Samuel Pepys is renowned for keeping a meticulous book between 1660 and 1669, which gave historians an in-depth look at middle-class life in 17th-century England.
He was a lifelong fan of fashion and clothing, too.
His secret library, which has been stored at the University of Cambridge, UK, for the past 300 times, has a huge variety of complex European style sheets.
According to a historian at the university, these plates provide insights both into the fashion of the time, and Pepys ’ later years.
For the first time, eight of the images are published in a paper in the journal The Seventeenth Century.
“I had 2 full day appointments in the Pepys Library last summer to try to look through all the fashion prints,” study author Marlo Avidon, a PhD candidate at Cambridge, tells Cosmos.
“Because The Bank forbids images, I had to write in-depth descriptions of each image that I could refer to as I was drafting my article, and to figure out which images I wanted to use.”
Pepys, the tailor’s son, wrote a lot of clothes in his diary, including an awkward incident where a coworker complained that his summer suit’s gold lace was too great for his station, and he was then instructed to never show up in court with the sleeves.
Vidon connects this book show to a display titled Habit Noir, or nighttime use. A Frenchman with beribunds and related lace cuffs can be seen in this printing.
“Pepys would have seen this dress as pretty risky,” says Avidon.
“This was for a French nobleman, and was perhaps also beyond his budget. Pepys perhaps did have some suits with these thread loops, but not many of them. ”
However, the designs, which date from 1670 to 1690, also provide some insight into what Pepys thought when his weak vision prevented him from keeping a journal.
Some of the images have been hand-coloured, and Avidon believes the color was done by an professional. It may have been Mary Skinner, Pepys’ long-term servant who became his girlfriend while she was still a student, or another member of his family.
“While all the designs are very interesting, I think the one that stood out to me the most is the Habit de Ville display, which is from around 1670,” says Avidon.
It is the display with the most intriguing style of coloration, in my opinion. There’s so many different pigments used, including red, purple, gold, and natural, and they all appear very lively also.
“You can also see that the person who attempted to make the pattern that wasn’t originally intended to be on the display. They added what appears to be a decorative pattern as well as these intriguing squiggled lines. However, there’s no way of knowing for sure, but I would assume that this layout may become supposed to resemble a real floral fabric from the time! ”
According to Avidon, this write is “the most symbolic example of what women were basically wearing from head to toe during this time period.”
She wears some charm patches on her face, and she has an intricate hairstyle with string loops and a veil.
“Her dress is very complex, with the fabric and detailing, and she’s holding a lover painted with a environment. ”
Avidon says that Pepys’ French wife Elisabeth, who died in 1669 aged 29, may have influenced his buying of fashion prints. His book mentions Elisabeth’s involvement in images, as well as worries about her overspending on clothing, despite him wanting her to dress properly.
“Tomkins must have been influenced by these images of popular young women, I believe. The set might be interpreted as a tribute to her.”
Avidon says that, when she started this project, she did n’t like Pepys.
Pepys ‘ first encounter with her comes from the Diary, and especially some of his comments about his unacceptable behavior toward people, she says.
“Even though that kind of behavior was quite common-place in the late seventeenth-century, it was unpleasant to read about. I also believed that Pepys knew his behavior was bad because he chose to write about some of his mistakes in a foreign vocabulary to conceal the information.”
But having pored over his notebook suddenly, as well as his choices and letter, she says she now has a “bit of a soft spot” for him.
Pepys was amusing, but many of the worries and concerns he faced on a daily basis came to mind, I realized.
“Certainly, he’s no saint, but finally, he was people just like us, and his life and thoughts were far more difficult than I had originally assumed. ”
Avidion is now looking at some of Pepys’ contemporaries, to glean more about elite fashion in the 17th Century, including diarist John Evelyn.
Even though the two had a shared interest in collecting prints, Evelyn was Pepys’s closest buddy in his early life, and she says that their attitudes toward clothes were very different.
“I’d also like to look more closely at wealthy people at Court in this time – I’ve always been fascinated by some of Charles II ’s mistress, especially Barbara Villiers, Lady Castlemaine. ”
