Fashion in the period 1550–1600 in Western European clothing was characterized by increased opulence. Contrasting fabrics, slashes, embroidery, applied trims, and other forms of surface ornamentation remained prominent. The wide silhouette, conical for women with breadth at the hips and broadly square for men with width at the shoulders had reached its peak in the 1530s, and by mid-century a tall, narrow line with a V-shaped waist was back in fashion. Sleeves and women’s skirts then began to widen again, with emphasis at the shoulder that would continue into the next century. The characteristic garment of the period was the ruff, which began as a modest ruffle attached to the neckband of a shirt or smock and grew into a separate garment of fine linen, trimmed with lace, cutwork or embroidery, and shaped into crisp, precise folds with starch and heated irons.

Men’s fashion

Overview
Men’s fashionable clothing consisted of a linen shirt with collar or ruff and matching wrist ruffs, which were laundered with starch to be kept stiff and bright. Over the shirt men wore a doublet with long sleeves sewn or laced in place. Doublets were stiff, heavy garments, and were often reinforced with boning. Optionally, a jerkin, usually sleeveless and often made of leather, was worn over the doublet. During this time the doublet and jerkin became increasingly more colorful and highly decorated. Waistlines dipped V-shape in front, and were padded to hold their shape. Around 1570, this padding was exaggerated into a peascod belly.

Hose, in variety of styles, were worn with a codpiece early in the period. Trunk hose or round hose were short padded hose. Very short trunk hose were worn over cannions, fitted hose that ended above the knee. Trunk hose could be paned or pansied, with strips of fabric (panes) over a full inner layer or lining. Slops or galligaskins were loose hose reaching just below the knee. Slops could also be pansied.

Pluderhosen were a Northern European form of pansied slops with a very full inner layer pulled out between the panes and hanging below the knee.

Venetians were semi-fitted hose reaching just below the knee.

Men wore stockings or netherstocks and flat shoes with rounded toes, with slashes early in the period and ties over the instep later. Boots were worn for riding.

Outerwear
Short cloaks or capes, usually hip-length, often with sleeves, or a military jacket like a mandilion, were fashionable. Long cloaks were worn in cold and wet weather. Gowns were increasingly old-fashioned, and were worn by older men for warmth indoors and out. In this period robes began their transition from general garments to traditional clothing of specific occupations, such as scholars (see Academic dress).

Hairstyles and headgear
Hair was generally worn short, brushed back from the forehead. Longer styles were popular in the 1580s. In the 1590s, young men of fashion wore a lovelock, a long section of hair hanging over one shoulder.

Through the 1570s, a soft fabric hat with a gathered crown was worn. These derived from the flat hat of the previous period, and over time the hat was stiffened and the crown became taller and far from flat. Later, a conical felt hat with a rounded crown called a capotain or copotain became fashionable. These became very tall toward the end of century. Hats were decorated with a jewel or feather, and were worn indoors and out.

Close-fitting caps covering the ears and tied under the chin called coifs continued to be worn by children and older men under their hats or alone indoors; men’s coifs were usually black.

A conical cap of linen with a turned up brim called a nightcap was worn informally indoors; these were often embroidered.

Beards
Although beards were worn by many men prior to the mid-16th century, it was at this time when grooming and styling facial hair gained social significance. These styles would change very frequently, from pointed whiskers to round trims, throughout these few decades. The easiest way men were able to maintain the style of their beards was to apply starch onto their groomed faces. The most popular styles of beards at this time include:

The Cadiz Beard or Cads Beard, which was named after the Cádiz Expedition in 1596. It resembles a large and discussed growth upon the chin.
The Goat Beard resembles a goatee. It is also very similar to the ‘Pick-a-devant and the Barbula style of beards.
The Peak was, at the time, a common name for the beard, but it referred specifically to a mustache finely groomed to a pointed tip.
The Pencil Beard is a small portion of the beard easing to a point around the centre of the chin.
The Stiletto Beard is shaped similarly to the dagger in which it obtained its name.
The Round Beard, just as its name suggests, is trimmed to add emphasis to the roundness of the male cheekbones. Another common name for this style was the Bush Beard.
The Spade Beard derives from the design of a spade which belongs in a deck of playing cards. The beard is broad on the higher part of the cheeks which then curves at each side to meet at the tip of the chin. This style was thought to give a martial appearance and was favoured by soldiers.
The Marquisetto; a very sleek trim of the beard in which is cuts close to the chin.
The Swallow’s Tail Beard is unique in a sense that it entails the groomer to take the hairs from the centre of the chin and separate the hairs toward opposite directions. This is very common variation of the forked beard, although it is greater in length and it is more noticeably spread apart.
Accessories
A baldrick or “corse” was a belt commonly worn diagonally across the chest or around the waist for holding items such swords, daggers, bugles, and horns.

