This diary will chronicle my adventures while making a late 15th century Florentine outfit, similar to the design sketch on the left. There are several styles of Italian fashion from this period that I really love, but my main source of inspiration for this outfit comes from the donor portrait of Lodovica Tornabuoni painted by Domenico Ghirlandaio. But before we jump into the main diary, feel free to browse around my 1475-1500 Florentine image gallery to get a feel for the fashions of this period.

Okay, I guess I should start by giving an overview of what I am wanting to make:

• I already have a linen Italian camicia that should work for the undies, and there's no need to wear a separate corset with this kind of outfit.
• The gamurra will be made of wool, but I'm just not sure about the color yet (more about that later). I plan to make it lace up the front, and I'd love to use small decorative lacing rings if I can find anything suitable. If not, I'll probably just make eyelets and use ladder lacing.
• The overgown will be made from chenille brocade. I know chenille isn't period, but from a distance it looks a lot like cut velvet, and I actually found a pattern that looks similar to the cream colored brocade in this picture. As for terminology, I'm not exactly sure what I should be calling this gown since it seems to be quite a different style from the tabard-like giorneas. It may be a later version of a cioppa, evolved from mid-century garments such as this one. I'll probably take the easy way out and just refer to it as an "overgown" for now on to avoid confusion. From what I can see, the tight-fitting bodice and fuller skirt are two separate pieces (there is a break in the pattern), and after looking at a better image in a book, I could see that the front of the skirt is open all the way to the floor. The sleeves are attached at the top of the shoulder and have an opening at the back of the elbow to aid in movement. The belled cuffs are not as common as other styles, but you can also see them in a few other gowns painted by Ghirlandaio, such as this matronly donor.
• For accessories, I plan to wear a velvet belt with a leaf-shaped clasp similar to the one in this sculpture Although Lodovica isn't wearing anything like this in the original image, belts with decorative clasps are common enough to make me believe that this would be an acceptable variation. I also hope to find or make a large pendant necklace, and the outfit will be finished off with a sheer neck covering and cap for my hair.
• As an alternate look, I also want to make a second set of solid-colored sleeves to wear with the gamurra alone when the weather is unbearably hot, more like this picture. I'll also make one of those fabulous pointed partlets to wear with the outfit as well.

Now back to my fabric dilemma. My original plan for this outfit was to use some green wool that I already have for the gamurra and buy some light celadon green chenille brocade for the overgown. Well, I just got home with the brocade, and SURPRISE! It's not green after all! It actually more like a light taupe that just shifts colors depending on the light and what else it is next to. My first thought was to dye the brocade bit more green, but unfortunately, I discovered that it is made of synthetic fibers, so that's out. (I hate it that this stuff turned out to be synthetic, but when you find a brocade that works for this period and costs less than $100 a yard, you just can't pass it up!) I tried putting it with the green fabric, and it's not too bad, but it's not quite what I had in mind. It might be better if I overdyed the wool to make it more of a warm green and not so blue. But then I tried it with some plum merino wool that I have in my stash, and I like the way that combo looks too. The brocade fabric still looks greenish indoors, but I kindof like pale green and plum together anyway. hhmmm... I really don't know what to do now. Maybe I'll just stew on it for a little while and decide later.

11/25/03
Making it worse:

I dug around in my stash some more and pulled out two more possibilities... a blue wool and some red silk. Now I'm having even a harder time deciding! If I was careful, I could probably make a gamurra that was reversible with the red silk on one side and a wool on the other, but I still can't decide between the other 3 colors. I think I'm leaning toward blue at the moment. The only thing bad about that is I already had plans to use the blue stuff for another project, but I guess can switch that around too. So what do y'all think? Any votes?

It's the last day of my vacation, and I finally got a chance to start sewing. I dug out the bodice pattern that I drafted for my Italian peasant outfit, which gave me a nice place to start. All I had to do was raise the neckline a bit and change the back of the neck into a slightly rounded "V" shape, which seems to be the most common style at this time (like you see on a woman in "The Preaching of St. John the Baptist" by Ghirlandaio). You can see the final shape of my pattern pieces here. I received an overwhelming number of votes for the plum wool (thanks for the help, guys!), so I decided to go with that and the red silk for the gamurra.

