1400–1500 in European fashion

Fashion in 15th-century Europe was characterized by a surge of experimentation and regional variety, from the voluminous robes called houppelandes with their sweeping floor-length sleeves to the revealing giornea of Renaissance Italy.

As Europe continued to grow more prosperous, the urban middle classes, skilled workers, began to wear more complex clothes that followed, at a distance, the fashions set by the elites.

Having added Holland and Flanders to their dominion, the Dukes of Burgundy had access to the latest fabrics of Italy and the East and to English wool exports through the great trading cities of Bruges and Antwerp.

[4] Purchases of fabrics through Italian merchants like the two cousins both named Giovanni Arnolfini amounted to a noticeable proportion of all government expenditure.

[7] Wool fabrics were available in a wide range of qualities, from rough undyed cloth to fine, dense broadcloth with a velvety nap.

[11][12][13] Towards the end of the 14th century, Italian silk and velvet manufacturers were applying their advanced weaving skills to achieve ever more complex designs.

[16] Contemporary chroniclers identify the source of the fashion for slashing garments to the actions of Swiss soldiers in the aftermath of the Battle of Grandson in 1476.

In reality, images appear of sleeves with a single slashed opening as early as the mid-15th century, although the German fashion for "many small all-over slits" may have begun here.

[18] Whatever its origin, the fad for multiple slashings spread to German Landsknechts and thence to France, Italy, and England, where it was to remain a potent current in fashionable attire into the mid-17th century.

The wide, shallow scooped neckline was replaced by a V-neck, often cut low enough to reveal the decorated front of the kirtle beneath.

Wide turn-backs like revers displayed a contrasting lining, frequently of fur or black velvet, and the sleeves might be cuffed to match.

[22][23][24][25] In Italy, the low scoop-neck of the early decades gave way to a neckline that was high in front with a lower V-neck at the back at mid-15th century.

[26][27] The partlet, a separate item to fill in a low neckline, appeared in this period, usually of sheer fabric (linen or possibly silk) with an open V-neckline.

[28] The sideless surcoat of the 14th century became fossilized as a ceremonial costume for royalty, usually with an ermine front panel (called a plackard or placket) and a mantle draped from the shoulders; it can be seen in variety of royal portraits and as "shorthand" to identify queens in illuminated manuscripts of the period.

The crespine of Northern Europe, originally a thick hairnet or snood, had evolved into a mesh of jeweler's work that confined the hair on the sides of the head by the end of the 14th century.

The most extravagant headdress of Burgundian fashion was the hennin, a cone or truncated-cone shaped cap with a wire frame covered in fabric and topped by a floating veil.

[31] Women of the merchant classes in Northern Europe wore modified versions of courtly hairstyles, with coifs or caps, veils, and wimples of crisp linen (often with visible creases from ironing and folding).

[26] Italian women wore their hair very long, wound with ribbons or braided, and twisted up into knots of various shapes with the ends hanging free.

[34] The basic outfit of men in this period consisted of a shirt, doublet, and hose, with some sort of over garment (robe worn over clothing).

As overgarments became shorter, hose reached to the waist rather than the hips, and were sewn together into a single garment with a pouch or flap to cover the front opening; this evolved into the codpiece which only begins being exposed formally after the 1480s in art.

The hose exposed by short tops were, especially in Italy late in the 15th century, often strikingly patterned, parti-coloured (different colours for each leg, or vertically divided), or embroidered.

[9] In Venice, the patrician class, after the age of joining the Great Council, wore their long red robes as a uniform virtually unchanged throughout the 15th century.

In the last decades of the 15th century, a new style of gown appeared; this was of various lengths, generally worn unbelted, and featured wide turned back revers and collar.

Early in the 15th century, the hood remained a common component of dress for all classes, although it was frequently worn around the neck as a cowl or twisted into the fantastical shapes of the chaperon.

In Germany, and briefly in Venice, a wide shock of frizzy blond hair was often seen on images of lovers (and angels) in the later part of the 15th century—less often in portraits.

The "Polish" fashion of long-toed poulaines, pikes, or crakows in the previous century continued, prompting sumptuary taxes, regulations, ecclesiastical censure for vanity, and even—in France—outright bans.

Outer pattens and the sabatons of the period's armor followed suit, reaching such awkward extremes in the second half of the century that they fell entirely out of fashion in favor of the duckbill shoe supposedly prompted by the extra toe of France's Charles VIII.