Was fashion born during the European Renaissance? In the early twenty-first century, fashion is so pervasive that it seems inherent to social and economic life, almost a “natural” thing that no one can escape.
However, fashion as we know it – with its powerful industrial infrastructure, its widespread appeal as a career, and its media omnipresence – has not always been around. When and where did it appear? As pointed out by American historian Sarah-Grace Heller, the dominant position among scholars is that fashion originates “in the West in the fourteenth- or fifteenth-century courts of Burgundy or Italy, or more generally with the era referred to as ‘Early Modernity,’” that is to say with the European Renaissance, usually considered to have started in the fourteenth century.
This academic standpoint on what constitutes the “cradle of fashion” derives from the work of French historian Fernand Braudel, who saw the constant and regular change in dress as a byproduct of the emergence of modernity in Europe. Braudel’s central thesis is that fashion is what sets the West apart from other civilizations that have not known anything comparable until very recently.
American sociologist Fred Davis offers an additional take on the dominant view that fashion, as we know it today, was born in Europe at the end of the Middle Ages: There are, to be sure, scholars who claim to detect phenomena akin to fashion among other peoples and in past civilizations.
None, however, carries the claim so far as to maintain that fashion – in the sense of a continual, largely uninterrupted, and ever more institutionalized succession of stylistic changes in dress, adornment, and decorative design generally – has existed anywhere other than in the postmedieval West.
It should be noted that other researchers, even in the West, offer alternative perspectives, and that there is no consensus regarding the theory of fashion beginning with the European Renaissance. For example, French historian Philippe Perrot places the emergence of fashion much later, around 1700 in Europe, although he identifies some initial signs of fashion as early as the Middle Ages.
For Heller, however, it is futile to seek a single source and starting point of fashion. Defining such an origin depends on how fashion is defined and on the questions the researchers looking for the origin of fashion are actually trying to answer.
There exist many regular noncumulative changes in dress in societies as remote from Europe as fourteenthcentury Japan, where telling someone they are “up to date” (“imamekashi”) was considered the highest compliment one could make.
Similarly, Heller explains that the very idea of fashion being born during the early fourteenth century in Western Europe arises because there is an abundance of historical material on the types of dress prevalent during that specific time and place, while the historical sources from earlier periods, and other civilizations, are far rarer.
In other words, the reason why many researchers saw, and still see, fourteenth-century Europe as the origin of fashion is because this specific time and place was the first one for which they had significant sources to analyze.
More specifically, Heller mentions a study by Paul Post as the actual origin of the idea that fashion was born in Renaissance Europe. She notes, however, that Paul Post himself had only developed an argument about the origin of modern male dress, not about the origin of fashion as a whole. Post’s study was thus mischaracterized by those using his work to define an origin of fashion.
Heller’s argument, that fashion can be found in other times and other civilizations, has been further developed by many other scholars, for example, Australian historian Antonia Finnane, who studied fashion in China. For her, it is clear that fashion existed in China well before the twentieth century. It was simply ignored by Western scholars not only because of the lack of adequate sources, but also because, historically, Western scholars have shown little understanding of, or interest in, Chinese culture.
The idea that fashion originated in the West, sometime after the Middle Ages, can also be challenged by a simple look at the work of Greek and Roman philosophers: they did not ignore fashion, though they did systematically subordinate this topic to what they saw as a more important subject – luxury.
This is notably the case with Plato, who saw in luxury a significant source of political conflicts and dissensions. In the Republic he describes what the ideal state (or ideal city) ought to be. Such a state, he explains, should use the resources that are directly available to its citizens, and nothing more.
Any addition to what is strictly necessary – i.e., “luxury,” such as jewelry, arts, fine foods or wines – leads states to look for scarce resources elsewhere, in neighboring states, and to start wars. For Plato, war is thus a consequence of luxury. Moreover, Pliny the Elder, a Roman naturalist, philosopher, and historian who is best known for his harsh criticism of gold and money, has also described in his most famous work Naturalis Historia the changing fashions in the usage of rings during ancient history.
In sum, fashion has always existed in some form, and it is a phenomenon that goes well beyond Europe and predates the Renaissance. Yet, it is during the European Renaissance that fashion, as we know it today – powerful, widespread, omnipresent – appeared.
In this sense, the dominant view in history and sociology is justified, although it needs to be refined. Capitalism, which started its ascent during the Renaissance, allowed the emergence of a new class, the bourgeoisie, which openly confronted the aristocracy.
This period is characterized by a certain political tranquility in Europe, with the end of the invasions, and by intense scientific and economic transformations that challenged the traditional hierarchies.