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At first, I was going to call this post “The Great Button Shortage of the 16th Century,” inspired by a reader comment from last Snark Week:
But I realized the problem isn’t a shortage of buttons — you can usually see them right there, on the edge of a guy’s doublet! So apparently, these fellas can’t figure out how to use them.
Buttons totally did exist in historical clothing, definitely in the 16th century and way before. They’re old technology.
Occasionally in 16th-century imagery, you might see men with one layer open over another, buttoned-up layer. Also sometimes a guy might have a doublet fastened at the neck with all or a portion of the lower buttons left unfastened. Both are shown in this genre painting — the man on the left is wearing a blue unbuttoned coat over a yellow/gold doublet that’s buttoned from neck to mid-chest, and the man on the right wears his pale yellow doublet closed only at the neck with his white shirt hanging out.
Similarly, in this painting of the explorer who led an expedition through the Northwest Passage around Canada, Frobisher wears his yellow-ish (probably leather) jerkin closed at the neck but open below that.
Even these guys working in a hot kitchen had their shirts fastened up at the neck, including the fella sitting right next to the fire, in the back, turning the spit.
What is NOT shown in period images are men’s collars popped open to expose their necks. You don’t see loads of skin or bare chests.
OK, except for this, one, extremely rare and unusual painting that’s barely 2 inches by 2.5 inches high! These miniatures were personal items, often for private viewing. As the museum notes: “Although we do not know who this miniature was painted for, it is a very intimate image as the gentleman is depicted effectively in a state of undress.”
Guys didn’t walk around in public with their shirts open, especially not high-status fellas. As Sarah said in an early Snark Week, that would be the 16th-century equivalent of leaving your fly unzipped.
It’s not just 16th-century men either, although this is certainly a good starting point when it comes to frock flicks.
Up until quite recently, everyday menswear included buttoned-up shirts and a knotted tie. A suit and tie was standard workwear for men in professional and office jobs during most of the 20th century, but today those clothes have been relegated to formalwear for many men. So we get it that movie directors and costume designers now see buttoned-up necks as “stuffy” and “formal.” But it’s also a big, fat cliché to leave a guy’s shirt open because he’s supposed to be some wild sexy rogue.
The BBC media site for The Virgin Queen (2005) describes the work of costume designer Amy Roberts with just those clichéd ideas:
“Amy was keen to find a way of making the male characters look sexy … In addition she tried to cut down on the use of ruffs, using them only for the very formal occasions. Where possible the men were given open necklines.”
Ooooo, sexy. eye roll I feel like a lot of our Snark Week annoyances are when frock flicks distort historical fashion just to be sexy and relatable. When will it end? Apparently never, so we’ll be blogging about this till we’re dead!
C’mon, I think this man in all-black with a stunningly high collar is super sexy! Who’s with me?
I’ll take Mor’s buttoned-up gentleman over this sloppy Hamlet.
I also find a slashed doublet buttoned-up and topped by a ruff pretty cool too.
This unbuttoned slashed doublet hanging open? Meh, not so much.
Let’s go chronologically through some TV shows and movies to see who else needs their shirts buttoned up! The Tudors‘ version of Henry VIII actually comes close, although only because it looks like his doublet zips up the front.
Don’t be misled, most of that terrible show’s doublets hang wide open with buttons left unused (also, wtFrock is up with that weird orange collar on his shirt?). Maybe Anne could show him how to use the buttons.
Moving over to France for some kingly stripes…
The deeply weird Diane de Poitiers tried to give Henry II pinstripes, added a waistcoat (?!?), and threw in a whole bunch of buttons to ignore. His hands are right there, c’mon, give it a try.
Queen Elizabeth I‘s favorite, Robert Dudley, is a favorite onscreen, and there’s a number of fine portraits of him.
And yes, there were rumors about Dudley’s relationship with QEI being very intimate, and frock flicks like to suggest they were lovers. But showing him with his doublet totally unbuttoned is blatantly saying “hi, we just fucked!”
Back in France, who doesn’t love a fancy suit with a tidy row of buttons up to the neck?
Surprisingly, this guy can’t figure out how to fasten the GIANT buttons on his doublet. Maybe they’re just too big for his hands to manage? Boys are dumb, after all.
