Book Review: Amanda Wunder, Spanish Fashion in the Age of Velázquez. A Tailor at the Court of Philip IV

Spanish royal fashions in the seventeenth century were notoriously ceremonious and idiosyncratic, as evidenced by the portraits of one of Spain’s most celebrated painters, Velázquez. Yet little was known about the artisans behind such attires. Similarly, dress historians had prioritized earlier periods. Wunder draws on readers’ likely familiarity with the art of Velázquez to factor in court artisan communities in seventeenth-century Spanish fashions. The term ‘fashion’ is purposefully used because Wunder reflects on the actors and contexts involved in creating novelties that characterized the four decades at the core of her investigation, including the shift from the inverted funnel farthingale verdugado to the horizontally shaped guardandainfante. The case study that frames Wunder’s study is Matteo Aguado (Fuenlabrada, 1605–Madrid, 1672). Aguado rose from being one of the many tailors who congregated around the court of Madrid to work for four decades in the service of the two consecutive wives of King Philip IV (1605–1665): Isabel of Bourbon (1602–1644) and Mariana of Austria (1634–1696). Admittedly, Wunder does not denote any specific methodological approach beyond using Janet Arnold’s work on Elizabeth I’s tailor as an example. However, it is possible to deduce a microhistorical perspective from Wunder’s craft: a meticulous cross-examination of vast archival, literary, material and visual records reconstructs Aguado’s world. A rigorous interplay of scales allows Wunder to traverse a tailor’s world alongside broader topics, such as diplomatic affairs or seventeenth-century consumption patterns, among royals, courtiers, royal servants and artisans like Aguado.