“The Antipathy between French and Spaniards”: Dress, Gender, and Identity in the Court Society of Early Modern Naples, 1501–1799

Abstract

: The present article explores the inter-linkage between social and cultural values, related comportments, and dress in the courts of early modern Europe. More specifically, it examines the two competing cultural models of Spanish and French fashion, and the values and historical processes that determined their respective success in the contemporary courts of Europe in general and of Naples in particular. Owing to the importance of dress in the construction of gender roles, the article assesses the influence of dress among Neapolitan men and women separately. The findings show that men ’ s fashions in Naples grosso modo followed European trends regarding both Spanish and French fashion from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century. Comparatively, female French fashions and their related forms of sociability would only be able to flourish from the reign of Charles of Bourbon onward. If we ask a Spaniard what he thinks of French clothes and their fancy, he will not only hold them to be ill-favored, but will be scandalized at something that causes such joy and lifts the heart; for to see a troop of French upon a festive day dressed in such variety of colors, with a thousand variations of feathers and cameos, embroideries, fringes, orna-ments and gold laces, with so many hundreds of jewels, diamonds, pearls, rubies, emer-alds and topazes that one would think the whole of India was landed on them [ ... ] Yet the Spaniard will say that it is the greatest folly in the world [ ... ] because in Spain the grave style is so much in use, and the colored habit so abhorred, that they force the hang-man to wear a red or yellow livery to mark his shame and infamy. And if we hear the judgment of a Frenchman concerning the dress and style of a Spaniard, he will say that to go always in black is a sign of despair, the mark of a widow, or of a person gone bank-rupt, even though black is one of the most honorable colors and argues modesty, reputation, authority and understanding. 1