So now my only dilemma was to decide on an interlining. Most Italian Ren costumers construct these gowns like the self-supporting kirtles described on Le Cotte Simple webpage. This type of fabric-only construction really does provide amazing support, and this is the technique that I used on my last peasant gown since Campi's paintings typically show small wrinkles in the women's bodices anyway. However, the Ghirlandaio bodices are always completely smooth and wrinkle-free, and at least on my body, even the most perfectly-fitted support kirtle will have underbust wrinkles when I slouch, sit, or bend. If you are familiar with my site at all, you probably know that I am a big fan of cord boning, so I decided to try one side of the bodice with lightweight cording and one side with fabric alone to see if the difference was significant enough to justify my more experimental construction methods.

I used a much lighter weight of hemp cord this time instead of the heavy cording, and I liked the results much better. The cords are just a little more than 1/16 inch in diameter, the channels are still spaced with my presser foot, and I have 4 cords per row. I made sure that the cords are flat and not twisted in the channels and then stitched across the rows in several places to lock them in place. The resulting bodice is very lightweight, flexible, and it doesn't add any thickness to my waist, but it still does a bang-up job of eliminating wrinkles. You can see the difference below while I am standing with my typical relaxed slouch (if I stand perfectly straight for the photo, the wrinkles disappear on both sides - but my posture is horrible, so this is probably more like what you would see if you saw me in real life). The left side has a corded interlining, and the right side has just a linen interlining. I removed the color so you can see the wrinkles better.

So like I've said before, I can't prove that they made bodices like this, but the results sure are impressive! I'll be much more comfortable if I don't have to constantly worry about wrinkles, so I'm definitely going to go with the cording. Other costumers may have different priorities, but for me, it more important to recreate the look of the paintings than to be completely documentable... especially since every construction theory about this particular period of Florence is just guesswork anyway.

12/29/03
Making the gamurra:

Okay, so it's a month later and I finally found some time to get back to work on this project. I've been slowly working on the gown for the past few days, but it was all pretty boring, so I decided to wait until most of the gamurra was done before posting anything here. First, I had to cord the other side of the interlining and pad stitch another layer of felt to the surface because you could see the channels though the silk because it's so thin (this wasn't necessary on the wool side). Next I put together the bodice... and then proceeded to un-pick it all and re-do it two more times because I kept messing up on the size. I'm not going to bore you with details about putting together the bodice, but I made it pretty much like the Campi dress in one of my previous diaries.

Luckily, I had already cut out and assembled the pieces of the skirt last fall because I had planned to use this fabric for a petticoat to wear with another outfit. It is made with the Alcega "skirt for a fat woman" pattern, which is a nice modest size that looks very appropriate for these earlier gowns. All I had to do was iron it, sew both layers together at the bottom for the hem, and then hand-stitch a loose gathering stitch around the top for the waist. I had a bit of trouble at first deciding between box pleats or gathers since they both appear in the portraits, but the gathering seemed easier and less likely to cause headaches on a reversible gown.

So anyway, that's about it! All that I have left to do is add the lacing rings today, and then I can move on to the next step. It looks pretty ugly with the temporary lacing strips, but here's a few quick pics to tide y'all over for now: plum wool side and red silk side.

12/30/03
Lacing rings:

Well, it's been quite a production, but I finally finished the lacing rings today. I've been stewing on the lacing ring issue for months now, but I'm very pleased with the solution I came up with. I really wanted some small decorative rings like you see on A Young Woman or the portrait of Lucrezia Tornabuoni, but I haven't had any luck finding anything of that sort. But just last week, I found some small toggle clasps in the jewelry department of Hobby Lobby, and I decided to try those with a filigree piece glued on to make them more decorative. You can see the materials in this picture. At the top, you can see the filigree bead cap and toggle clasp that I started out with, then the cut out filigree piece (cut with old scissors), and on the left is the finished lacing ring. I just used some jewelry glue to put them together. It probably would have been better to solder the pieces, but since I stitched through both the rings and the filigree when sewing them on, I don't think it will matter even if the glue doesn't hold. I also bought some larger decorative toggle rings that you can see at the bottom (the one of the left is painted with gold enamels). I think they might be a little big for this project, but it only cost $5 for 20, so I couldn't pass that up. I found some small heart-shaped rings that I might go back for as well. I had originally planned to just have the rings on the red side, but they look so pretty that I might add more on the plum side as well.

