Men’s Clothing in the Second Half of the 15 th Century: From the Skin Out

The focus of my 15^th century impression is an Englishman during the War of the Roses specifically during the conflicts in 1471. The unfortunate thing about the 15th century is there are few surviving garments and none of any interest to my impression that I know of. To make matters worse there is little art from England; most was destroyed in the reformation in the 17th century. In order to create clothing form this era we must look at the detailed art left to us and clothing from the surrounding time frames in order to figure out construction. The few pieces of English art left to use show what style the English wore, often it is related to Flemish and French styles, who influenced whom is truly unknown but many debate that the Flemish lead the way in fashion at this time. 

Impression

I have two impressions I do with my 15^th century clothing. First I portray a Yeoman archer of a lord’s household in a living history group. I have well worn clothing that is a bit more simply made; for instance I wear a simple acorn hat instead of a lord’s chaperon and my gown is simply linen lined versus being fur trimmed (too be fully fur lined). The doublet is dirty from having a maille shirt and jack over it most of the time it is worn.  My second impression more along the lines a wealth merchant or lord that is low on the

food chain would wear. My gown is fur edged (will be lined later), I wear a black chaperon and hosen (black was an expensive color to produce and wore out fast so only the wealthy wore black clothing), and my doublet is made of fine spun wool.