Appearances have evolved dramatically over time, however, one of the most extravagant and over the top periods was the Elizabethan era. During this time the female appearance was controlled to such an extent that cosmetics become dangerous and sometimes even lethal.

During the Elizabethan era a good complexion was considered to be highly important. So much so that many recipes began circulating describing the best mixtures to remove freckles, pimples and pox-marks. One such recipe by Hugh Platt in his book, Delights of Ladies detailed “Wash the face and body of a sucking child with breast milk or cow milk or mixed with water every night and the child’s skin will wax fair and clear and resist sunburn”.

Other recipes including mixing lead with marble and heating the mixture for several days until only a powder is left. This is then mixed with vinegar to create a thick paste which could be applied to the face, neck and bosom leaving the skin looking white and blemish free. However, the use of lead in the cosmetics could often cause the skin to burn and peel away. At the every least it would become shrunken and gray. Egg white could also be used on the skin to create a ‘glazed’ look and to hide wrinkles. Elizabeth I is known for her skin, which she insisted be covered in white paste to hide her pox-marks. (The Queen suffered smallpox at the age of twenty-nine which left her skin badly blemished.)

Perhaps another reason for the extreme beauty aids used at this time was due to the increasing importance of painted portraits. We certainly see pasty white faces in Elizabethan portraits and portraits dating back to as far as 1521. Even the men are depicted dressed in their finest, displaying their wealth and apparent good looks.

While the Queen herself was the most influential in the Elizabethan fashion market, not everyone approved of the time and effort put into cosmetics and clothes. Thomas Becon, using the Bible as him main source, wrote “I will… that women array themselves in comely appeal, with shamefacedness and discrete behaviour, not with braided hair, gold or pearls or costly array.” While Thomas Tuke’s book, ‘A Discourse against Painting and Tincturing of Women’ first published in 1616, stated “Fucus is paint, and fucus is deceit, and fucus they used, that do mean to cheat”. Even one of Shakespeare’s sonnets scorns and makes fun of the ideals of Elizabethan beauty;

“My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun
Coral is far more fair than her lips fair
If snow be white, why then her breast is dun,
If hair be wires, black wires grow on her head…”

Several male writers thought that cosmetics and clothing hid the true nature of a woman and their beauty was used to entice rich men into marrying them. Certainly, Elizabeth’s mother Anne Boylen was beheaded for bewitching the Henry VIII. One reason for this is that the white paste used to cover blemishes hid the humble women’s blush. Blushing was seen as a sign of innocence, a quality much desired in a woman. Nevertheless, writers like Becon and Tuke did nothing to change Elizabeth’s ideals of beauty nor her life long quest for perfection.

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Further reading:
‘Women According to Men, the World of Tudor-Stuart Women’ by Suzanne W. Hull

About the Author
Charlotte Gardner, a guest blog writer, is currently studying archaeology at the Australian National University. In her spare time she likes to read and write about eccentric historical moments. Her love of old buildings and older stories was sparked when she visited Italy. One of Charlotte’s greatest wishes is that in a few thousand years her skeleton will be dug up by an archaeological investigation team and put on display in a national museum. You may contact Charlotte via email at: charlotteg86@gmail.com.

Archaeological evidence dates the first use of purple dye to approximately 1600 B.C. Legend attributes the discovering of this colour to Heracles, whose dog’s mouth was stained purple from eating rotten shellfish along the Levantine coast. It is then said that Heracles gave a piece of purple cloth as a gift to the King of Phoenix who declared it to be the royal color. This rich purple color became known as tyrian or imperial purple.

Since then, purple has been associated with royalty in Egypt, Persia and Rome. The Roman Emperors, however, took this color used to an extreme. Public displays of status in Ancient Rome were important as it offered an opportunity for the wealthy and powerful to flaunt their position. As men all wore the same style toga, knee length tunic and cloak, for Emperors stand out he would wear a trabea or toga entirely purple. The Roman Sumptuary Laws, which date back to the Roman Republic, were put in place to curb the money spent on food, entertainment and clothing. These laws stated that only the Emperor was allowed to wear the purple clothes. The penalties for failing to comply included fines, property loss and sometimes even death. The only other people permitted to wear purple, as a strip along the hems of their togas, were the lesser dignitaries including senators and their sons.

There were two main reasons why purple clothing was limited to Emperors only. The first was because purple was also used to decorate statues of the gods to indicate the Emperors relationship with them. (It was Julius Caesar (100 BC–44 BC) who first claimed that as the Emperor he was related to the gods.) The second was the rarity of purple dye. For thousands of years, purple dye was worth its weight in silver. It could take up to ten thousand mollusks to made enough dye for one toga. For Tyrian purple dye to be extracted from the mollusk the shellfish had to be collected, then crushed and left the in sun to decay. The secretion, oozing from the rotting shellfish was then collected and used to dye fabric. The smell was so bad that areas along the coast were reserved for the production of dye away from other settlements.

