The piece pictured here would have been a transitional piece as it has the double pearls in the design but also has the long drop down the front. In later years of Elizabeth I's time the drop would have been eliminated.
Why the fashion altered is up for some debate, but some people think it was that the girdle appeared too much like a rosary, and as the Church of England and the Protestants became more powerful they chose to change the style and thus the girdle as a belt became more fashionable.
the earlier part of the renaissance saw the girdle as a piece of cloth, much like a sash. But as jewelry in general became more prevalent, the girdles morphed into cloth pieces pieces that had jewels set in precious metals sewn onto them.
Later on, the girdle belts were made of entirely of metal and gemstones. The designs typically were belts with a long drop of metals and jewels down the front and tied in the back.
As time went on they became more and more encrusted with jewels and almost always had pearls. A girl just can't have enough pearls!
Here we have several examples of jeweled renaissance belts of the late Tudor, Elizabethan period. The documented history of the girdle goes as far back as the European prehistoric era of the early Bronze Age, and were most probably used to hold up the skirts at the waist of both men and women.
By the 4th century B.C. jeweled girdles were worn by the wealthy citizens in Sassanians and Persians. between 1600 and 1400 BC the Mycenaean men were wearing girdles. Royal Egyptians of both sexes were wearing girdles during the Eighteenth dynasty. next the Roman women were getting in on the ever present girdle
using it two forms in order to hold up their stolas. A wide flat belt called the succincta was worn on the hips along with a cingulum below the breasts. there is a beautiful girdle with pendants that was discovered in Theil, from the Bronze Age in the collection of the Musee des Antiquities Nationales in Paris.
By the First century AD the women's European costume consisted of a long gown that was belted with a girdle, similar to the Roman stola in shape but the second girdle that was used under the breasts was eliminated.Shortly there after girdles readily appear on both men and women, with the women's girdle falling down
the front of her gown and the men's girdle often hidden in the folds of the upper pats of his short bliaud. By the end of the 12th century the women we wearing their girdles so tightly that the shape of their bodies was obvious. The girdle went around the waist and then again, around the hips, with both ends falling to the feet in the front.
The girdle continued to be a part of clothing as both a functional item and an ornamental piece for some time lasting well into he seventeenth century. By the fourteenth century many girdles were made of gold and silver, attached about the waist and used to hand necessary object on. Even the less wealthy and courtly worn such chains if they could.
By the fifteenth century low slung girdles mad of cloth or leather with jewels were part of the wealthy man's outfit.
In the second half of the fifteenth century during the Italian renaissance, women's styles changes and their girdles were worn higher up under the chest again. As the dawn of the 16th century arrives the waist becomes the focal point of clothing again and both men and women start wearing their girdles on their waists again. And oh what girdles they wore!
First they were simpler pieces of very costly fabrics, then they were decorated with jewels. Later just jewels were worn for the women and the men began wearing more jewelry of other styles.
