In seventeen chapters, Maria Hayward thoroughly investigates English clothing practices in the first half of the sixteenth century. Hayward’s main vehicle for determining and analyzing which people wore what garments is through the four Acts of Apparel Henry VIII passed during his reign (1509–47). The book uses the social categories of people, garments, and textiles established in the Acts of Apparel to explore how those groups and the individuals in those groups used clothing to fashion their identity and to compare their usage to the stipulations set down by the Henrician legislation. Hayward also includes in her discussion those who were exempt from the Acts of Apparel, which is important since most scholars who judge sumptuary legislation a failure, quickly dismissing its usefulness to historians, ignore that many people were exempt from it. Moreover, even if the laws were mostly disregarded (and Hayward’s evidence suggests they were not), they do reflect patterns of clothing consumption and the cultural value of clothing.

Hayward divides her analysis of sumptuary practice and regulation into four sections. The first section examines sumptuary legislation and its relationship in defining and maintaining Tudor social hierarchy. The author uses this section to remind the reader that clothing was only one form of consumption that was tied to rank and consequently regulated by the crown. Although Tudor society was divided into hierarchical ranks, those boundaries were often slippery and ill defined. Sumptuary legislation was meant to strengthen those fragile boundaries.

The second section focuses on garments and textiles since they were at the heart of the Henrician legislation. In this section, Hayward lays out the wide array of fabric choices that English men and women had. It is in this section that Hayward makes a very important point that might seem counterintuitive to many: it was men and their wardrobes, not women and their garments, that were subjected to regulation. This seems unique to England as on the Continent women’s dress tended to be targeted by legislation; unfortunately, Hayward does not address this discrepancy any further than that a woman’s social standing was determined by her husband’s. If that was the case, then were women really exempt from legislation, or were they implicitly included in the regulations of their husband’s dress (at least in terms of textiles)?

After discussing the types of textiles and clothes regulated by the Acts of Apparel, the third section moves on to the types of people who were supposed to follow this legislation: the king and his family, the nobility, the gentry, and the middling and lower social groups. For the most part, the nobility and upper ranks of the gentry tended to push the boundaries, if not completely break the rules, whereas the middling and lower social groups abided by the legislation. Indeed, if their wills are any indication of what they valued both as individuals and as a group, clothing did not seem to play as important of a role in their self definition as property ownership. It seems as though the monarch and his nobles were more dependent upon clothing to construct their identity, but this is not a conclusion explicitly drawn or explored by Hayward.

The ability to stay within the parameters set by the Acts of Apparel was also found to be true for those who were exempt from them. The fourth and final section of the book examines these exemptions: women; the clergy, both regular and secular; entertainers; those in the secular professions such as academics, lawyers and doctors; and, finally, the urban elite. Even though these groups were exempt from the sumptuary legislation, they usually dressed along the guidelines prescribed for their social rank. For example, gentry women did not tend to dress more elaborately than their husbands despite their dress not being mentioned in the sumptuary laws. Among the professionals, their work attire often included antiquated, unfashionable garments in order to stress their sobriety and their status. Furthermore, many of these professional’s organizations such as the Inns of Court and the universities passed rules that paralleled the Acts of Apparel to regulate the dress of their members.

For the most part, Hayward proves her arguments about how people used clothes to create both individual and corporate identities. Moreover, the book’s structure helps to make the vast quantity of data presented easier to digest as do the multiple tables and charts. An appendix includes a variety of transcribed primary source materials ranging from preambles of the sumptuary laws passed to individual wills. Despite the rich array of information and source material, this book in some ways contains more description than analysis. Although it does an excellent job at explaining who wore what, it does not always explain why, such as the previously mentioned example of female exclusion from the sumptuary legislation. Another issue is that Hayward often extends her research to include Elizabethan material, despite stating that she was confining her study to 1553. Although the Elizabethan material was sometimes included to illustrate a change or shift in clothing practices in the second half of the sixteenth century, doing so seems to highlight the lack of explanation as to why things functioned as they did before Elizabeth and begs the question why things changed afterward.

More than likely such questions simply illustrate an increased interest in clothing practices within the entire Tudor period that are generated by this book, speaking more to the book’s strengths than to any perceived weaknesses. Furthermore, as the extensive bibliography can attest, this well-researched work goes far beyond the scope of most dress history scholarship. Moreover, Hayward utilizes a wide range of sources: wills and inventories that are supplemented by biographies, letters, literature, portraiture, tomb effigies, and funeral brasses. Ultimately, this book is an important read for both students and scholars who are interested in the culture of clothing in early Tudor England.