26-11-2022, 12:03 PM
(26-11-2022, 11:06 AM)davidjackson wrote: You are not allowed to view links. Register or Login to view.Joking aside, you can't possibly go hunting or fire a crossbow wearing those stupid sleeves in 1428. This had been discovered by 1429....
This is an interesting aspect of it. JKP noticed that the baggy sleeves are actually often associated with someone in noble circles performing some task. This is supported by the early Italian examples (1390's), where the baggy sleeve look appears to be the result of wide open sleeves tied at the wrist. The implication appears to be that those wide open sleeves are completely unsuitable for manual tasks, so ca. 1390 they came up with tying them at the wrist. From this practice, the actual fashion of the baggy sleeves may have emerged. Probably people liked the way their sleeves looked when they were tied at the wrist, so ca. 1400, garments started being produced to cater specifically to this esthetic. This may also explain why we still see the wide sleeves in women (VM Virgo, Gemini), since they wouldn't typically swing axes or shoot crossbows. But a nobleman could be expected to join a hunting party, so if he still wanted to look fashionable, the baggy sleeves were a step up from the wide open sleeves we still see with the women. It's like a balancing exercise between showing off excess fabric (and thus wealth) vs. still being able to perform manual tasks comfortably.