Clothes, culture and crafts : dress and fashion among artisans and small shopkeepers in the danish town of Elsinore 1550–1650

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Anne-Kristine Sindval Larsen’s study brings attention to the culture of dress among Danish local artisans, small shopkeepers and service providers, such as goldsmiths, bakers, butchers, barbers, smiths, shoemakers, carpenters and coopers and painters in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Based on almost three hundred household inventories, from the Danish town of Elsinore, as well as using visual images, material evidence and printed sources, this study investigates what kind of clothing and accessories artisans and small shopkeepers and their wives owned and wore, and what clothing meant to men and women of their rank. The monograph also explores what social, economic and cultural values and meanings might have been associated with fashion in the daily lives and during public and social occasions at this social level. The results of this study, illuminates how artisans and their wives transformed their wealth, status, beliefs and fashion knowledge into their own personal wardrobes. It also demonstrates that even though Denmark was on the fringes of Europe, fashion was an integral part of the society and became available for most social groups in this period.