When real men wore feathers

14 February 2019

Ostrich feathers are often associated with glamorous women but this wasn’t always the case. In the sixteenth century, it was Europe’s men who spearheaded this trend. Now experts in Cambridge and London have brought this forgotten moment in fashion history back to life by recreating a lavish headdress.

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A feather in your cap: inside the symbolic universe of Renaissance Europe

02 November 2017

Today, feathers are an extravagant accessory in fashion; 500 years ago, however, they were used to constitute culture, artistry, good health and even courage in battle. This unlikely material is now part of a project that promises to tell us more not only about what happened in the past, but also about how it felt to be there.

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Folding ‘Trompe l’oeil’ fan, English, c.1750

How we fell in love with shopping

20 March 2015

An exhibition of ‘treasured possessions’ from the 15th to the 18th centuries reveals how we first fell in love with shopping, and takes us back to an age when our belongings were made by hand and passed down through the generations.

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The first book of fashion

01 May 2013

Fashion conveys complex messages. The recreation of an outfit taken from one of an extraordinary series of Renaissance portraits reveals how one man made his mark on society. 

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Renaissance

Piety in the Renaissance Home

14 January 2013

The notion of the Renaissance as a ‘secular age’ is to be challenged by three University of Cambridge researchers after securing €2.3m funding from the European Research Council.

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