Scandenavian

Danish
The early and midlle part of the century shows fashion strikinglysimilar to that worn in the Netherlands: large flowing sleeves, softly shaped torso and square neckline.
These came best be seen in paintings of Isabella of Austria who married Christian II of Denmark.

Please note the above images are hosted by the World Roots website and you will need to scroll through the pages to find the image.
The same shape can also bee seen in this painting of an unknown couple in the Frederiksborgmuseet online site.

This site is extremely difficult to link to, and you will no doubt get an error when clicking this link. However if you click here to open a new window, you can copy and paste the URL from the thumbnail links here and that should open the page displaying the contents of that room.
I wish there was an easier way but the site is very flakey. The site however is a wonderful resourse for images not seen elsewhere.

By the late 16thC however dress seemed to have become much more formalised and closer to the body. Well fitted undergowns and short sleeved over gowns are worn. Mostly there seems to be no waist:

Lots of small images of similar style gowns, again you will have to scroll to find them, but they are not clickable so the files are right there.


But a few images seem to show the presence of a waist afterall, even if it's simply because the gown can close and appears fitted:

I'm inclined to belive they are two variations of the same style, or perhaps when the artists painted the over gowns open they didn't show a waist seam that may have been present. It's highly likely however that the open gowns are a different style to the closed gowns as we have an extant gown of a similar shape from the same era in Patterns of Fashion.
The closed gown doesn't appear to have been as popular as the open style, or rather the waisted style doesn't appear as frequently as an open a-line gown. But some of the images of closed gowns are difficult to interpret at this stage due to the small file size.
A similar style waisted gown can be seen elsewhere:

However that last gown only shows passing similarities in the sleeves and neckline. There are too many other features that differ to rely on this image. The trimming of the bodice and the tabs show a heavier Spanish influence.

And the open a-line style can also be found elsewhere:


The following are some more works of art in the Frederiksborgmuseet, however the styles are different and possibly for different areas.


Finally these images are from Sweden and so are a nice comparisson

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