I’m really annoyed by the fellow in pale yellow on the right — he’s wearing a ruff, but his doublet isn’t buttoned. (OK, I bet that ruff is inaccurately attached to the doublet, ugh.)
William Shakespeare is a popular film topic, though some of his onscreen depictions go astray. The only image verified to have been created during his lifetime shows the Bard of Avon as a closed-neckline kind of guy.
But Joseph Fiennes in the 1990s must have had an “open doublet” clause in his frock flicks contract.
He’s not the only one though!
16th-century fashions continued into the early 17th century, and that included doublets that buttoned up the center front, as shown by the new king of England and Scotland.
Bummer that his minister Robert Cecil can’t figure this simple technology out.
Neither could his favorites at court, like this first guy.
The king’s later favorite, George Villiers, was quite the dandy who loved fancy outfits — that buttoned up!
Except not so much onscreen. He’s just too pouty to fuss with difficult things like buttons.
I’m going to jump a century because there aren’t a ton of movies and TV shows set in the 17th century. But in the 18th century, the idea remains pretty much the same that men didn’t have their shirts hanging out the front. They’d wear a buttoned-up waistcoat with, at most, the top ruffles of a shirt showing at the neckline. The neck itself would be covered with a cravat.
This portrait is a good example of how a man’s waistcoat might be unbuttoned just to reveal shirt ruffles, but the overall look is still very covered-up.
Not like in the latest Tom Jones, where the actor said in an interview with Salon, about his character’s open shirt:
“It is yes, a lot of chest. We actually have to sew it up a little bit because there was too much, almost down to my belly button. There were scenes that we filmed — this is Northern Ireland in the winter — and with a flowy shirt I was like, ‘It’s cold today.’ But it was a comfortable costume, his general one. It was nice being natural. I think that’s what they wanted to do with Tom.”
Maybe take the hint from the weather and don’t go so low, huh?
No excuse for this guy. He’s supposedly a marquis, but I guess his valet ran screaming, he doesn’t own a mirror, and again, he’s unfamiliar with button technology, much the less how to tie a cravat.
Let’s round this out with a few fails from the start of the 19th century, which had similar styles of neckwear and buttoned-up waistcoats.
Lost in Austen? More like Lost Cravats. Also, that weird “U” shaped waistcoat neckline offends me. Get it together, Mr. Bingley.
The high collar, full cravat, buttoned waistcoat style continued.
Except not in this recent series (coming soon to PBS!). Why do the men in this family have their collars popped? I respect that these women shouldn’t have to fasten buttons for these dudes, but maybe a little hen-pecking wouldn’t go amiss here.
These guys are at a restaurant with unbuttoned shirts, fer chrissakes! That’d be like showing up to school or work without your pants on.
Do you find unbuttoned shirts sexy in frock flicks or not?
If the shirts are already loose and unbuttoned, how are we supposed to get a sexy disrobing scene? For shame!
Seriously, they aren’t pacing themselves!
Yeah, I mean that’s how the “Mr. Darcy in a wet shirt” craze got started in the 1995 production. And Elizabeth was rightly in shock from seeing a man without his coat or cravat.
Tim Curry gets a pass from me. Damn, he’s fine! :)
Heh, I considered that, but I was being a snark completionist.
That was my reaction. However he would have looked just as sexy buttoned up. The other Wills didn’t look sexy at all just sloppy.
As the experts on the female reaction to male clothingm,. ZZ Top, said, every girl’s crazy about a sharp dressed man. So Dudes, button it up.
For real smolder, we have the fabulous Robert Hardy as Dudley in Elizabeth R, beautifully buttoned into a variety of excellent doublets — he beats those sloppy versions all to hell!!!
Robert Hardy was the best Dudley!
It might be worth mentioning Nathan Field, whose early seventeenth century portrait shows a tie at the neckline, then a clear patch of visible chest below it. True, it’s the only portrait of the era I can think of like that, and he was probably selling “New Globe’s Mr Sexy” at the time, but still…
The Irish were believed by English folk of the period to go around bare-legged and bare-chested, and some contemporary pictures of Irishmen like that do survive, but are in all probability racist stereotyping to justify various invasions and colonialism.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/09/Nathan_Field.JPG
I didn’t get to it this Snark Week (& maybe it’s worthwhile for a non-SW post), but there’s a thing about research where you look for larger patterns & 1 or 2 outliers don’t show what was typically done.
