Consume & Fashion #05

Luxury
      Regulations

Clothes Order the Man

»Those, however, who receive a dowry of approximately 200 to 400 marks, such as the minor merchants, silk merchants, preeminent shipmasters, furthermore, wool weavers, bakers, smiths and shoemakers, also goldsmiths and barber surgeons, shall be entitled to two heukes of red or green English cloth. […].«

City councils in many places had been regulating household expenditures for apparel and jewellery based on income brackets since the 14th century, so also here in the Wismar wedding order of 1579. Offences were punishable by a fine.

Why did municipal governments consider such laws necessary?

On the one hand, they were intended to prevent extravagance – at the worst, unnecessary consumption could endanger livelihoods. On the other hand, clothing had previously had the important function of providing information about an individual’s social status. Dress codes were thus intended to help preserve the world’s order. The provisions were virtually unenforceable, though.

In the Wismar wedding regulations of 1579, among other things, guidelines are given for dressing appropriately