Spanish Style: Fashion Illuminated, 1550-1700. Spain’s imperial expansion inspired a fashion revolution. Elite clothing incorporated materials from across the Spanish Empire into opulent garments and accessories that radically reshaped the human body. The result was a unique style of dress that defined Spain’s national identity in the 16th and 17th centuries, and that continues to inspire fashion today.
Set in the Hispanic Society’s ornate Renaissance courtyard, this exhibition tells the story of this remarkable era of fashion history through the museum’s rich collections, including royal portraits, sumptuous textiles and jewelry, life-size sculptures, and vibrantly illuminated manuscripts.
The exhibition features sixteen rarely seen manuscript letters of nobility illuminated with miniatures showing men, women, and children dressed in the latest courtly styles. These brilliantly colored family portraits, painted in painstaking detail, reveal how upwardly-mobile families manipulated their appearances and used their clothes to climb the social ladder in the Spanish Empire. Spanish Style: Fashion Illuminated, 1550-1700 is curated by Amanda Wunder, a specialist on early modern Spanish art and culture, and author of Spanish Fashion in the Age of Velázquez: A Tailor at the Court of Philip IV (2024).
