Renaissance Clothing and the Materials of Memory

Acknowledgements; List of illustrations; Introduction: fashion, fetishism and memory in early modern England and Europe; Part I. Material Subjects: 1. The currency of clothing; 2. Composing the subject: making portraits; 3. Yellow starch: fabrications of the Jacobean court; Part II. Gendered Habits: 4. Arachne's web: Velazquez's Las Hilanderas; 5. The fate of spinning: Penelope and the Three Fates; 6. The needle and the pen: needlework and the appropriation of printed texts; Part III. Staging Clothes: 7. The circulation of clothes and the making of the English theater; 8. Transvestism and the 'body beneath': speculating on the boy actor; 9. (In)alienable possessions: Griselda, clothing and the exchange of women; 10. Of ghosts and garments: the materiality of memory on the Renaissance stage; Conclusion: the end(s) of livery; Notes; Index.

'In their beautifully conceived, well made, and copiously illustrated book, Jones and Stallybrass think out what it might mean to put on clothes in Renaissance society, on English stages, and for portraiture ... They have written a brilliant, multidisciplinary, and thoroughly original book that is a pleasure to read.' Modern Language Association 'This superb book reinterprets the construction of identities, whether social or sexual, power relations, the fabrication of memory, and the writing of drama during the Renaissance from the perspective of the fabrication and commerce in clothing. Built on analyses dazzling for their knowledge and adroitness (for example, the study of Velazquez's painting 'Les Hilanderas', of the changing figure of Penelope, or of the circulation of garments among the aristocracy, the theatre companies, and pawnbrokers), this work demonstrates the richness of an approach focused on the materiality of symbolic forms.' Annales '... erudite, substantial, and engaging ... offers a fresh perspective both on the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and on our own assumptions ... assembles and presents far more fascinating information than I can do justice here ... While the authors generously facilitate selective reading, by providing a helpful introduction and informative titles for chapter subsections, this is a book that repays reading cover to cover.' CNN Money 'Jones and Stallybrass argue cogently and clearly, switching genre and medium easily but stitching the raw materials into a coherent and impressive whole ... this work should become both key in its own right and influential in suggesting a new approach to the study of the period overall.' Early Modern Literary Studies