Kirtle
![](../I/m/Orazio_Gentileschi_-_Il_suonatore_di_liuto_(National_Gallery_of_Art).jpg)
![]() |
Look up kirtle in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. |
A kirtle (sometimes called cotte, cotehardie) is a garment worn by men and women in the Middle Ages or, later, a one-piece garment worn by women from the later Middle Ages into the Baroque period. The kirtle was typically worn over a chemise or smock which acted as a slip and under the formal outer garment or gown/surcoat.
Kirtles were part of fashionable attire into the middle sixteenth century, and remained part of country or middle-class clothing into the seventeenth century.
Kirtles began as loose garments without a waist seam, changing to tightly fitted supportive garments in the 14th century. Later kirtles could be constructed by combining a fitted bodice with a skirt gathered or pleated into the waist seam. Kirtles could lace up the front, back or side-back, with some rare cases of side lacing, all depending on the fashion of the day/place and what kind of gown was to be worn over it. Kirtles could be embellished with a variety of decorations including gold, silk, tassels, and knobs.[1]
See also
References
- Arnold, Janet: Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd, W S Maney and Son Ltd, Leeds 1988. ISBN 0-901286-20-6
- Arnold, Janet: Patterns of Fashion: the cut and construction of clothes for men and women 1560-1620, Macmillan 1985. Revised edition 1986. (ISBN 0-89676-083-9)
- Ashelford, Jane: The Art of Dress: Clothing and Society 1500-1914, Abrams, 1996. ISBN 0-8109-6317-5
- Ashelford, Jane. The Visual History of Costume: The Sixteenth Century. 1983 edition (ISBN 0-89676-076-6), 1994 reprint (ISBN 0-7134-6828-9).
- Hearn, Karen, ed. Dynasties: Painting in Tudor and Jacobean England 1530-1630. New York: Rizzoli, 1995. ISBN 0-8478-1940-X.
- The Passionate Shepherd to His Love poem by Christopher Marlowe, in the 1590s.