Baroque

The Baroque style was set at the royal court in France, where the stiff-bodiced, heavy-skirted court dress known as the grand habit was established in the splendor of Louis XIV's Versailles. The fabrics for these stately clothes were produced across Europe, but the French silk industry, centered in Lyon, dominated. Farther afield, the influx of goods from Asia via trading organizations such as the Dutch East India Company, founded in 1602, meant that printed cottons and painted silks from India and China flooded the European fashion market.