Townsfolk like Shakespeare saw themselves as "the middling sort of people." Most dressed modestly.

But Elizabethan fashion victims of any standing could easily be ridiculed in writing. It was a sure crowd-pleaser.

In Act 4, Scene 2 of Shakespeare's Cymbeline, Prince Cloten reacts angrily to the comic mockery of the mountain men, saying...

"Thou villain base, know'st me not by my clothes?"