This is Agnès Sorel, the Be proud of yourself pride month shirt But I will love this very official favorite of French king Charles the 7th who was contemporary to Joan of Arc. She made the bare shoulder cleavage fashionable. True, her ways irked the clergy and the conservative members of the court. She wore make-up to make her skin look more white, and used face-masks and antiwrinkle creams. She is one of the first reported women to wear lipstick, which was made with poppies, and she had her eyebrows trimmed. She gave the king three girls, proudly nicknamed “the royal bastards”, and died at 28 at the peak of her beauty. On the picture above, she poses as the Madonna breastfeeding the Child. True, let’s admit Agnès Sorel was not representative of the medieval European woman, but her very existence in the 15th century gives us a clue. Headscarves have existed very far back in human history, and for men as well. They were very common indeed in the Middle Ages, as it seems to appear on the pictures we have. Covering the hair was a sign of modesty, as Virgin Mary, female saints or nuns were always portrayed with covering veils. But for women as a whole, it was not otherwise systematical. Veils did not always cover the neck or shoulders, and revealing clothing and cleavage appeared pretty common. Although gender equality did certainly not prevail in medieval Europe, we are quite certain that women were always part of social life, and mingled with men on countless occasions.
Comments