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5 - Distinguishing Oneself

The European Medieval Wardrobe

from Part I - Multiple Origins of Fashion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 August 2023

By
Maria Giuseppina Muzzarelli
Edited by
Christopher Breward ,
Beverly Lemire  and
Giorgio Riello
Christopher Breward
Affiliation:
National Museums of Scotland
Beverly Lemire
Affiliation:
University of Alberta
Giorgio Riello
Affiliation:
European University Institute, Florence
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Summary

A garment covers, decorates, and renders its wearer distinct. This chapter focuses on this last function of clothing: distinction. I reflect on this characteristic by analysing changes in wardrobes of men and women during the European middle ages and the early modern period. I concentrate on the fourteenth to sixteenth centuries, a period in which some sort of ‘philosophy’ of distinction – based on garments and accessories – affirmed itself. Yet this chapter highlights the existence of at least four different types of distinction: it starts with social distinction, perhaps the best-known meaning of the term; it continues with a consideration of distinction as applied to the body; and follows with a consideration of geographical distinction; the final part reflects on another well-known meaning of distinction that is still with us today – dress as a form of economic distinction.1

Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Global History of Fashion
From Antiquity to the Nineteenth Century
 , pp. 109 - 147
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2023

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References

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