Clothing in the Late Middle Ages ca.1300-1600
When we talk about medieval clothing today, most people have a pretty good idea of what it must have looked like. In fact, the Middle Ages lasted a full 1100 years and during this time the sense of fashion changed enormously. Clothing also changed from region to region and the development of fashion was certainly not the same all over the world. The Late Middle Ages is the last period of the Middle Ages, which lasted from about the 13th to the end of the 15th or the beginning of the 16th century. The development of clothing during this period is extremely interesting because, even more than today, clothing in the Late Middle Ages primarily served to represent the status of the wearer. The nobility and the wealthy middle classes tried to show off their wealth as best as possible with expensive fabrics and elaborate clothing and thus set themselves apart from the lower classes, for example the peasants. This is why the clothing of the peasants, which had to be practical above all, changed much less, almost hardly at all, during the Middle Ages, while the clothing of the rich had to be chic above all, and thus many more fashion trends were developed.
