So I have 5.75 yards of chocolate brown 100% dressweight linen. What dress shall I make? I need helpful suggestions from YOU.
It must be a working class dress, because my raison d’etre is to figure out what ordinary people have forgotten from our ancestors, but because this is such dark fabric, it might be a Best Dress. It would look wonderful with red wool embroidery.
Also because the fabric is so dark, it must be a Winter Dress, because (all together now) ‘I live at 30dN, same as Cairo’, and it will be a solar heater. It may match the linsey-woolsey weaving I’m doing of the alpaca I’m spinning – and there may be yards and yards of that.
Any SCA period is okay. I’m interested in practical life lessons from all time periods.
(For garb mavens who haven’t met me, I’m 5’7", with measurements 38", 28", 40", 40" waist to ankle. I did my green kirtle with 4 yards, and could have gotten sleeves out of it – so we have Enough to work with.)
The Garb Maven whose idea is selected will win a healthy virtual smooch (and possibly a real life one, if I get close enough) and the honor of having their name, and title as Garb Maven, mentioned dozens of times over the next few months while I work on this project.
I promise to try not to take it in vain. Ideas?
I’ve got my eye on some Italian working class dresses. I like the greenish gray dressin The Fishmongers by Vincenzo Campi (dated 1580’s) it has the false sleeves pinned on. I think this was a very common thing to do during this time period for working class. One can’t afford to have a winter and summer wardrobe, but one can add sleeves! Also by Campi I’m very fond of the dresses from The Kitchen, im particular the ones with their backs to us! There seem to be a variety of closures going on from front laced to side. Some of the women have sleeves pinned or tied on. One has her sleeves pinned (it looks) but they are tied behind her back out of her way (I guess she got hot!) In Campi’s The Fruit Seller you can really see more detail. The bodice seems to be hook and eye in the front with ribbons to tie sleeves onto (although there are no sleeves attached) There is also a great deal of decoration around the bottom of the apron. I’m presuming it is an apron because you can see the rest of the kirtle underneath it, but the waist almost seems attached (Why was some detail important and others not! LOL!)
I also think that your fabric would be good for the dresses in Pieter Aertsen’s works. Check out: http://webart.nationalmuseum.se/work/work_image.aspx?id=17278 with the partlets both in white or black, but it seems as though the sleeves are much more attached than in the later period Italian works. And your hair would work well laced like that!
I’m sure I could find more if those don’t work!
I’m rather fond of cotehardies. They are a bit generic, but when fitted properly they look amazing. I also like the ladies’ Flemish for ease of wear and work-a-bility. Ask Lorenzo for more info. I am definitely no garb maven, which would be why I ask him for all garb help.
I’m rather fond of cotehardies. They are a bit generic, but when fitted properly they look amazing. I also like the ladies’ Flemish for ease of wear and work-a-bility. Ask Lorenzo for more info. I am definitely no garb maven, which would be why I ask him for all garb help.
Campi, Aertsen, Bruegel, these are all good sources. There has been a lot of research done already on the Bruegel style dress already, which can be found easily by searching on “Flemish working woman’s dress”. I’ve been collecting Hans Sebald Beham’s peasant-themed engravings lately, but there’s not as much useful detail there for the women’s clothes as for the men’s.
How about lady here:
http://collectionsonline.lacma.org/MWEBimages/c_t02_mm/full/AC1997_164_1m.jpg
Brown gown, green undersleeves, red apron? Certainly documentable from the Textiler Hauserat. *g*
Or the dark gown/white parlet and apron combo would be nice, maybe with red guards on the skirt (from Michaela’s collection):
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v609/glittersweet/frau/altdorferchristonthecrossbetweentwotheives.jpg
http://www.museothyssen.org/thyssen_ing/coleccion/ficha712.htm
If this is still under debate, will second the “cotehardie”… actually an 8 or 10-gore gown, like this:
http://sca garb (dot) freeservers (dot) com/articles/cotehardie (dot)html