Podcast Summary – Dressed: The History of Fashion

Episode: Spanish Style: Fashion Illuminated, 1550-1700 with Amanda Wunder
Release Date: December 10, 2025
Host: Cassidy Zachary & April Calahan
Guest: Dr. Amanda Wunder, Professor of History and Art History, City University of New York

Episode Overview

This episode dives into “Spanish Style: Fashion Illuminated, 1550-1700,” a major exhibition at the Hispanic Society Museum and Library in New York City, curated by Dr. Amanda Wunder. The conversation explores how illuminated Spanish “letters of nobility” (legal manuscripts featuring family portraits) serve as exceptional sources for reconstructing the fashions, status displays, and social dynamics of Spain and its empire during the height of its global influence.

Key Discussion Points

1. The Exhibition’s Foundation: Illuminated Letters of Nobility

• Timestamps: [01:38], [05:51], [06:49]
• Spanish “letters of nobility” are rare, illuminated legal documents handmade for families elevating themselves to noble status (hidalgos).
• They contain dated, identified miniature portraits, making them invaluable for fashion history where actual clothes rarely survive.
• This exhibition is unique in using these manuscripts as primary fashion evidence.

Quote (Amanda Wunder, 06:31):
“It’s the very first time that these illuminated manuscripts, which are called letters of nobility, have ever been displayed specifically as a resource for fashion history.”

2. Museum Backdrop & Exhibition Structure

• Timestamps: [04:47], [07:25]
• The Hispanic Society is described as a “jewel of upper Manhattan” with not just manuscripts but paintings (Velázquez, El Greco, Goya), textiles, jewelry, and rare books.
• Exhibition weaves together manuscripts, paintings, textiles, and sculptures to evoke the lost world of Spanish fashion.
• The catalog and episode structure follow three evolutionary phases of Spanish style (1550s-1700).

3. Phase One: Rise of Spanish Style (1550s–1580s)

• Timestamps: [09:30], [12:00], [14:32], [15:18]
• Context: The fashion revolution is closely tied to Spain's emergence as a global superpower (conquests in the Americas, Philippines, Italy, Flanders).
• Newfound wealth from the empire, and the desire to legitimize status, drive the proliferation of elaborate, high-status dress among the hidalgo class.
• Imports: Flanders lace, Neapolitan brocades, New World dyes (cochineal).
• Signature Elements:
  • Doublet: Fitted, sculptural upper garment (for both men and women).
  • Trunk hose for men; long skirts and mantles for women.
  • Tocas: Linen or silk head coverings, communicating age and marital status.
  • Ruffs: Grew from modest frills (“lechugilla”) to massive, starched accessories by 1590s; signalled status and cleanliness.
  • Militaristic silhouettes: Channeled noble ideals of “purity of blood” and martial service.
• Social Functions: Dress becomes a tool to claim and display noble status as a class expands to ~10% of the population.

Quote (Amanda Wunder, 09:30):
“What we see is the increasing importance of fashion as a way of showing your status and as a way of publicly making a claim to nobility from the way that you look...people have greater access to the kinds of materials that had traditionally demonstrated social status.”

4. Spanish Fashion as Imported, Idealized, and Performed

• Timestamps: [25:01]
• Manuscript portraits reflect ideals and aspirations more than everyday reality.
• Notable fads appear, e.g. the codpiece and the padded “peascod” belly in men’s dress, mirroring trends in armor and health ideals.

Quote (Amanda Wunder, 25:01):
“There’s no way to know if these people actually owned these clothes, but this is really how they wanted to be seen. They were having their portraits painted to show themselves looking like the ideal of aristocratic dress…”

5. Phase Two: Heightened Artificiality (1590s–1650s)

• Timestamps: [28:07], [28:24], [31:11]
• Ornamental fashion reaches excess: ruffs and silhouette manipulation intensify.
• Political and social crises (Spanish Armada defeat, declining empire) lead to sumptuary (dress-control) laws.
• Key reforms:
  • Philip IV bans oversized ruffs (symbol of decadence) in 1623; pivots men’s courtly dress to black and white austerity.
  • Women’s dress: Persistence and exaggeration of conical farthingales; introduction of the “Guarda Infante” hoopskirt, creating massive width.
• Sumptuary legislation ([33:34]) is used as a tool to manage morality, class distinction, and domestic industry, especially under Philip IV.
  • Bans on certain skirt shapes, low-necked bodices (“escotado”), and the provocative “tapadas” (cloaked women affecting mystery and allure).
  • Enforcement hinges on royal and noble adoption: if queens and court women ignore laws, so does the populace.

Quote (Amanda Wunder, 33:34):
“[Philip IV] used these dress laws more than any other monarch as a tool for governing, as a way to exert political power...when there are laws being issued by the crown, it’s only when they’re worn at the royal court and modeled by the royal family that they’re actually effectively enforced.”