Gloves were often used as a social mediator to recognize the wealthy. Beginning in the second half of the 16th century, many men had trimmed tips off of the fingers of gloves in order for the admirer to see the jewels that were being hidden by the glove.

Late in the period, fashionable young men wore a plain gold ring, a jewelled earring, or a strand of black silk through one pierced ear.

Style gallery 1550s–1560s

1 – c. 1550	2 – 1557	3 – 1560	4 – 1560	5 – 1563
6 – 1566	7 – 1566	8 – 1568

1.King Edward VI of England wears matching black doublet, paned hose, and robe trimmed with bands of gold braid or embroidery closed with jewels, c. 1550.
2.Antoine de Bourbon wears an embroidered black doublet with worked buttons and a matching robe. His high collar is worn open at the top in the French fashion.
3.Don Gabriel de la Cueva wears a jerkin with short slashed sleeves over a red satin doublet. His velvet hose are made in wide panes over a full lining, 1566.
4.Prospero Alessandri wears a severe black jerkin with the new, shorted bases over a light grey doublet with rows of parallel cuts between bands of gold braid. His rose-coloured pansied slops are also decorated with cuts and narrow applied gold trim, 1560.
5.Thomas Howard, Duke of Norfolk wears a shirt trimmed in black on ruff and sleeve ruffles. He wears a belt pouch at his waist. 1563.
6.Charles IX of France wears an embroidered black jerkin with long bases or skirts over a white satin doublet and matching padded hose, 1566.
7.Highnecked black jerkin fastens with buttons and loops. The detailed stitching on the lining can be seen. The black-and-white doublet below also fastens with tiny buttons, German, 1566.
8.Portrait of Henry Lee of Ditchley in a black jerkin over a white satin doublet decorated with a pattern of armillary spheres, 1568.

Style gallery 1570s

1 – 1573–74	2 – c. 1570	3 – c. 1575	4 – c. 1576	5 – 1577
6 – 1577	7 – 1579

1.Henry, Duke of Anjou, the future Henry III of France and Poland, wears doublet and matching cape with the high collar and figure-of-eight ruff of c. 1573–74.
2.An Italian tailor wears a pinked doublet over heavily padded hose. His shirt has a small ruff.
3.Sir Christopher Hatton’s shirt collar is embroidered with blackwork, 1575.
4.French fashion features very short pansied slops over canions and peascode-bellied doublets and jerkins, the Valois Tapestries, c. 1576.
5.Sir Martin Frobisher in a peascod-bellied doublet with full sleeves under a buff jerkin with matching hose, 1577.
6.Miniature of the Duc d’Alençon shows a deep figure-of-eight ruff in pointed lace (probably reticella). Note the jeweled buttons on his doublet fasten to one side of the front opening, not down the center, 1577.
7.John Smythe wears a pinked white doublet with worked buttons and a plain linen ruff, 1579.

Style gallery 1580s–1590s

1 – 1585	2 – 1586	3 – 1588	4 – 1588	5 – 1588
6 – 1590s	7 – c. 1590	8 – 1580–1600

1.Miniature of Sir Walter Raleigh shows a linen cartwheel ruff with lace (possibly reticella) edging and the stylish small pointed beard of 1585.
2.Sir Henry Unton wears the cartwheel ruff popular in England in the 1580s. His white satin doublet is laced with a red-and-white cord at the neck. A red cloak with gold trim is slung fashionably over one shoulder, and he wears a tall black hat with a feather, 1586.
3.Unknown man of 1588 wears a lace or cutwork-edged collar rather than a ruff, with matching sleeve cuffs. He wears a tall grey hat with a feather which is called capotain.
4.Sir Walter Raleigh wears the Queen’s colors (black and white). His cloak is lined and collared with fur, 1588.
5.Robert Sidney wears a loose military jacket called a mandilion colley-westonward, or with the sleeves hanging in front and back, 1588.
6.Philip II of Spain (d. 1598) in old age. Spanish fashion changed very little from the 1560s to the end of the century.
7.Sir Christopher Hatton wears a fur-lined robe with hanging sleeves over a slashed doublet and hose, with the livery collar of the Order of the Garter, c. 1590.
8.Man’s cloak of red satin, couched and embroidered with silver, silver-gilt and coloured silk threads, trimmed with silver-gilt and silk thread fringe and tassel, and lined with pink linen, 1580–1600 (V&A Museum no. 793–1901)

Common people
Materials on commoners’ clothing are familiar to German printmaking.

There is no big difference in farmers’ clothes from the beginning of the 16th century to the end of the 16th century, there is not much difference in the last century. To Schmizz, clothes such as cot and kneel with a simple knee-length tunic, the relaxing long pants known as Burukae, the shoes, the leather shoes or the gentle boots were almost unchanged from those in the Middle Ages. You can also see the farmers wearing short jacket called Jack, which is a kind of simple pool poor that does not fill. Hairstyle is casual short hair, sunburnt straw hat etc. were suffered.

