4 ms·
Just what % of the population actually wore those clothes back then? Are we comparing ourselves to what the 1% or 0.1% wore?
by morkalork 3y ago
Just what % of the population actually wore those clothes back then? Are we comparing ourselves to what the 1% or 0.1% wore?
- Blackthorn 3y agoThis is a really important question! A lot of historical clothing has a survivorship bias component.
- orwin 3y agoIt was notables and nobles clothing, so 10%? plus military. Plus all the textile workers where tint was available, so I guess quite a lot.
- Jensson 3y agoYou think 10% of people were notable or nobles?
- orwin 3y agoYes, and I think I'm lowballing it. Notables include the mercantile bourgeoisie, the administration, the mercenaries, the guard, the local bourgeoisie (guild leaders, lawyers), and the 'small bourgeoisie' in the sense people who owned either specific, important equipment, or important skills outside cities, so not in a guild (horse breeders, miller etc). Nobility is like .5% to 2% depending on your country, the rest, depending on when and where you're talking about post-renaissance can easely get to 10%, maybe even 15% in the lowlands. People think the industrial revolution started with coal an trains, but check Europeans canals and waterworks, as well as how precise steel parts were made. The major productivity increases are from before the US revolution. In fact, I'm certain that one of the French revolution trigger was notables who saw those productivity increase improve their life, then being taken away to found wars or whatever.
- dudul 3y ago10% of the population was notables and nobles?? I'm gonna need to see some links/data here.
- PeterisP 3y agoTo put some numbers to it, if we look at pre-revolution France then nobles constitute <0.5% (120k out of 28 million as of 1780, source https://www.thoughtco.com/french-revolution-pre-revolutionary-france-1221877 https://www.thoughtco.com/french-revolution-pre-revolutionar...) of population, the 'first estate' i.e. clergy another 0.4-0.5%, the bourgeoisie (which would match the professions that we'd consider "middle class" nowadays") would grow from 3% to 7% over 18th century, and 90%+ people would be in the lower class. In essence, if we want some sweeping generalizations and be generous, then assuming 1%/9%/90% for upper/middle/lower class is roughly in the ballpark for most societies until the 20th century. So while the noble families are nowhere near 10%, it's not entirely wrong to assert that the top 10% including all the non-noble bourgeoisie, the merchants, doctors, lawyers, officers, etc, would have the means and desire to care about fashion.
- gwenzek 3y agoGraphic 5.2 in http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/Piketty2019GraphiquesTableaux.pdf http://piketty.pse.ens.fr/files/Piketty2019GraphiquesTableau... In France it was down to less than 1% at the time of Revolution, but some countries like Spain that had centuries long wars, was closer to 6-8% range.
- thrwaway1337 3y agoWho said anything about comparing? But now that we're at it, would you prefer to compare yourself to the bottom 1%?
- usednet 3y agoYes. The bottom 1%’s clothing will always be more indicative of the average clothes of the time than the top 1%’s.
- thrwaway1337 3y agoSo what? TFA is not about the working class nor does it need to be. Why this fixation on comparing yourselves with the poor?
- antihipocrat 3y agoThe article makes a lot of reference to class. Wigs, stockings and heels were associated with being of the aristocrat class. Which, as the article states, could make one wearing such things a target.
- rsynnott 3y agoI think you're misreading that a bit (it is confusingly written). > During the French Revolution, wearing dress associated with the royalist Ancien Régime made the wearer a target for the Jacobins. Working-class men of the era, many of whom were Revolutionaries, came to be known as sans-culottes because they could not afford silk breeches and wore less expensive pantaloons instead _Prior_ to the revolution, the Jacobins (who were largely bourgeoisie) would have been wearing that dress, distinguishing themselves from the working class (who _didn't_ wear the stockings). The revolutionary period is being used to illustrate a change here, not the norm.
- itjustisthough 3y agoAffliction Olympics.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- crazygringo 3y agoI don't think it matters quite so much how many; the question is more about what everyone wanted to be. What their aspirations were. The point would be that a mainstream man in 1750 wanted to be wearing colorful frilly things with high heels, even if he couldn't afford any of it because he was just a servant. Whereas starting in the 1800's, that stopped being an aspiration, whether you had money or not. Also, while this clothing wasn't accessible to servants and laborers, some of it would have been to the growing middle class that consisted of merchants, professors, lawyers, and so forth. Just look at paintings depicting coffeeshop culture in the 1700's: https://www.sylviaprincebooks.com/blog-list/2021/coffee-house-culture-in-18th-century-england https://www.sylviaprincebooks.com/blog-list/2021/coffee-hous... And coffeehouses were not reserved for the 0.1%, not at all.
- konfusinomicon 3y agothe transition from powdered wigs being the norm and now those damn kids going out without a wig on took over must have been an interesting time. this means at some point there was like 1 guy that held on to the fashion at the very end. not yielding to the new norm for the sake of morals and civility! his wig buried with him. and then no more wigs
- smsm42 3y agoDon't English lawyers still wear the wigs?
- gattilorenz 3y agoNot outside court, I imagine.
- ojhughes 3y agoOnly silk lawyers (King’s Counsel) wear a wig
- lawtalkinghuman 3y ago
- eadmund 3y agoIn at least some periods servants wore their masters’ cast-offs. Additionally, many natural dyes are not necessarily that expensive. I understand that many mediæval artworks depict commoners in colourful clothing.
- zeristor 3y agoSumptuary Law: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumptuary_law https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sumptuary_law
- eadmund 3y agoGood point (and little-known nowadays!), but I think that the focus of sumptuary laws tended to be luxuries such as trim, furs, cloth-of-gold or Imperial purple, rather than colourful clothing in general. But I could be wrong!
- rsynnott 3y agoFrom the article: > In England, which in this respect was typical of Europe, from the reign of Edward III in the Middle Ages until well into the 17th century, sumptuary laws dictated what colour and type of clothing, furs, fabrics, and trims were allowed to persons of various ranks or incomes. That said, I would wonder how strictly these were enforced. Samuel Pepys' Diary would imply not very, at least towards the end; Sam's a rich commoner, but doesn't seem to hold back when it comes to fancy clothes (anyone who doubts that men were into fashion back then should give it a read...)
- pixl97 3y agoWhat percentage of the population are 'stars' or otherwise somehow fashion leaders these days and how do they drive trends in what we wear?
- rsynnott 3y agoDepends on the period, but you're probably generally talking upper middle class to upper class (and to some extent their domestic servants). The working and agricultural class simply couldn't afford fashion. If you read Samuel Pepys' Diary, from the mid-17th century (highly recommended; it's a fascinating view into the surprisingly familiar/alien world of the past), you'll notice that as Sam goes from a middle-class civil servant to the upper-middle-class (largely through taking bribes, as was the fashion at the time), he starts going on more and more about fabrics.