Weirdeval: A Brief Note on Historybounding and Renaissance Dandyism

Jack Brotchie wearing reconstructed clothing by Jenny Tiramani 

based on figure 102 in The Book of Clothes by Matthäus Schwarz [1] 

 

If a dozen Renaissance dandies stroll through Soho tomorrow 

wearing bright red and yellow clothes, then the revolution against dullness will have begun. [2]

 

 

It seems highly unlikely that D. H. Lawrence's call for a revival of Renaissance dandyism is going to happen any time soon. And so I'm not expecting to encounter a dozen young men strolling along the Strand with bright red hose and wearing doublets of puce velvet when I next head into London. 

 

Having said that ... it seems there's recently been a trend amongst a niche subculture of fashionable individuals to experiment with clothing from yesteryear, including things from the Early Modern Period [3].

 

Critics might sneer and dismiss this as merely a form of larping, but lovers of the trend insist that their attire is an authentic form of self-expression and that by incorporating 16th-century items of dress into contemporary outfits they manage to avoid looking as if they are merely actors in some kind of theatrical production. 

 

They call this practice historybounding (cf. the more mundane practice of historical reenactment) [4] and if theirs is not a full revolt into style, then it's a form of elegant rebellion nevertheless against the boredom and drabness of everyday life in 2026 and I have nothing but admiration for those young men who belong to the world of the weirdeval [5] and flounce around in their ruffs and doublets and codpieces; or those young women who want to dress like Joan of Arc - the patron saint of Gen Z - and adopt her distinctive hairstyle.    

 

  

  

Notes

 

[1] See the astonishing section by Jenny Tiramani - 'Reconstructing a Schwarz Outfit' - in The First Book of Fashion, ed. Ulinka Rublack and Maria Hayward (Bloomsbury, 2021), pp. 373-396. As she herself notes, reconstructing clothes from 1530 has very particular problems and results in some surprising discoveries. 

      Perhaps the most fascinating thing is that the outfit gave the model, Jack  Brotchie, the fashionable silhouette of the period; because cut and folds of the clothes "he appears to have broad sloping shoulders , a high waist, and long legs" (396). In other words, even a 'modern body' can be styled and shaped in a Renaissance manner.     

 

[2] I'm paraphrasing D. H. Lawrence writing in 'Red Trousers', ed. James T. Boulton (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 138.  

 

[3] See, for example, the article by Esther Newman, 'Forget Futurism, I Want to Dress Like Joan of Arc', Refinery29 (4 November, 2024): click here. 

      As she excitedly informs her readers: "This season, we're not looking forward for style inspiration, nor even to the very recent past - the trend cycle is turning to the Dark Ages, literally; we're all going medieval."

 

[4] Just to be clear: historybounding is a fashion trend where one incorporates elements of historical clothing into one's contemporary wardrobe, creating looks inspired by past eras without wearing full costumes. The key is to draw inspiration from the past and evoke a past aesthetic, not attempt to replicate it; to live yesterday tomorrow. 

      Even so, one imagines that Zarathustra would not approve; he famously moans about men of the present painted with all kinds of colours surrounded by mirrors: "Written over with the signs of the past and these signs over-daubed with new signs [...] All ages and all peoples gaze motley out of your veils [...]

      See the section entitled 'Of the Land of Culture' in Nietzsche's Thus Spoke Zarathustra, trans. R. J. Hollingdale (Penguin Books, 1969), p. 142. 

 

[5] The portmanteau term weirdeval is a subcultural fashion phenomenon - also known as medieval weird core - that blends elements of medieval-era clothing (corsets, chainmail, flowing tunics, etc.) with unconventional contemporary styling. The aesthetic, which consciously rejects historical accuracy, gained traction on social media platforms, particularly TikTok. It draws inspiration from film and television, fantasy fiction, and various fashion designers.  

 

 

For a sister post to this one on Renaissance Dandyism and The First Book of Fashion, please click here. 

 

 

A Brief Note on Renaissance Dandyism and The First Book of Fashion

Matthäus Schwarz, on his 32nd birthday (20 Feb 1529), 

wearing a fur gown over a doublet sewn with half silk, 

close-fitting red hose lined with green velvet and taffeta, 

and a very wide-brimmed flat black bonnet [1]

 

If a dozen young dandies would stroll through Soho tomorrow, wearing tight scarlet trousers 

fitting the leg, then the revolution against dullness will have begun. [2]

 

 

I. 

 

When D. H. Lawrence writes of Renaissance dandies swaggering down the street wearing brightly coloured clothes and sailing gaily in the teeth of dreary convention [3], it's possible that he had a style-conscious German accountant called Matthäus Schwarz in mind ... 

 

 

II. 

