Exhibit B (SUMPTUARY LAWS)

 In Sumptuary Law in Nürnberg: A Study in Paternal Government, Kent Roberts Greenfield shows how clothing was regulated as part of everyday governance in Nuremberg. Now, it wasn’t the first place that introduced these laws but it was one of the most significant places for their systematic influence as a wealthy imperial city. Roman laws like the Lex Oppia in the 3rd century BC restricted display of wealth for women, making Rome the earliest documented case of sumptuary regulation in Europe. We could say that the early indication of these rules in the early modern Europe showcases Italian cities such as Florence, Venice and Genoa as the pioneers. 

These laws were not just about appearance. They came from a broader idea that authorities should guide and control daily life, including how people dress. Clothing worked as a visible system of order. What you wore signalled your place in society, and the rules ensured those signals remained clear. Certain fabrics, colors, and decorations were limited to specific groups. Identity, in this sense, was not something you chose. It was defined for you and enforced in public.

Authorities tried to control fabrics such as silk and velvet, certain colors like Red and Purple, limit jewellery, and even regulate wedding attire and dowries. These rules aimed to contain excess and keep social differences and gender differentiations visible.

In 1281, Florence passed its first sumptuary rules to limit excessive luxury. Both men and women were impacted by the laws, but as the majority of them dealt with what women could and could not wear, they primarily addressed women's attire. The Ufficiali delle Donne, or "Officials of Women," was the term for the officials tasked with prosecuting “criminals”.

The text of the sumptuary laws published in 1356 declares: No woman, or female or girl, should dare to use in the city of Florence, at home or outside the home, any type of button, enameled or glazed, to any garment, on which there is any decoration with pearls or precious stones. 

- Legge suntuaria fatta dal comune di Firenze l’anno 1355 e volgarizzata nel 1356, da Ser Andrea Lancia. 

Seen this way, sumptuary law reveals an ongoing negotiation. Authority defines boundaries. Individuals might obey or not and identity forms in that space between the system’s control and the people’s resistance. 

By the early modern period, these laws began to lose their force. The expansion of trade following the rise of merchant classes made strict regulation difficult to enforce. The controlled system of visible hierarchy became harder and harder to maintain as social mobility and consumption patterns shifted. These regulations did not disappear in a day or through a single act. They faded as the structures that sustained them, weakened. From this perspective, identity emerges not as a fixed material. The structure attempts to define the body, and where individuals, even within constraint, reshape its meaning.