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Clothes for the Body, Clothes for the Bed: the Uses of Textiles in a Rural Environment (Northwest Portugal, 1750-1810)
| In the twilight of the Ancien Régime, in a predominately rural and pre-industrial environment, textiles were still considered as important markers of social and economic status.
My paper intends to analyse, though the study of orphan inventories elaborated in northwest Portugal between 1750 and 1810, the importance of textiles in the different moments of everyday life. Not only textiles were related to social status, but also this distinction was always linked to different moments in time. Our aim is to distinguish between the types of clothing worn in different moments of the day and on ritual occasions, using references to their fabrics, colours and ornaments as important indicators of status.
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