Fashion Queen

Ok so you're probably thinking "Why the hell is she writing about Queen Elizabeth I, this is supposed to be a fashion blog!" but if you can name someone more fashionable, trendy and idolized than Queen Elizabeth I, I will eat my Orange satin Armani stilettos!

Let's break this down so I can make my point and hopefully educate at the same time..

Ok so to start with we have her firey red, frizzy hair. Now, no offense to all of you beautiful red heads out there, I personally think it's a great hair colour and wish I had the guts to dye my hair red, but it's not exactly the most coveted hair colour around at the moment is it?

Well in the 16th Century, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I EVERYONE and I mean everyone wanted red hair. Problemo.. In the 1500s they didn't have the luxury of nice n' easy hair dye, so they would use urine.. yes that's right.. URINE! to alter the colour of their hair. Now call me crazy but that's not exactly my idea of a fun night in but women would do this because they idolised Queen Lizzy so much!

Next case in point, when was the last time you went to the hairdressers and asked for them to "make it nice and frizzy" ? Well back then it was all the rage! why? because Liz's hair was good and frizzy... Something that we probably couldn't possibly understand, that being said, if Karl Largerfeld told us that this season is all about the frizz, would we do it? interesting...

Then; the make up. I'm probably not the best to comment on this one because I think that pale skin is beautiful and scour my skin daily with a heavy duty exfoliant on exfoliating gloves to remain as pale as possible.. yes it can hurt, yes my skin goes bright red for a while but for me, it's worth it! anyway back to my point.. 'brown is beautiful' is the general rule for image and beauty is it not? Well Queen Liz's ghostly white skin had women running for their make up kits to match her. How did they do this? (you already know it's gonna be bad!!) A mixture of white lead and vinegar.. two substances that your face does not wanna meet on a daily basis! As you can imagine this really messed with their skin, caused acne and all sorts of problems, to treat this they would use rosewater and lemon juice, last time I checked a bit of clearasil would do the trick but I guess we are just very privileged!

Many women would even draw false veins on their skin to enhance the white!.. mmm attractive!!

Complete this look with some rosey cheeks, red lips and kohl rimmed eyes and you have the 'Ideal 16th century women' and all because these attributes came naturally to Queen Elizabeth I. That's not to say that she didn't enhance all of these features by using the same methods but she was definitely the biggest trend setter than I have ever been aware of. Yes I wanna look like a combination of Alexa Chung, Lily Allen and Kate Moss but if that meant putting PEE in my hair, you can forget it!

As for the clothes they were all much the same in those days, much the same being completely extravagant and way waaaay OTT! but I find it quite amazing the amount of work they put into their appearance, in a time where executions and torture was considered the norm you wouldn't really think that it would really matter to them that their hair was as frizzy as possible or neck ruff big enough!

Nowadays fashion is all about individualism and expressing yourself through what you wear, back then it was all about what QE I was wearing/doing/saying.. and you thought Sarah Jessica Parker (combined with the wonderful stylings of Patricia Field) was a trend setter!

I hope I have proved my point, after 3 consecutive days of writing about fashion history for assignments, this isn't really something I am in peak condition to write as I'm pretty much all fashion history'ed out but I have really neglected my beloved baby blog of late and the Elizabethan era really fascinates me so I wanted to share it!

So do you agree? Share your opinion via my anonymous poll to the right of this blog or leave me a comment below!