She did something nonconventional yet frugally clever. She was looking for something understated but eye-catching. So, how does one introduce silk into a tight budget?
By using silk typically designated as a soft lining for gowns or jackets and reimagining it into statement pieces that could be worn out in public.
The inventory of Dorothea Putz dates from 1692 and provides evidence about which textiles were used by a middle-class woman living in the City of Luxembourg during the Silver Age. It also reveals some other surprises we may not have thought about. So, let’s explore how Putz would have gone about her morning with the intent of getting dressed for a visit to her friend’s house.
We can imagine her still in bed as she wakes up in the morning. When in bed, she would have worn one of her two headbands, used to keep one’s hair in place. These headbands overlapped onto the forehead. At the time, it was thought that by keeping the headband tight around the head, it would prevent wrinkles.
Putz had a simple bed. It consisted of a pair of sheets, a bedcover, and a kussen zieg. It was so unremarkable that the textile and colours were not mentioned. They were likely natural-coloured linens. It was her mattress that received the most attention, being a Cologne mattress (K. A budget-type bed easily recognisable due to having a striped fabric upon which she would have been comfortable enough.
This is in comparison to the beds owned by Anna Baroness of Botzeler, wife of Evgeny Albert Baron of Beck, who also lived in Luxembourg. She had a bed with a canopy and hangings made of a green serge fabric, “with flowers worked on it in tapestry and encircled with silk fringes.” She also had a painted calico cotton quilt from India. Putz, on the other hand, seemed to reserve any luxury textiles she had for clothing that would be worn in public.
Putz appears to have had two extra pairs of sheets, a green blanket (decken), and another cushion. She also had a pulm and pulm zieg.
You may have noticed she has a goat or two in her bed (zieg). If we use 21st-century Luxembourgish, ein kussen zieg, is translated as “a kissing goat”. If we use German, it also agrees it is a kissing goat. For the moment, let’s assume she did not have kissing goats. How did I know what the true translation is?
We can’t use modern Luxembourgish to translate “premodern Luxembourgish” documents. When translating Silver Age documents, we will need to use dictionaries from the 17th and 18th centuries. A kussen is the premodern Luxembourgish word for cushion and a zieg is a cushion cover. This might be because, in the Middle Ages, cushions had a leather cover.
Returning to our heroine, she has just gotten out of her bed. What to wear?
Going to her wardrobe and opening the doors, she would first need to choose a fresh shirt to wear. She owned eight shirts, four of which were made of silk taffeta. She could also put on one of her two pairs of linen stockings. Let’s give her a non-silk shirt, likely linen, and a pair of linen stockings.
Third, she would choose a pair of stays. When night mantels became popular, the wearing of stays also became commonplace in probate inventories.
A woman’s stays were one of the most expensive items in her wardrobe. These were worn over the top of her shirt. They had whale baleen, like flexible sticks, sewn into the lining. This stiffens the fabric.
From the viewpoint of fashion, stays are used to create a stylish silhouette. However, due to the whale baleen, they were also used as a means to keep one’s back straight and shoulders even.
The camisole and stays were different from a corset, which was popular in the 19th century and worn under a shirt to make the waistline smaller. Also, she does not own a bra. Her stays will provide the support she needs.
Putz had a pair of stays with a peplum made of grey Tammy fabric (fine lightweight wool) and a second pair without a peplum made of black cloth (winter-weight wool). A peplum is a decorative skirting that would have gone around the waist and is part of the stays.
Let’s go with the grey pair of stays with a fancy peplum over a nice linen shirt. Next, Putz had a choice between three lovely petticoats to go with the stays!
This is where Putz gets clever. They are made of a type of silk taffeta called shagreen. This is a very affordable silk commonly used as a lining in robes and jackets. The makers of shagreen silk were inspired by the pebbled skins of ray and shark leathers. So, the surface of the silk taffeta fabric has hundreds of soft tiny raised knots. Putz had the choice of a silk taffeta petticoat with a shagreen effect in brown, red, or black.
While at home she could wear one of three different house robes (nachtmantell). One of her robes was likely worn around the house; however, the others would have been for outings to visit friends, like the green robe worn by the woman at the introduction of this article. She had a fourth night mantel, made of good quality taffeta imported from Bengal, which would have been reserved for special occasions or parties. These night mantels were likely flowered with large blooms or had Turkish-style lattice patterns.
The name house robe, night mantel, or morning gown is misleading. During the second half of the 17th century, women began leaving their jackets at home and started wearing their house robes out in public.
You may have heard of a headband, which has linen lace on the wires that stands about one foot in the air. However, in Putz’s inventory, she had another type of headband called a Cornette. Cornettes are small caps with lace that sit on top of a hairdo. The lace stands up like a tiara.
This new fashion of wearing soft flowing robes was so different from the conservative doublet jackets with skirts that satirical poems were produced. Johannes Laurenberg from Rostock was a doctor of medicine who also produced poems in Low German, sometimes satirical. In 1653, he published a poem about the latest women’s fashion. It was published in both German and Dutch. The poem begins with “Caps are not worn anymore – no! They’re all Cornettes”. He goes on to state that “Nobody wears a doublet and skirt anymore”.
Instead, camisoles and chamber mantels had become the trendy fashion, “What should I say of this outrageous costume, and of the Fontanges That all the young women now adopt contrary to old times?” He also tried to blame most of these fashions on the French, particularly the fashion of wearing headbands with metal wires called cornettes and fontanges.
The fontange is rumoured to have been invented by a French woman named Marie Angelique de Scorailleess, Duchess of Fontanges, who was born in July 1661. After arriving at court in 1678, it is said that she became the mistress of Louis XIV. It is at this point it is believed that the Fontange was invented. However, the poem was published in 1653, before the Duchess of Fontanges was born. It is more likely that the Cornette and Fontange evolved from regional headdresses.
With Putz’s hair up and a Cornette upon her head, she is ready to head out onto the streets of Luxembourg. Putz’s inventory is a great example of how a woman in Luxembourg, who is on a budget, stays on top of trends and integrates silk into her wardrobe.
About the author: Tara Mancini is an author with Buffalo Raising Journal. Articles have covered topic categories such as culture, charitable fundraisers, and city and State infrastructure since 2016. Mancini’s hobbies includes reading and collecting data from 17th century documents, then inputing the data into a database using spreadsheets for use in her articles.
