In Shakespeare's England, the middle of summer was a time of celebration. While the summer season begins at May Day, the longest day of the year, from June 23 into the 24th, was celebrated as the holiday of Midsummer, and Christianized as St. John's Eve and St. John's Day. It was the longest day of the year, and for the life of William Shakespeare, this holiday was marked with celebrations of feasting, dancing, and bonfires. Shakespeare himself immortalizes the spirit of the festivities in Twelfth Night when Olivia says "Why, this is very midsummer madness." Here today to help us unpack what Midsummer celebrations would have been like in the 16-17th century England, as well as to explain for us how seemingly heathen celebration to celebrate the summer solstice lined up with the celebration of the venerable St. John, is our guest and historian, Bill Petro.

Shakespeare is famous for his costume changes in his plays, including characters that swap genders and seemingly fool the world as their true identity simply by a change of clothes. Since Shakespeare's playing companies were all male, and still manage to portray some of the most powerful women characters ever created on the stage, we have to think there was indeed great power in costume.

What was it about women's clothes versus men's designs that made them instantly recognizable on stage for the Elizabethan era? During this time, women were seeing their fashions change rapidly in the design and function of everything from bum rolls to chin clouts, and even the acceptable necklines of this period.

Of course, men were seeing similar transitions in their fashions, with the French introducing English men to the famous poofy shorts that Shakespeare is so famous for wearing. The clothes, along with the sumptuary laws of this period, landed men and women on the wrong side of the law when it came to what they chose to get dressed in each morning.

Here today to help us unpack the world of clothing and the laws that regulated them, along with how Shakespeare was able to portray all levels of society on stage without getting into legal trouble, is our guest, and author of the book Fashion in the Time of William Shakewsspeare, SarahJane Downing.

In Shakespeare's plays, there are over 150 references to the word "hair" across which Shakespeare talks about a barber fixing someone's hair, about hair being dyed, about losing your hair being a natural product of old age, combing your hair, and even the weight of someone's hair. Clearly, there was a significant cultural focus on the care and maintenance of one's carefully selected coif. But exactly what did it look like for someone to care for their hair? Was there such a thing as soap, or dare we guess—Shampoo—that might have been used to keep your hair clean in the Tudor period? To find out more about what one would use in the 16-17th century if you decided to wash your hair, we are meeting with our guest, Julia Martins.

Julia is here this week to tell us all about products used to cleanse, care, and manage a head full of hair in Shakespeare's lifetime, as well as the manuals and advice that was given in the 16-17th century for the best hair care methods of the Elizabethan era.