6. Fashion, Family, and Gender Ideals in Manuscript Portraits

• Timestamps: [36:49], [38:29], [40:22], [42:45], [53:25]
• Men’s hairstyles become “a playground for novelties” as other dress is restricted.
• Portraits track the evolution of family, age, and gender through dress:
  • Distinctive blonde updos (“copete”) and heavy, artificial makeup for women in early 1600s.
  • Pregnancy portraits mark maternal roles as central to status and lineage.
  • Children depicted in age-appropriate color codes (green for youth, black for maturity) and forms, with gender neutrality in infancy shifting to adult mimicry.
  • Jewelry: Early emphasis on devotional (religious) pieces transitions to pure ornamentation (e.g. chest “roses” and chandelier earrings) by late 17th century.

Quote (Wunder, 38:29):
“These two women reflect this moment in the early 1600s...the trend was for women to dye their hair blonde...all the women look the same. They’ve all got this very particular style, and it’s incredibly artificial...women’s role...was really to be ornamental.”

7. Phase Three: Rise of France and Decline of Spanish Influence (1660s–1700s)

• Timestamps: [44:01], [44:31], [47:51], [49:03], [51:06], [52:00]
• France, under Louis XIV, becomes Europe’s fashion leader, influencing both women’s and men’s styles:
  • French fabric imports, lower necklines, naturalized silhouettes, and exposed shoulders appear in Spanish female fashion after 1660 (end of Franco-Spanish conflict).
  • Families depicted with both French and Spanish styles in a single portrait, signaling political and fashion ambiguity.
• Jewelry and adornment become more ostentatious and secular (e.g. ribbons, brooches, chandeliers).
• By 1700, following dynastic change (French Bourbon rule), Spanish distinctive style disappears, the “Spanish man suit” becoming bureaucratic uniform, and the letters of nobility fading as status symbols.

Quote (Amanda Wunder, 51:06):
“We really see a very clear transition from displays of nobility through devotional jewelry to pure conspicuous consumption with very large brooches worn at the center of the chest...this kind of joyful, exuberant fashion in the later 17th century.”

8. Wrapping Up – Exhibition Impact and Legacy

• Timestamps: [56:07], [58:10]
• 1700 as endpoint: Charles II’s childless death and French succession signal a final shift in fashion, society, and the decline of the letter of nobility tradition.
• Exhibition (and catalog) illuminate how fashion, power, imperial reach, and social change intersected through what people wore and how they wished to be remembered.

Quote (Amanda Wunder, 56:07):
“1700 is this real watershed year...Once you bring in this member of the French Bourbon dynasty, we see this absolute transformation of Spanish fashion, where this traditional Spanish style...goes out the window.”

Notable Quotes

• On the exhibition’s uniqueness:
  “It’s the very first time that these illuminated manuscripts, which are called letters of nobility, have ever been displayed specifically as a resource for fashion history.” — Amanda Wunder (06:31)

• On fashion as status performance:
  “Fashion is so intimately connected to your status. It becomes a symbol of your status and nobility, just like these letters of nobility are.” — Cassidy Zachary (21:21)

• On the morality of fashion:
  “Controlling fashion was seen as a way of controlling morality and controlling power.” — Amanda Wunder (28:24)

• On gender and ornamentation:
  “Women’s function was really purely ornamental. And these women did their job very well.” — Amanda Wunder (40:22)

• On the French takeover:
  “Once the two nations were officially at peace, then you really start to see French fashion influence in Spain accelerating... you’ll have one male member of the family dressed in the very traditional Spanish style... and the other one dressed fully in French and reflecting both national trends all in one group family portrait.” — Amanda Wunder (44:31)

Noteworthy Moments and Timestamps

• Introduction to Hispanic Society Museum: [04:47]
• The rise of the Spanish “ruff": [19:02-20:28]
• Discussion of codpieces and peascod bellies (masculine fashion fads): [25:01]
• Sumptuary laws and their social impact: [33:34]
• Pregnancy and maternity in noble portraits: [40:22, 42:45]
• Transition to French fashion dominance: [44:31]
• Ornamental jewelry’s transition from religious to secular: [49:03-51:06]
• Fashioning youth and adulthood in children’s portraits: [53:57]
• End of Spanish fashion, rise of Bourbon France: [56:07]

Final Reflection

For listeners fascinated by the intersections of fashion, politics, and social signaling—especially when the physical trace of garments is long gone—this episode offers a deeply visual, analytic, and story-rich exploration of how the Spanish elite “got dressed” to stake their place in the world, and how those choices continued to echo through legal, artistic, and personal identities as empires rose and fell.

Amanda’s Invitation (58:10):
“I would like to welcome your listeners to please come to New York. Come visit the exhibition at the Hispanic Society Museum... The exhibition is open until March 22nd of 2026.”

For more information, visuals, and to access the exhibition’s catalog, see Hispanic Society Museum and follow #Dressed573 on social media.