Introduction

Abstract

In the late sixteenth century, Michel de Montaigne sat down in his library to write about the vexing theme of sumptuary laws. ‘To declare that only princes may eat turbot and wear velvet and gold braid’, the French essayist mused, was ‘but enhancing such things and making everyone want to have them’. Montaigne agreed with Plato: young people should never change from ‘fashion to fashion in their dress, comportment, dances, sports and songs’.