 

Born in Augsburg in February 1497, Schwarz meticulously documented the often expensive outfits he wore between 1520 and 1560, and his beautifully illustrated work [4] - the 'Book of Clothes' [Klaidungsbüchlein] - is now recognised as being the world's first fashion and style guide. 

 

Schwarz instructs his readers on how to dress up not so as to mess up (or be arrested), but, rather, to impress and thereby advance one's position within society. And he seemed to know what he was talking about, as he was ennobled by Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, in 1541.

 

Later, his son, Veit Konrad, continued the work, recording both sartorial triumphs and failures and revealing more about the politics of style as well as the importance of fashion to the aesthetics and culture of the Early Modern Period. 

 

However, after twenty years he lost interest in the project.      

 

 

III. 

 

In her Preface to the revised paperback edition of The First Book of Fashion (2021), historian and co-editor Ulinka Rublack includes a paragraph that eloquently sums up the importance of Schwarz senior as a philosopher on the catwalk:

 

"Matthäus Schwarz pioneered in using dress to express himself politically, socially, and emotionally, and in creating awareness that our sense of the past is enriched by a cultural history of fashion. This explains why his manuscript and biography remain so inspiring for our interests today - whether we research the history of menswear, the Western Renaissance, or a whole range of specialised topics including the history of bodyweight, gesture, courtship, and masculinity." [5]   

 

Lawrence was right to suggest that the colours and textiles used in Renaissance fashion could, if incorporated in innovative new designs today, spark a real sartorial (and subcultural) revolution. For when passion ends in fashion then clothing takes on wider social and political import (as recognised, for example, by McLaren and Westwood).        

 

To be well-dressed is a sign not just of wealth, but of individual sovereignty in a world that promotes drab conformity and values practicality over splendour.  

 

But it "takes a lot of courage to sail gaily, in brave feathers, right in the teeth of dreary convention" [6]. For one risks not just the disapproving looks and scorn of others, but unprovoked acts of physical assault, as dandy fashionistas will vouch.       

 

 

Notes

 

[1] Image and description adapted from The First Book of Fashion, ed. Ulinka Rublack and Maria Hayward (Bloomsbury, 2021), see pp. 140 and 298. Note that this edition is the revised paperback; the original hardback was published in 2015. 

 

[2] I am paraphrasing D. H. Lawrence writing in 'Red Trousers', Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton (Cambridge University Press, 2004), p. 138.

 

[3] D. H. Lawrence, 'Red Trousers', as cited above. 

 

[4] Schwarz commissioned artists to make accurate watercolor paintings of him wearing his fabulous outfits. Most of these pictures were by a young local artist Narziss Renner. Sadly, however, this close collaboration came to an end 1536 when the latter died, aged 34. Each picture comes with a brief comment added by Schwarz detailing the clothes and sometimes saying where, when, and even why he adopted a particular look. 

      Interestingly, the images also include two nude portraits of Schwartz in the summer of 1526, when, aged 29, he had put on weight and become, in his words, fat and round. These are among the earliest fully nude male images in Northern European art. 

 

[5] Ulinka Rublack, 'Preface' to the revised paperback edition of The First Book of Fashion (2021), p. x. 

 

[6] D. H. Lawrence, 'Red Trousers', Late Essays and Articles, p. 138.    

 

 

A sister post to this one on historybounding and Renaissance dandyism can be read by clicking here.  

 

Thanks to Thom Bonneville for Xmas gifting me the latest printed edition of The First Book of Fashion (2025). 

 

 

London Yawning: Lawrence and the Problem of Big City Boredom

Photo of a London hipster wearing red trousers posted 

by Monsieur Henri de Pantalon-Rouge on 15 Dec 2012

on the brilliant blog look at my fucking red trousers

In an article published in the Evening News on 3 September 1928, Lawrence writes of the queer horror for London that immediately grips his soul whenever he returns to the city:

"The strange, grey and uncanny, almost deathly sense of dullness is overwhelming. Of course you get over it after a while, and admit that you exaggerated. You get into the rhythm of London again, and you tell yourself that it is not dull. And yet you are haunted, all the time, sleeping or waking, with the uneasy feeling: It is dull! It is all dull! This life here is one vast complex of dullness! I am dull. I am being dulled. My spirit is being dulled! My life is dulling down to London dullness."  

One can't help wondering if this isn't simply a sign of weariness and ressentiment caused by early-middle age and rapidly failing health; Lawrence is, by this date, very ill with tuberculosis and has only a year-and-a-half left to live. When a man is tired of London, he is tired of life. Or so they say. 

But, perhaps anticipating this response, Lawrence in part refutes it by denying that the sense of excitement and wonder which he used to experience when living in London has in any way faded, or deserted him with age: "True, I am now twenty years older. Yet I have not lost my sense of adventure. But now all the adventure seems to me crushed out of London."

