Costume

Fashions come and fashions go, and many repeat themselves many years later. So it is that in the 20th and 21st centuries the 'crop top' was very popular with English girls, unaware that the same garment was also worn by their female ancestors over 2000 years earlier in Britain. Similarly, platform shoes which were all the rage of the 'glam rock' era of the 1970's were not the invention of the likes of Gary Glitter. Rather, they were popular among the women of Elizabethan Europe some 400 years earlier, then called the 'chopine'. Indeed the Elizabethan platform shoes were so outrageous, some with soles 45 cm high, that legislation was introduced to reduce the number of accidents from people falling off them! In this section you will find information about costume, clothing, fashion and body decoration, including hair styles, beards and moustaches through the ages.