THE SCENE: As long as fashion has existed, there has also been tutting disapproval for such extravagances, as is demonstrated below where a Scottish historian composes a poem about English dress habits.
THE TEXT: The variety of their garments in a source of amazement to me.
Some of them are short – they could not be shorter,
Scarcely touching the wrists – not to be raised by the hand.
Why are the clothes so short? Times change and clothes change with them.
Overcoats have sleeves reaching down to the hells
Which you could easily wind three times round your arms.
You could wipe you bottom with them instead of rags
In the toilet without doubt
Alas! The leather skins would be badly worm away by their backsides.
Long points of hood reign in this region,
Hanging down to the belt as a sign of their devotion
Newfangled bells shine from the padded chest
Not known of old.
If you foot goes to sleep in the streets, do not let your enemy know.
His beard hangs from his chin like a long goats’ whiskers
And like pig’s bristles is tended with a comb.
For this reason he loves his hair, if he would be bold.
Hence the belief –
In the whole wide world there is none bolder than a he-goat.
The English race is like some kind of monkey.
It apes all the others daily, as it sees them.
Idleness produces more and more frivolity and worldliness
In their licentious minds
May the kingdom of all grant to us the kingdom of heaven.
– Scotichronicon, Walter Bower, 15th Century AD
