Ideals of Beauty in France and Italy
From the first picture, the lady in the picture has won a headgear, a fitting blouse covering the upper waist showing her orange shaped breasts. On her waist area is tied loose dome-shaped garment and a long skirt. Besides, she has put on sharp-pointed shoes. From the second picture, the lady puts on a headgear surrounded by queen-shaped hair clips covering her dark hair. On the upper waist is a fitting blouse holding her chest revealing her orange shaped breasts. On her two hands, rest two different loose garments of different colours. From the dressing style, it suggests that the woman could be wearing a pair of flat shoes. From the third picture, it shows an Italian woman with a neatly curled and partly pleated hair.
The aesthetic value of her hair is further enhanced by dye of different colours. On her neck are two necklaces. The smaller one is a bronze necklace while the larger one that flops down her chest resting between her twin breasts is a pleated hair. Above her waist is a loose blouse. From the look of her dressing, it can be assumed that the clothes below her waist are loose as well but covering the whole body.From the first and second photos taken in Paris during the reign of Charles V11, it can be deduced that it was fashionable to cover the hair during the 15th century. Besides, the clothes worn by most women during this time were long enough to cover the whole body from neck to toes.
It was also fashionable for women to spice up their dressings with a loose piece of garment either tied around the waist of loosely held by the hands. However, it can be observed from the photos that the mode of dressing and beauty as a whole differed from the two countries. While Frech women embraced tight fitting garments and the hair covered, their Italian counterparts opted for loose clothes, and uncovered hair with some ornaments worn around the neck. The ornaments were conspicuously absent in France (Roche, 1999).Towards the end of the century, the narrow clothes worn by women were replaced with a wide silhouette conically broad at the hips (Netherton et al., 2006). The focus on dressing during this time was mainly on sleeves that were highly puffed, cuffed and turned back.
Works Cited
Netherton, R. a. (2006). Medieval Clothing and Textiles (Vol. Volume 2 ). (Owen-Crocker, Ed.) New York: the Boydell Press.
Roche, D. (1999). The culture of clothing: Dress and fashion in the "ancien régime". Cambridge [u.a.: Cambridge Univ. …