The citizen wore a poolpoan and a shoes on Chemise. From around the middle of the 16th century, fashionable au do deux and baud sousse are worn. Even in the same craftsman, in a relatively heavy work such as shoemaker, dye shop and weaver, or in a job type which is easily dirty in the body, in a shiny au do not stuffing stuffing up, chemise. In occupations such as fur craftsmen and Rosaya, it seems that there were many stylish dresses with slit ornaments in the whole body, with plenty of fabrics in decorative pool pools such as inflating the shoulders. Although such glamorous appearance might have been the aspect of propaganda, there was also a craftsman of plain clothes in the same workshop, the beautiful clothes were limited to the boss etc. Hairstyle seems to have been popular shortly in the Spanish style. Citizen ‘s young men who have comparatively affordable hair style that can straighten hair straightened to the head which had been popular since around 1550.

Upstream citizen
Embroidered chemises with poolspoons, au do deux and baud sousse, and shoes with decorated shoes and slip-on shoes with flats spread like flat scoops nicknamed as cows’ lips and slip-on shallow men put on their shoes. The cow’s lip type disappeared in the second half of the 16th century, the type with rounded tip of the duck bamboo shape gained popularity, and the type gradually approaching the pointed Oxford type popular comes out. The cloak that refused the round cloth called the Spanish style cape as a coat was popular. This is so short that it does not reach the waist, and the same type of remains worn by Oda Nobunaga and Kobayakawa Hideaki as a gift from missionaries remains in Japan.

A group of wealthy intellectuals such as judges, lawyers, doctors, scholars and the like were wearing short or no gowns with sleeves with large collars of fur or cloth as coat. This gown was called Say in France and Shaube in Germany. It is a loose-fitted jacket without sleeves drawn in Luther ‘s portrait. Many of these jackets were tailor-made with high quality woolen fabric or velvet, expensive such as being put on the back with fur. In the age of one cow 4 Gurden, the used black chaube with Ten’s fur bought by Anton Tohar 35 Gulden. Doctor Gilk • Raume gave a Shaube with a fur of ten from his older brother, which also gave 75 Gulden.

However, even those with profession respected by people were not able to wear anything as long as their finances allowed. In 1557, Dr. Andrew Broad and Peter Gruze ‘s academic supervisor were executed with a crime wearing a spectacular nightcap named Scarlet and Aya respectively.

Upper class
Embroidered chemises with poolspoons, au do deux and baud sousse, and shoes with decorated shoes and slip-on shoes with flats spread like flat scoops nicknamed as cows’ lips and slip-on shallow men put on their shoes.

Men wear Sase or Shamar as my coat, but it is unclear what Shamar is like as Sayh looks much like Schaube. It has meaning to decorate on the shamar, it seems to be one kind of gown which decorated abundantly. As a hat men often wore a hat like Beretta like a big beret to hide one ear.

In the German record, twill fabrics and clothes such as those used by the royalty were inexpensive categories, ranging from 10 Gurden to 18 Gluden per elec- tron. The monthly income of a common citizen around this time is 2 groudden. Large aristocrats and kings decorated them with embroidering as much as they buried luxurious and expensive fabrics, even with such a simple, slitting.

The pursuit of the splendor of the royal men stretched beyond stockings, jackets and sleeves, as well as underwear. In the first half of the 16th century poolspoons neckline is often low, contrary stuffed underwear collar was given fine color thread embroidery and gold and silver thread embroidery, sometimes spangles (metal pieces) were decorated. Such a brilliant decoration is a woman’s hand, a daughter or sister, in many cases a gift from a bride. Maximareian Princess Margarette of Maximilian is pleased to present his father an underwear that he embroidered. Ruffles were decorated on these clogs, but gradually collar alone became a decoration named phrase (rough). Many of the women stood up in a fan shape behind the front opening (the portrait of Queen Elizabeth and the type of collar of Snow White in the Disney movie), and men (although they used women) were many disk type types (Types seen in Nanban Buddhism).

Varieties of trousers, aristocracy classes had to store multiple kinds of pants of all kinds. Following Spain, the popular truth in France and the United Kingdom was an onion type that was inflated and inflated greatly, and in England it swelled like a pumpkin at the end of the century, so the custom of preparing separate pants for sitting It was up to. A small board on the wall was overhanging in the section of the English Council, he said he had put on a truss and changed clothes. A woman who was wearing a skirt also to a woman in France was a pants that leads to the next century ‘s culottes without stuffing at the knee length connected to the left and right. Venetian originating from Italy was a loose one to ribbon at the knee and was a necessity of nobility. Graig was still a slim knee length, and men put a thin sewing stick into the side line. In Germany, trunk hooses were popular, connecting only the top and the bottom of a strip of cloth. Usually, I made decorations by cutting a liner, but the lining was more expensive than the front and the cloth area was often large.

Source from Wikipedia