare´s mother was named Mary Arden

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The 'lost years' took place during 1578-82 and 1585-92.

They are referred to as the lost years because we don't know a lot about what happened in Shakespeare's life during these time periods.

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'The Lost Years' refers to the period of Shakespeare's life between the baptism of his twins, Hamnet and Judith in 1585 and his apparent arrival on the London theatre scene in 1592. We do not know when or why William Shakespeare left Stratford-upon-Avon for London, or what he was doing before becoming a professional actor and dramatist in the capital. There are various traditions and stories about the so-called 'lost years'. There is no documentary evidence of his life during this period of time.

A type of mythology has developed around these mysterious years, and many people have their favourite version of the story.

A popular story revolves around Shakespeare's relationship with Sir Thomas Lucy, a local Stratford-upon-Avon landowner. By oral tradition, it was reported that Shakespeare poached deer from Sir Thomas Lucy's estate, the nearby Charlecote Park. It was said that he fled to London in order to escape punishment.

John Aubrey wrote in 1681 that William Shakespeare 'had been in his younger years a schoolmaster in the country' (which might well refer to Stratford, since Aubrey was writing from a London perspective). Others speculate that he was employed as a lawyer's clerk or became a soldier. It is also possible that he joined one of the companies of players which visited Stratford in the late 1580s. He may also have been living in Stratford, and helping out with the family business.

Gaps in the records of people's lives are not unusual, so the notion of 'lost years' might even be construed as being symptomatic of too much biographical expectation and entitlement. Regardless of what happened during these years, we do know that he found himself an established playwright in London by 1592, as his plays began to be produced.

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What was Shakespeare doing between 1585 and 1592?

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The Proclamations against "excess of apparel" controlled what the people were allowed to wear.

Only earls could wear purple silk or cloth of gold.

No one below the degree of knight was allowed to wear velvet outer wear or silk long stockings.

A first born  of a knight was allowed to wear hose and velvet doublets.

but the younger siblings would be prohibited from wearing so.

Ruffs
Ruffs were very universal as they were available for men and women of all ages and of any class.

They were constructed of a frill at the neck of a full cut shirt.

Women's dress
More fashionable and higher class women would have all parts of their wardrobe come as separate pieces.

Skirts

skirts could  be held out in many ways.

The most common way was by frame

Other options included farthingale or the bum roll.

Men's dress

Men often wore more feminine clothing in the 16th century.

Men's dress mostly consisted of multi-layering.

Dress was considered a sign of power and wealth as the higher class men would dress to show off their wealth. What you were wearing was identifiable with your class.

Fabrics and trims used

Velvet

Linen

Silk

Lace

Leather

Gold and silver embroidery.

Buttons

Hat Styles

1. Nightcap

2. Coifs

3. Capotain