DownloadThe Portobello Bookshop Gift Guide 2024

Stuart Style

Monarchy, Dress and the Scottish Male Elite

Maria Hayward author

Format:Hardback

Publisher:Yale University Press

Published:10th Mar '20

Should be back in stock very soon

Stuart Style cover

Winner of 'History Book of the Year' in Scotland's National Book Awards 2021

A brilliant book revealing the complex messages that Stuart fashion conveyed about individual rulers’ personalities, and about kingship more broadly


This is the first detailed analysis of elite men’s clothing in 17th-century Scotland and its influence on English male fashion. Focusing on the years 1566 through 1701, it centers on the clothing choices of five Stuart royals: James VI and I, Prince Henry, Charles I, Charles II, and James VII and II.
 
The engaging text brims with details about the wardrobes and habits of Scottish royalty, such as how the men selected fabric and kept clothes clean. The book is organized along three themes: the significance of the Stuarts’ Scottish heritage in the style they developed; the role of Scots in exporting their style to London and beyond; and the reception of Stuart style among the male elite in Scotland. Maria Hayward explores how Stuart style was displayed in sport, at political and social events, and at church. The book also reveals the importance of vital supporting players—namely, the courtiers who helped kings and princes develop their style, as well as the tailors who disseminated it to men beyond the royal court.

“Handsome design, generous illustration and well-communicated content.”—David Wilcox, Costume

“In this excellent book . . . Hayward departs from previous scholarship to focus specifically on the Stuart kings. This technique allows her to illustrate the distinct differences of Scottish fashions, which otherwise might become lost in an overall British perspective.”—Michael Ballard Ramsey, Journal of Dress History

“[Hayward] has found an amazing wealth of information on all topics relating to clothing and textiles. . . . She writes with clarity and a firm grasp of her sources. This is a book to be enjoyed by both the scholar and the lay reader, and the illustrations are wonderful, many of the paintings never before used in any book.”—Naomi E A Tarrant, Costume

“This lively account, deeply researched and full of rich visual and material references, is a welcome addition to Stuart scholarship, and sets the standard for work on cultural and political histories of dress.”—Sophie Pitman, Cultural and Social History

Shortlisted for the 2021 Association of Dress Historians Book of the Year

Winner of the 2021 Scottish History Book of the Year by the Saltire Society

ISBN: 9780300240368

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: unknown

368 pages