Page:Costume, fanciful, historical, and theatrical (1906).djvu/86

50 with silk and fastened with buckles or rosettes; and a wooden shoe in vogue was known as the pantoffle, and not unlike that chopine worn in Italy at this time and later, when it attained the pinnacle of the preposterous. This shoe was, however, known in England only in a modified form.

None of the fashions of the day could truthfully be called comfortable. Comfort obviously was banished from consideration, and each innovation during the sixteenth century shows its demands more and more disregarded.

The hoop appeared, and held the best affections in its grasp of iron, wood, or whalebone, the indispensable edicts against it following quickly upon its popularity. Rich and poor alike fell victims to its aggressive charms, and alike insisted upon its wear, and, on the occasion of her marriage with Prince Arthur of Wales, Catherine of Medici wore the dress of Spain and a mantilla bordered with gold and precious stones, and her skirt was distended by several hoops.

The wives of that merry polygamist Henry VIII. were sympathetically attached to beautiful clothes, and Anne Boleyn is credited with wearing a cap of blue velvet trimmed with golden bells, and a vest of velvet starred with silver, and over it a surcoat of watered silk lined with minever, with large pendent sleeves; blue velvet brodequins were on her feet, with a diamond star on each instep, and above her long curls was placed an aureole of plaited gold. It is a well-known fact that Anne, because of some slight deformity of the hand, held affectionately to the charms of the hanging sleeve after it had been discarded in favour of the full puffed and slashed sleeve.