The European idea of fashion as a personal statement rather than a cultural expression begins in the 16th century: ten portraits of German or Italian gentlemen may show ten entirely different hats. But the local culture still set the bounds, as a painter recorded in his actual or composite contrast of Nuremberg and Venetian fashions at the close of the 15th century. Fashions among upper-class Europeans began to move in synchronicity in the 18th century; Though colors and patterns of textiles changed from year to year, the cut of a gentleman’s coat and the length of his waistcoat, or the pattern to which a lady’s dress was cut changed more slowly. Men’s fashions derived from military models, and changes in a European male silhouette are galvanized in theatres of European war, where gentleman officers had opportunities to make notes of foreign styles: an example is the cravat.
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