Abstract
The extraordinary demand for luxury clothes in XVIth Century New Spain, especially for silks and velvets, has been well documented. For example, Archbishop Zumárraga, writing to the King, observed that “silks are so common here (in Mexico) that low-class journeymen and servants of both sexes as well as lovers and unmarried girls go about laden with silken capes, tunics, petticoats and mantles. … ”, while the royal accountant Rodrigo de Albornoz, also writing to His Majesty, stated that “tradespeople's wives and prostitutes wear more clothes of silk than a nobleman in Castile.” And although edicts repeatedly prohibited such luxurious dress, these edicts would only be obeyed for a brief time.
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