Book Chapter

Unlikely followers of fashion? Dressing the poor in late medieval Bruges

  • Peter Stabel

Surprisingly little is known about the way the poor strata of urban society in the late medieval period used dress to express social identities. Systematic empirical data have not been available, and sources tend to illustrate the opinion of the elites about poverty. Through the analysis of cloth distribution by charitable institutions and, above all, of a unique set of inventories for fifteenth-century Bruges, it becomes clear that dress was not only an important element in the material culture and the construction of social identity of the poor, but that instead of being a passive player depending on charity and alternative commercial circuits, the poor used dress to conform to fashion cycles set by the wealthier groups in urban society. In late medieval Bruges, they were wearing the same typology of dress, the same colours and the same fabrics, displaying in this way a willingness to participate and invest in fashion cycles. In assessing both urban economies and social dialogue, scholars should therefore not focus on elite demand alone.

  • Keywords:
  • Social relations,
  • late medieval city,
  • dress and material culture,
  • poverty,
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Peter Stabel

Universiteit Antwerpen, Belgium - ORCID: 0000-0002-0582-4151

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  • Publication Year: 2022
  • Pages: 293-318
  • Content License: CC BY 4.0
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  • Publication Year: 2022
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Chapter Information

Chapter Title

Unlikely followers of fashion? Dressing the poor in late medieval Bruges

Authors

Peter Stabel

Language

English

DOI

10.36253/978-88-5518-565-3.17

Peer Reviewed

Publication Year

2022

Copyright Information

© 2022 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Bibliographic Information

Book Title

La moda come motore economico: innovazione di processo e prodotto, nuove strategie commerciali, comportamento dei consumatori / Fashion as an economic engine: process and product innovation, commercial strategies, consumer behavior

Editors

Giampiero Nigro

Peer Reviewed

Number of Pages

422

Publication Year

2022

Copyright Information

© 2022 Author(s)

Content License

CC BY 4.0

Metadata License

CC0 1.0

Publisher Name

Firenze University Press

DOI

10.36253/978-88-5518-565-3

ISBN Print

978-88-5518-564-6

eISBN (pdf)

978-88-5518-565-3

eISBN (xml)

978-88-5518-566-0

Series Title

Datini Studies in Economic History

Series ISSN

2975-1241

Series E-ISSN

2975-1195

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