And for this, Lawrence - like many a cyclist or pedestrian today - blames the traffic:

"The traffic is too heavy. It used to be going somewhere, on an adventure. Now it only rolls massively and overwhelmingly, going nowhere, only dully and enormously going. ... The traffic of London used to roar with the mystery of man's adventure on the seas of life ... Now it booms like monotonous, far-off guns ... crushing the earth, crushing out life, crushing everything dead."

Even the cheeky London red buses, says Lawrence, lack fun and crawl along routes which terminate in boredom. For what's to do, he asks, except drift about on your own, or meet up with friends in order to have fun and engage in meaningless conversation: "And the sense of abject futility in it all only deepens the sense of abject dullness ..."

Again, that's Lawrence speaking, but it could be a young friend of mine complaining from the heart of hip and happening Hackney earlier this week. 

I'm not sure what Zena would suggest in order to counter and overcome this urban ennui, but I'm pretty certain she'd not share Lawrence's solution which he arrived at in a related article, also first published in the London Evening News, which involves an ironic dandyism. In other words, for Lawrence, the cure for metropolitan dullness is to be found in humour and fashion.

He writes:

"In the ancient recipe, the three antidotes for dullness, or boredom are sleep, drink, and travel. It is rather feeble. From sleep you wake up, from drink you become sober, and from travel you come home again. And then where are you?"     

This is very true. And, sadly, it's also true that the sovereign solution of love has become an impossibility today, despite what Match.com might pretend. But we can still laugh and learn how to treat life as a good joke; not in a cynical, sarcastic, or spiteful manner - but in a gay and carefree fashion:

"That would freshen us up a lot. Our flippant world takes life with a stupid seriousness ... What a bore! 

      It is time we treated life as a joke again, as they did in the really great periods like the Renaissance. Then the young men swaggered down the street with one leg bright red, one leg bright yellow, doublet of puce velvet, and yellow feather in silk cap.

      Now that is the line to take. Start with externals ... and treat life as a good joke. If a dozen men would stroll down the Strand and Piccadilly tomorrow, wearing tight scarlet trousers fitting the leg, gay little orange-brown jackets and bright green hats, then the revolution against dullness which we need so much would have begun."

This, then, is my call (and challenge) to the organizers of and participants in the International D. H. Lawrence Conference which is coming to London in the summer of 2017 - dare to revolt into style like the young man pictured; get yer red trousers on!

Note: The lines by Lawrence are taken from 'Why I Don't Like Living in London' and 'Red Trousers', in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (Cambridge University Press, 2004), pp. 119-22 and pp. 135-38. 

Revolt into Style

In an age of terror and impending global catastrophe, there is nothing for it but irony, indifference, and insouciance. What we really don't need right now is a greater degree of earnestness. For fanaticism is always marked by its moral sincerity and is, as Wilde pointed out, the world's original sin: 'If only the caveman had known how to laugh, history might have been different'.

The central argument of any philosophy on the catwalk must surely be that what matters most is that we look good, live dangerously, and love fate; pouring scorn upon all those who fail to recognise their own dullness. D. H. Lawrence provides us with our manifesto:

"It is time we treated life as a joke again, as they did in the really great periods like the Renaissance. Then the young men swaggered down the street with one leg bright red, one leg bright yellow, doublet of puce velvet, and yellow feather in silk cap. 

      Now that is the line to take. Start with externals, and proceed to internals, and treat life as a good joke. If a dozen men would stroll down the Strand and Piccadilly tomorrow, wearing tight scarlet trousers fitting the leg, gay little orange-brown jackets and bright green hats, then the revolution against dullness which we need so much would have begun. ... But it takes a lot of courage to sail gaily, in brave feathers, in the teeth of a dreary convention."  

                                        - 'Red Trousers', in Late Essays and Articles, ed. James T. Boulton, (CUP, 2004), p. 138.

This sailing gaily in brave feathers and the refusal to care is what I understand by the phrase 'revolt into style' - a transpolitical revolt that teaches us to become superficial out of profundity and to appreciate how both society and self are ultimately founded upon cloth, not nature.

Fashion, above all else, is a passion for artifice. This, coupled to its love of empty signs and cycles, is what most alarms the puritan in his grey suit and sensible shoes and not so much its overtly erotic element. For in our culture, tethered as it is to a principle of utility and meaning, the fact that fashion is futile and pointless - and prides itself on such - means that those who like to dress up and mess up are always going to be branded immoral. 

Thus the young man cruising through Soho in brightly coloured clothes for no reason in the middle of the afternoon may well be sexually disconcerting to some people, but this is secondary in comparison to the outrage he causes because of his perceived flippancy, flamboyance, and aristocratic disdain for the world of work.

Ah Sebastian, I miss you!