Elizabeth Taylor in a scene from Cleopatra. Photo / Getty
Elizabeth Taylor in a scene from Cleopatra. Photo / Getty
"Only those with no memory insist on their own originality," said Coco Chanel. Too right.
The maximalism trend currently taking the fashion world by the scruff of its holier-than-thou, plain-navy-cashmere-swathed neck has echoes that probably reach back to the first cave woman to mix and match her animal pelts.
As Aileen Ribeiro, professor emeritus at the Courtauld Institute, says: "Overly rich and sometimes inappropriate and vulgar dress occurs over all the centuries. It's a human failing."
Ribeiro has spent months researching blingy outfits for A Portrait of Fashion: Six Centuries of Dress at the National Portrait Gallery, the book that focuses on around 190 works from the NPG's collection. That collection is filled with frocks that make Prada's, Gucci's and Dolce & Gabbana's blockbuster shows in Milan last week look almost restrained.
Poor plain Mary Wilkes's be-ribboned frock in the portrait by Zoffany is a fashion disaster - and that may not just be a contemporary view.
Miuccia Prada, Stefano Gabbana, Domenico Dolce and Alessandro Michele, Gucci's new creative director, are all gifted stylists who can overload detail, accessories and lush decorative flourishes onto an outfit and still make it seem charming or romantic.
In real life, it's exceptionally hard to pile it all on without looking crass. But in any case, what is inappropriately vulgar?
To a 21st-century aesthete who seeks status in astronomically expensive plain-wear from The Row or Celine, the strutting "dollygarchs" in their jewel-spattered crocodile handbags, thigh-high patent boots and cacophonous outfits are beyond style redemption.
Elizabeth Taylor in a scene from Cleopatra. Photo / Getty
To Elizabeth I, creating an untouchable aura of ostentatious grandeur was just part of her survival tactics. Surprisingly, perhaps, disdain of conspicuous consumption turns out not to be unique to an era (ours) in which flashy clothes are available at all prices.
Three centuries ago, sophisticates had their issues with the overly embellished. The abolition of sumptuary laws created a problem familiar today: how to deter those with plenty of money but no taste from making gauche incursions on territory previously occupied solely by those of high rank?
"Ostensibly the main aim behind sumptuary laws was to encourage home manufacturing," notes Ribeiro. "But really, they were there to cement a fairly immovable class structure. Preventing people from dressing above their station in life became a constant theme of moral comment in manuals of etiquette and conduct well into the 19th century."
It still is. These days, however, moral objections are veiled beneath style pronouncements - many of which additionally cloak themselves in irony so as not to seem too exclusive or hectoring. Even here, there is not much new. Restraint in dress first became fashionable, as opposed to merely virtuous, after the French Revolution.
"Fabrics such as wool and cotton were increasingly linked with 'democracy'," says Ribeiro. Artists became skilled at mixing subtly different shades of black and at using sombre clothes as a foil against which they could tease out the character of the sitter.
In menswear, the concept of bling all but disappeared, apart from a brief renaissance under the Prince Regent. Women reverted to their objectified status quo: decoration was a means to being objectified, and being objectified was a route to power, of sorts.
Then in the Thirties, Chanel's little black dresses turned everything upside down again.
As for the purpose of these revealing (sometimes more so than was intended) portraits? They added lustre to family history, for one. "But people have always been fascinated by their own images, witness the selfie," says Ribeiro.
Some of the sitters knew the effects they were aiming for. "Doris Zinkeisen presents herself theatrically in a brightly coloured shawl, which draws attention to the curve of her breasts and her brightly made up face."
Others may have been horrified by the results - Augustus John made Lady Ottoline Morrell's chin look the size of India. If only she'd had access to Instagram's filters.