That’s why I included the Hilliard miniature — yes, a couple contemporary images exist but in rare situations, like a small private image. Not the common images, the portraits showing the idealized fashion, or the genre paintings showing everyday scenes.
Perhaps I missed it, but I’m still waiting to hear your take on Hamnet, because I’ve been trying to figure out Agnes’ usual ensemble from photos, and running into Issues. It looks more-or-less like a sleeveless kirtle over a smock, but if that’s the case (and I can see a housewife dressing like that when doing serious housework/chasing small children), why the hell is her smock not white? (I’d say it was a long-sleeved kirtle, except that it doesn’t look as if there’s another layer under it, plus I don’t recall ever hearing about women wearing a sleeveless kirtle over a sleeved one, and gowns generally had sleeves of some kind IIRC.) Or Will’s shirt, for that matter? And that’s not even counting the severe lack of hairpins/hairlaces in the Shakespeare household–it’s one thing to have your hair down as an unmarried woman (we’ll let that pass for now), or when you’re heart-wrenchingly grief-stricken, but it looks as if it’s that way for the whole damn movie, and damn it, a married woman and mother should have at least put her hair up, and ideally would be wearing some kind of cap or coif over it! Disheveled is one thing, but no cap at all and hair left down? That particular hairstyle is one I remember distinctly from the 1970s, but I don’t know that it was around before then; either way, that’s not how she should have looked! (Sorry, but the retired SCAdian in me is damn near pulling my own hair out over this!). The extras look pretty good from what I can see, but as for the leads, well… sigh Here’s hoping Jessie wins that Oscar, and that her next Frock Flick understands Tudor layering a whole lot better!
None of us have watched Hamnet bec. it’s still in theaters & we weren’t excited enough to bother! Plenty of the preview pix will turn up during Snark Week tho, if that gives you a hint of how we’re not impressed.
Maybe when it comes to streaming? It just looks so lackluster…
If you’re watching HAMNET for the frocking then avoid looking at the main characters – an apoplexy is a horrible thing to have in a theatre, however busy.
On the other hand you will absolutely ADORE the Theatre scene and there are some other nice pieces to be observed throughout the film.
Hey, she’s a free spirit, just like Jo March!
I was so not impressed with many aspects of “Hamnet,” and I can’t wait for some Frockers’ snark.
I kind of like an exposed chest under the right circumstances. Pond diving Darcy was ok, because he’s just had a long journey on horseback, and his pond is conveniently ready instead of waiting for servants to lug water upstairs and down the Pemberley corridors. The fact that he wasn’t completely exposed was what made it attractive. And I know some people hate Richard Chamberlain, but The Slipper and the Rose was released about the time I turned 16, and seeing him ride in on horseback without a waistcoat or justaucorps – sigh….. His furry chest and pretty face helped too. Ah well. I have to share my absolute favorite unexpected portrait from the Tate Britain, because it’s so bonkers and off the wall for Elizabethan England. The subject, Captain Thomas Lee, was trying to conflate himself with the warriors of ancient Greece and Rome by having himself portrayed with his bare legs as well as exposed chest. I’ve never seen anything else like it. Apparently, he was in hot water with Queenie, and this portrait was supposed to make him look humble and loyal. The interpretive text has changed a bit since the last time I was in London, but it’s still hysterical even if it is historical… https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/gheeraerts-portrait-of-captain-thomas-lee-t03028
Oh yeah that portrait of Captain Thomas Lee is a weird one! He was trying to make a statement with it.
I adore Robert Dudley’s whole perfectly coordinated outfit, and even more that he seems to be about to pull some doggy treats out of his elegant belt purse for that good boy/girl patiently waiting for them! (Maybe that was his attraction for Elizabeth – he was a dog person?)
Credit where it’s due, that portrait of His Late Majesty King Henry II makes him look like The Most Interesting Monarch Alive – also just a wee bit like Mr Eric Cantona in ELIZABETH.
Mind you, you might have tripped your argument that the buttoned-up can be SEXY with the very first portrait of your selection (The Anthonis Mor): your other picks seem to be more on-the-money so far as Dapper Dans of the 16th/17th centuries go.
“Do you find unbuttoned shirts sexy in frock flicks or not?”
Only in the boudoir.