In his first Arthurian romance, Erec et Enide, Chrétien de Troyes distinguishes himself as a writer wise in the ways of fashion. Not only does he use clothing and textiles throughout the romance as a rhetorical device, but he also provides two of the most elaborate descriptions of garments of the twelfth century: the bliaut and mantle Enide receives as a gift from the queen and the coronation mantle King Arthur bestows on Erec. Roland Barthes insists that written clothing is “entirely constituted with a view to signification,” and literary clothing need not exist at all beyond the text. Chrétien's fashion is indeed unreal, which does not preclude its realism; for it to be narratively effective literary attire must have some basis in reality. Jacques Le Goff asserts that we best understand clothing's function in society through an examination of its place in “works of the imagination.” Depictions of clothing and other material goods pervade this romance, providing both structuring elements and thematic unity, as well as considerable reflections of twelfth-century French society. This chapter seeks to discern which of the sartorial elements we can consider real, reflecting some aspect of that extratextual reality, and which derive entirely from Chrétien's powerful imagination and are therefore patently unreal.

Chrétien structured this romance in three parts: the Prologue (lines 1–26); the first sequence (lines 27–1796); and the main sequence (lines 1797–6878), making up nearly three-quarters of the text. The first sequence constitutes only a fourth of the romance, but in it, Chrétien establishes clothing as a powerful thematic and structuring element. Attire continues to be a significant aspect within the longer main sequence, although it is more dispersed in its occurrence. The two lengthiest descriptions – Enide's wedding ensemble and Erec's coronation robes – end the two sequences in a sort of sartorial and narrative exclamation point.

In the first sequence, the two protagonists separately appear, unknown to one another, but both wearing clothes that mark them as lacking in some way.6 Erec's initial portrait, though highly conventional, immediately identifies him as a knight who prefers the company of ladies to more traditional knightly pursuits and thus establishes a major theme through a vestimentary lens. Chrétien introduces the description of Erec's attire with the surprising: Que diroie de ses bontez? (line 93, What shall I say of his good qualities?), making an explicit connection between the knight's character and what he wears.