The First Book of Fashion

Das Trachtenbuch des Matthäus Schwarz (1520s – 1560s).

Matthäus Schwarz (1497 – 1574) was a merchant and art lover in Augsburg. From 1520 onwards, he had himself painted in full length for a variety of occasions over a period of forty years. The works includes 36 images by Narziss Renner in 1520 which reconstruct Schwartz’s life to that point, from his birth, as an infant, schoolboy, and apprentice. Schwartz commissioned 101 more images over the next 40 years, mostly by Renner until 1536, then until 1560 by an artist from Christoph Amberger’s workshop. This book is considered the first in terms of research into the history of fashion. This book was created to record fashion trends on known dates.

The original book with commentary, plus a copy of the book made in the mid-18th century, is available in PDF. The book can be flipped through and read on –> Patreon

“1520. Today, 20th February, 1520, I, Matheus Schwartz of Augsburg, was just 23 years old and looked as above. All my days I enjoyed being with old people, and it was a great pleasure for me to hear their replies to my questions. And among other subjects we would also get to talk about clothing and styles of dress, as they change daily. And sometimes they showed me their drawings of costumes they had worn 30, 40, and 50 years ago, which greatly surprised me and seemed a strange thing to me in our time. This led me to draw mine as well, to see what would come out of it in 5, 10, or more years. This is why I began with today’s date to draw them in here, such as the slashes, the colors, etc., and this image is the 42nd, which is when I started. I first had to think back to what happened before, from when I was in my mother’s womb up to 1520. I thought to do this during 1519, while my father was still alive. So I asked him about what I could not remember, which were the times of the years and days, etc., which things happened, up to the 12th image, for I was uncertain about it. Although I did start to remember from the 4th image onward, but it seemed to me as in a dream. But since the 11th image in 1510, I started to describe everything I experienced, and it was much easier for me to say what needed to be drawn. I have used one manner [of dress] 2 or 3 times, but only inserted it here once, except when it had different slashes or colors. And I thus began with the first dress in my mother’s womb, the next in swaddling clothes, etc., and the others are images of my clothes worn in public, but I have omitted carnival clothes, etc. It has not always gone in the way I wanted, and a special book has been written about this, called “The Course of the World,” and in it I have written about many clothes in relation to this little book.”