From about 1550 to 1570, Pieter Aertsen and Joachim Beuckelaer made a wonderful number of paintings depicting working class folk, selling in the market, working on the docks, and hanging out in their homes. Though they did travel around a bit, it seems that most of the painting would have been based on people in Antwerp. I am making some outfits for my husband and I based off of the paintings of the artists above. I already started collecting and comparing the various parts of female dress, and here’s the companion post for the guys!
First up, hats!
Brimless hats: mostly fuzzy/thrummed.
Brimmed! Some flat crowned, some round, some fuzzy, some not.
Flat caps! Red was a popular color that season.
Even some straw.
Hats are super common, although not quite the only option: there were several hatless men, mostly those sitting indoors.
Shirts!
Rounded necklines, about collarbone length.
Collared shirts. Many of the ones with collars also have short ruffles.
I did not find a single image that showed bare shirt sleeves. Not on children, not on men doing physical labor, not on dudes chilling out in their houses. But there are several glimpses of white at the necklines and cuffs, so they definitely wore shirts next to their skin, but always with more layers on top.
Sleeveless Tunic/Vest/Jerkin
Short Sleeved Tunic Thingy
Long Sleeved Tunic/Doublet/Thing
I tried to pick out some that showed men just wearing the long sleeved tunic, but keep in mind that every single guy on this page is wearing long sleeves, even if under shorter sleeved garments.
Wrap-Over Closure
These short ones have various sleeve lengths, and some have collars, some don’t.
Long ones, mostly short sleeved.
This guy has the clearest example of the wrap over top. Some are sort of V necked, but some like this guy almost look like collared doublets when the are done up. All of the ones I’ve seen in this style have splits in the front, from hem to waist, then the top flap covers the rest of the front opening. I cannot find any evidence of this style being closed with ties (only center-front opening have ties).
Pants!
Loose Pants seem quite popular! They tend to be gathered into a narrow waistband, and at least some appear to have a slit in the front, in the same place we would have a zipper normally. I have not seen any with codpieces.
Hose! Fairly tight, no gathering, always extend all the way down to the feet. Codpieces seem fairly common.
So many hose, I had to make two pictures! So many different color options!
Aprons!
Since these are guys often working very messy jobs, they have aprons to help cover their clothes, and wipe their hands on when things get dirty. Some of them wear the usual sort of apron, with the flap in the front attached to a waist band/apron strings. But many wear an interesting variation that looks like it goes all the way around the hips, gathered but with no visible waistband in any version that I can see. It almost looks like a drawstring construction. Many of them are striped or plaid.
I love that the guys outfits have simpler to understand layers compared to the ladies! But still plenty of variation to play with: lots of color choices, sleeve lengths, neckline styles, hats, number of layers, loose and comfy or fitted and streamlined.
My main inspiration pictures!
The three pictures above are the ones that I want to replicate (at least loosely). The two on the left are similar, while the right is quite different.
Stuff I need to make:
- Yellow front-opening tunic.
- Red sleeveless vest (perhaps lined in a light yellow to double up as the vest for the left image?).
- Fitted red hose. The middle image looks like he might be wearing loose pants, but fitted will be fine too.
- Circular apron.
- Red hat (I already have a black one).
- Simple shirt with rounded neckline.
- Fancy shirt with ruffled collar of sexiness.
- Orange-brown paned pants and hose.
- Maybe a yellow doublet too.
Yay plans! I’ll try to post process pictures soon!
