The "Little people"

One of the inspirations for writing The Tudor Tailor was the lack of reliable published information about what ordinary people wore in the 16th century. Ninya and Jane's aim was to identify a range of research materials on which to base a wardrobe of garments for what were termed "the lower sort" in Tudor society.

Many of the basic garments depicted in contemporary sources are suitable for wear throughout the century but there are details which are specific to particular decades, such as puffs and rolls on sleeves, the shape of men's hose and breeches, and styles of headwear. It is the appropriate use of these which distinguishes an accurate reproduction garment from an approximate or "Tudorbethan" one.

A great deal of what is known about Tudor dress comes from representations of the elite in portraits and from extant garments - most of which are examples owned by wealthy people. As with any historical research, information about the majority of the population is hard to discover.

Paintings with crowd scenes such as The embarkation at Dover (by an unknown artist) and The fete at Bermondsey (by Joris Hoefnagel) are invaluable sources for ordinary garb. Stained glass windows, church effigies and the occasional extant item give a few more clues. However, it is rare to find a single source which tells the whole story of how an outfit is constructed, layered and worn.

It is often necessary to take a series of fragmentary sources and cross-reference them to create a whole costume - the top of a portrait, the back view from a crowd scene, the likely fabrics from an account ledger, and a hemline and shoes from a weeper on a church monument. Ninya and Jane commissioned line drawings of individual figures based on a range of evidence from these less familiar sources. The same technique was applied to the elite, although there was less need for composite costumes in this context.

Below are three of what Ninya and Jane call their "Little People" with an insight into the research that created them. In the book there are 22 "ordinary" figures (nine women and 13 men) and 20 "elite" figures (a women and a man for each decade). These are published on pages 12 and 13 of The Tudor Tailor: reconstructing 16th century dress.

Visit the sales page soon for an exciting range of products featuring the "little people"! Click on the thumbnails below for details of each figure.

Miner

Townswoman

Elite Woman