ARMY UNITS - Western-European Officers, Commanders, City Officials - their fashion and style

This Gallery will let You see some examples of how did western-european rich and important looked like in this era.

Tho, their might have been some differences between swedish fashion, spanish fashion and english fashion, there people usually prefered the same style of clothing, has same kind of moustaches, wigs etc.
And of course, rich knew no such thing like borders back then, so they would order a lot of stuff from foreign producers, with french fashion houses dictating a proper style to most of Europe.

Thus, lacy collars, wigs, spanish beards, fancy moustache, and many other distinctive features would be seen all around Europe at that time, even in some eastern countries.


The point is that You woulnd't really tell a difference between a french officer or a dutch officer, danish or swedish, prussian or austrian, as they would all look kind of the same.

Tho, obviously some of the Spaniards would differ from Scandinavians because their skulls and skin would show clear romanic features, just like Scandinavians would look more scandinavian.
Thus, "race", stereotypical look is quite important for our story, since it's the easiest way to make factions be recognizable, apart from colours from their uniforms of course.

I think I can spot some differences between english commanders and the french ones tho, at least I can imagine them being different in my own head, but I don't requite anyone else to be able to tell them apart as well.

Let's keep things simple ;)

Please scroll trough a gallery below to see some presentations of those officers and commanders.

These images could refer to people from factions like:

* Sweden
* City of Gdansk
* Holland
* Denmark
* Cromwell's England / Britan
* Prussia
* Austrian Empire
* Courland

also so important Poles, but only a few, could use the same style.

Of course, You will note that some of them wear armor and some do not. It really wasn't very common for officers to use protection at that time, they would prefer to pose in them for their expensive paintings, but abandon them on the battlefield.
Well, the higher the rank, the lower chance they would have to be in a direct fight, thus, being protected by thousands of their soldiers, they wouldn't really need any kind of armor.
And of course, even if something would go wrong, commanders would be usually kept alive and even accomodated in nice places, since their captors could count on making a good business, by treating them  well - these prisoners would be exchanged for other commanders, or be set free for a big amount of money, or would even reward their captors themselves!

Still, officer of lowers ranks would usually end up wearing some kind of an amor, since it was much easier for them to find themselves in front of their troops, and lead an attack.

Tho, there were some higher-rank officers who would do the same. Like, for example, a lot of Austrian commanders would wear an armor, to show to their soldiers that they will not stay behind their backs, but will fight among them. Thus, busting the morale of their troops.

Also, note that a lot of officers and commanders use regimental sticks, as a symbol of their rank and power.
Some would also be seen with a mace, used as both - their weapon and a symbol of their rank.

A lot of them would own pistols as well.

Also, it's important to remembers, that during those times, there wasn't really much of a difference between soldiers and civilians. So, the main and only difference between them would be the fact that civilains - like nobels in the City of Gdansk - would not carry any kinds of weapons or armor.


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