Month: Last updated Aug 19, 2020 | Published on Apr 4, 2020

The duchy of Burgundy, enriched by the wealth of its Flemish cities, was the leading center of fashion during the 1420s. The Duke of Burgundy’s alliance with England supported the production of the finest woolen textiles, woven in Flanders from English yarn. Merchants used their profits from manufacture and trade to rival aristocrats as the greatest consumers of Italian silk velvets and other luxuries. Throughout Europe, men dressed in black and women with tall, horn-shaped headdresses were signs of Burgundian influence.

1830s fashion was dramatic and overwhelming, marked by huge sleeves and hats, reflecting the Romantic movement. Extravagant dandies led the fashion world. After 1836, the exuberance that had defined fashion since the 1820s collapsed into a drooping sentimentality.