Clothing
ortraits and paintings are very useful for showing us what people wore in Tudor times but they often only depict wealthy people who could afford the most expensive clothes. Archaeological excavations frequently reveal the type of clothing worn by ordinary Londoners. Archaeologists have found the shoe buckles, leather jerkins, shoes, pins, headdress frames and laces that were part of everyday Tudor clothing.
Princess Elizabeth I (1533-1603)
See a Tudor shoe buckle
Shoe buckle, 16th century
See a typical Tudor shoe and understand how it was decorated
Leather shoe, decorated with slashes, mid-16th century
Find out about Tudor shoe fashions
Leather shoe, with a very fashionable wide toe, about 1510
Find out about shoes for rich and poor, men and women
Leather jerkin (sleeveless jacket), mid-16th century
See a fashionable Tudor leather jerkin
Panel from a leather jerkin (sleeveless jacket), mid-16th century
See a Tudor lace used to fasten a shirt
Lace made from braided silk used to fasten the collar or cuffs of a shirt, early 16th century
See a leather sheath, used for holding a Tudor knife
Leather sheath for a knife, 16th century
Wearing a replica Tudor 'gabled' headdress
Find out about women's headdresses and how they were made
Woman's headdress frame made from a curved piece of wire, mid-16th century
Find out why pins were so important when getting dressed in Tudor times
Pins used for fastening clothes, 16th century
Types of clothing
ertain types of clothes were typical of the Tudor period: square-toed shoes, clothes with slashes in the fabric to reveal garments worn underneath, decorative jerkins and padded breeches for men, tight bodices and long skirts for women.
Fashions for rich people, 1540s
Fashions for rich people, 1590s
Jewellery
ery occasionally we find jewellery from this period. The best example is the Cheapside Hoard - a spectacular stash of jewellery and gemstones discovered in 1912 underneath the cellar of a former goldsmith's shop in Cheapside. This was the type of jewellery worn by the richest people in Tudor society.
Find out where a hoard of 16th and 17th-century jewellery was found on Cheapside
