Contemporary Quotes Concerning Scottish Women’s Attire
Introduction and Bylaws
Interpretive
Clothing
Scottish Culture
History
Music and Dance
Military Life
Language
Bibliography, Sources
and Library Materials
"The dress of the
women among them is most becoming, for over a gown
reaching the feet, and very richly adorned by the Phrygian art
(embroidery), they wear very full cloaks, of several colours, such as I
have described - loose and flowing, yet gracefully drawn into folds, as
they will. With their arms tastefully adorned with bracelets, and
their throats with necklaces they have great grace and beauty." -Bishop Lesly, 1570's. The original is in Latin, and uses the word tunica for gown, which may suggest a straight-hanging fullness of more Medieval style, in contrast to the more fashionable farthingale.
Women's Fashions, Edinburgh
The original paragraph has been broken up by social class to help make the descriptions distinct from each other.
"The women here wear and use upon festival days six or seven several habits and fashions, some for distinction of widows, wives and maids, others appareled according to their own humor and fantasy.
Many wear (especially the meaner sort) plaids, which is a garment of the same woolen stuff whereof saddle cloths in England are made (A close felt-like cloth the would keep out rain), which is cast over their heads and covers their faces on both sides, and would reach almost to the ground, but that they pluck them up and wear them cast under their arms. "
Some ancient women and citizens wear satin straight-bodied gowns, short little cloaks with great capes, and a broad bonegrace coming over their brows and going out with a corner behind their heads: and this bonegrace is as it were lined with a white starched cambric suitable thereto. " (Bonegrace: a silk, or cloth hood over a starched under-coif projecting around the face like the headgear of some religious orders?)
"Young maids not married all are bare-headed, some with broad thin shag ruffs, which lie flat to their shoulders, and others with half bands, with wide necks, either much stiffened or set with wire, which come only behind: and these shag ruffs, some are more broad and thick than others."
- 1635, Sir William Brereton.
The bands with wide necks are the broad lawn collars on each side of a square décolletage, as in the painting of Van Dyck. These seem to have reached Scotland sooner than England. Van Dyck's portrait of Mevrouw Leerse shows just this collar, with the tilted back cut separate, and edged in lace. It is shown with deep cuffs to match on a black satin dress. His portrait of Marie-Louise de Tassis has another, with the back part pleated. Later the stiffening went, and it lay flat. The "shag ruff" is a puzzlement. According to the Oxford Dictionary, shag was cloth of wool or silk, with a velvet nap similar to a modern velour. The true ruff was of linen, perhaps with lace, and did not lie flat. The author may be describing a pleated tippet, worn for warmth above the low-cut dress of the day.
Lowland Dress
The original paragraph has been broken up by social class to help make the descriptions distinct from each other.
Gentlewomen married, did wear close upper bodies, after the German manner, with large whalebone sleeves, after the French manner, short cloaks like the Germans, French hoods, and large soft falling bands about their necks.
The unmarried of all sorts did go bareheaded and wear short cloaks with most close linen sleeves upon their arms, like the virgins of Germany.
The inferior sort of citizen's wives and the women of the country did wear cloaks made of coarse stuff, of two or three colours of checker-work, vulgarly called ploddan.
To conclude, in general they would not at this time be attired after the English fashion in any sort, but the men, especially at court, followed the French fashion, and the women, both in court and city, as well as in cloaks as naked heads and close sleeves on the arms and all other garments follow the fashion of the women of Germany.
-Englishman Fynes Morison, visiting Scotland 1598 (Whalebone sleeves: sleeves stretched on whalebone hoops. Falling bands: A deep linen collar, turned down. )
Sources:
The Scottish Pageant 1513 - 1625. MacKenzie, Agnes Mure. Oliver and Boyd: Edinburgh & London, 1948.
The Scottish Pageant 1525 - 1707. MacKenzie, Agnes Mure. Oliver and Boyd: Edinburgh & London, 1949.