"It is wrong to expect a reward for your struggles. The reward is the
act of struggle itself, not what you win. Even though you can’t expect
to defeat the absurdity of the world, you must make the attempt. That’s
morality, that’s religion, that’s art, that’s life."
— P. Ochs
Amen, Danny.
This seems to be a good place to introduce my next major sewing project. I’m going to reproduce Mary of Hapsburg’s wedding gown. But the rural kindred, country tailor’s knockoff, in linen and wool. It looks like this. Or this. Here’s another writeup.
This woman has tried making one – here’s her dress diary.
I want to make this dress because:
- It’s a dressy garb for dancing. (I’m going to shorten the train.)
- It’s green – Mom knows what I mean. I have green eyes.
- It has smocking – I’ve always wanted to learn smocking.
- It’s the best known extant example of Hungarian female costume.
I’m being told that should I ever go to Pennsic (far far away, and hot summer camping, and two weeks long – all strikes against) I will need GOWNS. I’m skeptical about this, because Greet is a peasant (and I see complaints online from accomplished costumers that there are too many nobles and not enough peasants). At the very most she’s part of the rural kindred, which in comparison to any other country is still peasant. She’s most concerned with putting food on the table, clothing herself and her family, and making pretty things with what she can provide for herself, or trade with her fellows. GOWNS, particularly of the Tudor and Elizabethan variety, do not enter into it.
But there was wonderful dancing at Gulf Wars, and I’m told that there are other good events to wear a GOWN to. I would like a fancier dress for that sort of thing – and I’ve already learned that when you dress well, people come out of the woodwork who are worth meeting. So I’m going to make a practice shift out of a different green linen, and try out this smocking stuff.
If only I can figure out how to cut the shift. The cutting diagram provided by the Hungarian Nat’l suggests it’s a T-tunic with underarm gusset and side gore. Goody – I know how to do those. Trouble is the smocking is going to increase my widths by an unknown factor. Tonya seems to have learned on her cotton version that 2x is the most it will be – and when she got access to the new pics that showed such fine pleats, that seems to me to show even less increase. I bet it’s only 1.3x But I should make a test – which should teach me how to smock.
Another problem – what headdress is appropriate for this – I rather like the steuchlein, and as many Hungarian burghers were actually German, it would have been around. I really need that Hungarian art manual – so I can point to things and say they WERE around.
Headwear: much of the rest of Europe saw women wearing henins (usually-truncated cone draped with veil, the basis for the modern schoolchild’s idea of a “princess hat”) or reticulated caul headdresses (a more formal presentation of the slightly earlier netted lumps of hair over the ears) with this sort of gown. The gown style is often called “Burgundian” in SCA shorthand, as many well-known examples come from Burgundy.
Some examples from Flemish art: www dot uvm dot edu/~hag/sca/15th/
For preliminary construction ideas, see Cynthia Virtue’s webpage.
Re: Pennsic.
I’ve been once. Flew up with two duffle bags and a pup tent, stayed a week. I’m told the weather at that time was typical, and it’s fairly fine compared to FL. Hot during the day, but the humidity is lower, and the nights are often chilly. And the PA countryside was green and lovely. However, the most noteworthy thing in my opinion was the DANCING. If you liked the dancing at Gulf War, Pennsic will make you think you’ve died and gone to heaven. During most of the 2-week event, there are dance classes continually from 10 am til 5 pm, and most of them are “good”–intellectually and phgysically engaging, historically informed, taught y charming and competent people. I found just barely enough classes I could bear to miss (either because I already knew the dances on the menu, or because I didn’t care for the topic or the instructor) to go and look in on a few classes in other disciplines or shop the merchant area (which again is more than twice Gulf Wars’). From 5 til 7 one has time to eat. Then the balls start: usually a hosted, often themed, ball in the large tent which held the dance classes in daytime, AND “open social dancing” sort of communal free-for-all in a huge pole barn with pickup musicians. The balls generally finished up around midnight; the barn dancing would go till the wee hours of morning. One night, there is no focused ball in the tent; on that night, all the musicians and dancers are in the barn for the Pennsic Ball, so the cavernous space is standing room only. Tens, even hundreds of people join in most of the dances. Even the rare difficult dances get multiple sets, as many of the best dancers of multiple kingdoms are there.
And because there are so many GOOD dancers, one can try things that are out-of-reach at home.
It was GREAT fun and I plan to go again when I can afford to.
I didn’t need gowns. The best-dressed ladies I saw there only had one fine gown apiece, which they wore on the nights they hosted balls. In fact, several people looked at me a bit oddly because I had clean clothes on most days–but I had rather change clothes to keep cleanish than take a frigid shower in the communal showers. Other people apparently did the more mediaval and practical method, of washing off daily (many group camps had propane or solar heated showers) and changing only underclothes or really dirty outers.
Besides pennsic, there are other events with a dance focus, which I may as well mention in case your local friends are not dance-nuts enough to know of them. Most are day or weekend events, no camping (bedroll space onsite or nearby hotels), with all day classes (multiple tracks) and balls half the night. Crystal Ball in St. Louis in fall, Terpsichore at the Tower in Ann Arbor in spring (this year’s just finished), assorted others.