With the decline of the Roman Empire came the decline of tyrian purple dye, especially with the fall of Constantinople (now Istanbul) in A.D. 1453. It was not until 1856 that a new source of dye was found that also produced the deep purple color. This was the first aniline dye to be discovered and is called mauveine or aniline purple. It was discovered by William Perkin (1838–1907) while he was searching for a cure for malaria. He was only 18 at the time. (Nowadays aniline is used to make dyes, plastics, drugs and photographic chemicals.) This was the first time in history that purple became accessible to the masses.

image 1 - Roman Painting - Villa dei Misteri Pompeii - examples of the Royal Color Purple
image 2 - This mosaic, from the Basilica of San Vitale in Italy, showing the Emperor Justinian of Byzantine (AD 483–565) wearing a tyrian purple cloak.

About the Author
Charlotte Gardner, a guest blog writer, is currently studying archaeology at the Australian National University. In her spare time she likes to read and write about eccentric historical moments. Her love of old buildings and older stories was sparked when she visited Italy. One of Charlotte’s greatest wishes is that in a few thousand years her skeleton will be dug up by an archaeological investigation team and put on display in a national museum. You may contact Charlotte via email at: charlotteg86@gmail.com.

The History Boutique’s Roman Empire Store section offers a product selection of interest to Ancient Roman reenactors or history collectors of ancient mementos and replicas. Choose from Roman reenactment and Roman theatrical gear, authentic Roman items, Roman collectibles and ancient history gifts.

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The clothing we wear may at some level be devised for pragmatic and functional purposes although we have come a long way from outfitting ourselves purely based on necessity. Even clothing designed for specialized activities, such as skiing or mountain climbing, for example, are produced in variations of color, style, and cut because such allowances can be made while still providing effective protection.. One particular design of clothing, if it can be called that, that has very distinct specifications that are not readily altered is the space suit as worn by astronauts on voyages into outerspace.

The space suit is a familiar image to us but remains somewhat unique in how we categorize it. It is worn by the astronaut but in many ways is something more than an outfit and closer to a contraption or container for the human being to be inside of while exploring space. It is by necessity a self-enclosed system that allows the astronaut to move in an environment that otherwise would be fatal. In outer space humans are unable to survive due to lack of oxygen, extreme temperatures, and lack of air pressure.

The space suit today, the Apollo space suit as devised for the Apollo missions, is a pressure suit composed of several layers of nylon, mylar, and teflon that simultaneously insulate the wearer, moderating the body’s temperature, and provide a sufficiently pressurized atmosphere while protecting the body from cosmic radiation and other potentially harmful particles. It is a suit that is both an environment in and of itself and a means to traverse another, external, environment. Apart from its protective features, the space suit also must allow a certain amount of agility for the astronaut to be able to move and act in space. It is also a communication device, as the astronaut must be able to communicate with the space station from within the space suit’s closed environment. The space suit is a remarkable achievement in technology and though it is hardly a form of attire that we would classify as a ‘fashion’, we can assume that it will inform the way fashion may develop on earth as we become more technologically oriented and the possibility of traveling to and living in outer space becomes more plausible for the average human being.

image: astronauts in the Mercury space suits
image: astronaut in the Apollo 16 space suit, NASA image

History Collectors: We offer a wide selection of museum quality replicas and authentic items representing nearly every century of the Common Era and the most significant civilizations of ancient history. Once you browse through our online catalogue, we are certain you’ll find the perfect gift for yourself or a loved one with an interest in history.

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The image of the ballerina is a familiar one that evokes romance, elegance, whimsy and grace and is most ingrained in our memory as a figure in a fanciful tutu. The ballet tutu is a skirt usually made of tulle or some other light and diaphanous fabric that retains a bell-like shape, wrapping the dancer’s waist in a mist of cloth and revealing enough of her legs to showcase the intricate steps she is capable of.

The tutu’s early incarnation was in the romantic mold, a skirt that draped to a little below the knee and flowed easily with the dancer’s movements. This tutu was popular in the 1800’s, during which time dancers also began to evolve their en pointe (upon their toes) method of dancing and when dance became a more elaborate performance.

As ballet changed and performances altered to accommodate a more expectant viewing audience, the tutu also transformed to highlight still more of the dancer’s leg work. The classic tutu that eventually surfaced is known to us in the form of the stiffened tulle fabric cut very short to reveal almost all of the dancer’s legs. It is a fashion that lends itself to the appreciation of the ballerina’s aesthetic footwork and maybe also contributes to one’s sense that the dancer lives on a different plane, with her gauzy, cloud-like skirt lifting her along with her legs to other levels.

image: Edgar Degas, painting, Ballerina
image: Edgar Degas, sculpture, Dancer

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History Collectors: We offer a wide selection of museum quality replicas and authentic items representing nearly every century of the Common Era and the most significant civilizations of ancient history. Once you browse through our online catalogue, we are certain you’ll find the perfect gift for yourself or a loved one with an interest in history.