Fifteen centuries of Spanish fashion, from the era of the Roman Empire through the rise of the Renaissance, appear in the accurate and meticulously rendered drawings of this coloring book. Its focus resides with the Arabic influences introduced by the Moors, who arrived in Spain in the eighth century and developed a thriving culture until they were driven out in 1492 during the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella.

From the era of the Roman Empire through the rise of the Renaissance, this coloring book presents fifteen centuries of Spanish fashion. Its meticulous, accurate renderings focus particularly on the Arabic influences introduced by the Moors and depict Spain's dramatic variations in fashion: the Roman-styled clothing worn by a farm couple of the third century, the quilted tunic of a thirteenth-century Saracen warrior, the armor of a sixteenth-century conquistador, and lavish royal costumes from several eras, including the styles famously depicted by the court painter Diego Velazquez. 44 black-and-white illustrations.

In Moors Dressed as Moors, Javier Irigoyen-Garcia draws on a wide range of sources to reveal the currency of Moorish clothing in early modern Iberian society.

A good introductory picture of the Islamic presence in Spain, from the year 711 until the modern era.

In early modern Iberia, Moorish clothing was not merely a cultural remnant from the Islamic period, but an artefact that conditioned discourses of nobility and social preeminence. In Moors Dressed as Moors, Javier Irigoyen-Garcia draws on a wide range of sources: archival, legal, literary, and visual documents, as well as tailoring books, equestrian treatises, and festival books to reveal the currency of Moorish clothing in early modern Iberian society. Irigoyen-García’s insightful and nuanced analyses of Moorish clothing production and circulation shows that as well as being a sign of status and a marker of nobility, it also served to codify social tensions by deploying apparent Islamophobic discourses. Such luxurious value of clothing also sheds light on how sartorial legislation against the Moriscos was not only a form of cultural repression, but also a way to preclude their full integration into Iberian society. Moors Dressed as Moors challenges the traditional interpretations of the value of Moorish clothing in sixteenth and seventeenth-century Spain and how it articulated the relationships between Christians and Moriscos.

This is the first global history of dress regulation and its place in broader debates around how human life and societies should be visualised and materialised. Sumptuary laws were a tool on the part of states to regulate not only manufacturing systems and moral economies via the medium of expenditure and consumption of clothing but also banquets, festivities and funerals. Leading scholars on Asian, Latin American, Ottoman and European history shed new light on how and why items of dress became key aspirational goods across society, how they were lobbied for and marketed, and whether or not sumptuary laws were implemented by cities, states and empires to restrict or channel trade and consumption. Their findings reveal the significance of sumptuary laws in medieval and early modern societies as a site of contestation between individuals and states and how dress as an expression of identity developed as a modern 'human right'.