So in the picture above, I have it laced in a herringbone pattern, which you can see in a few paintings such as this one. I started out wanting to do "X" style lacing like you see in those other two detail pics that I mentioned, but it was much harder to adjust the tension that way, and I just like the look of the other version better. I noticed that the bottom rings are pulling on the surface fabric a bit, so I need to go back and anchor them a little better to the corded interlining. They are attached with gold embroidery thread so you don't notice the stitches. Oh, and these are by far the best pictures of my silk! It's a dark, shimmery blood red in real life. My camera just doesn't like to photograph reds, but for some reason, it worked this afternoon.

1/2/04
Sleeves, part 1:

I made the first set of sleeves yesterday. The design was inspired by the woman in the center of this painting. Florentine women didn't typically have the long hanging sleeve ties that you see in other parts of Italy, so on this pair, the cords across the back of the arms are permanently sewn into place with no hanging ends. It's a little less fun, but a lot easier to deal with. I used the plum wool for one side of the sleeves, and some shot silk taffeta for the reverse.

When I tried everything on to show my husband, he told me that I needed to add lacing rings to the wool side of the gown because it was too boring. I kindof liked it plain since it fit in well with the Florentine emphasis on modesty, but I could see his point as well. So anyway, I decided to try the larger silver toggle rings that I mentioned in my previous entry. I thought they would be too big, but it looks better than I thought. I might keep looking for a smaller style, but these aren't bad for now.

1/10/04
Oh wait... wrong century!:

I made the mistake of wandering down the jewelry aisle at Hobby Lobby a few days ago, and I saw those little heart-shaped charms again and couldn't resist buying them (20 for $2.50... you just can't beat that!). After laying them out, I decided to switch out the lacing rings on the wool side. I just think they are a bit more dainty and Florentine looking. Here's a close-up pic of the old rings on the left, and new ones on the right. So once I got them sewed on today, I just had to try my dress on to see how they looked... and while I was at it, I thought I'd dig out the accessories from my 16th century Florentine costume just for fun. Coolness! That's a pretty nice look too!

1/10/04
Sleeves, part two:

It feels like I've been working on these sleeves forever! I had a horrible time deciding on the exact style for the slashes and ties, and then when I finally quit making mock-ups, it took three or four tries before I got the final version right. Sleeves are supposed to be easy - I don't know why I was having so much trouble. But I guess I just have mad skilz when it comes to making easy projects hard.

Okay, so anyway... one side is the red silk with more gold lacing rings, and the other side is a pale blueish-green silk brocade. I interlined the sleeves with some medium weight cotton twill because the two silks were too thin on their own, but now I'm wishing I had used something softer and lighter weight. These darn things seem to be wrinkling more than necessary, but maybe they will be better behaved if I tie them in higher up on the shoulder (where they are supposed to be). I still haven't figured out what I'm going to use for ties. This was just a temporary fix so I could take a few pictures, but I'll probably get some black cord for the red version and maybe long gold ribbons for days when I want to wear the green.

2/7/04
Conquering the brocade:

I'm itching to start another project, so I decided to get my butt in gear and finish this diary ASAP. I've been putting off cutting the fabric for the overgown for as long as possible because working with brocades kindof scares me. The pattern on this material runs sideways instead of down the length of the fabric, which is very annoying when you are trying to use period cutting diagrams. And to make matters worse, the repeat is huge and I only bought 3 1/2 yards of the stuff. I must have been insane!!! I could always go buy some more, but I'm feeling stubborn and I don't want to spend any more money on fabric that I'm not really crazy about in the first place. My love affair with this stuff wore off as soon as I got it home and realized that it was synthetic and wasn't even the color I thought it was in the store. So anyway, I just decided to make it work one way or another.

I started with my trusty Alcega kirtle pattern since it makes a skirt that drapes nicely with a very frugal amount of material. I could lay the skirt out along one edge and even squeeze in an extra 8" on the back panel... but this means that sleeves are out. That's not too much of a loss though. As I noted before, my fabric looks a whole lot like the cream-colored brocade in this picture, and I've already got red sleeves, so I'll just change my design again and pretend that I was meaning to make something inspired by that gown all along. (shhhh... it'll be our little secret!)

So this left a pretty big chunk of fabric left over to use for the bodice and additional piecing on the skirt, but the brocade put up quite a fight. I could get the back, one front, and one skirt corner out of what was left, but because of the large repeat, I had to piece the other side of the bodice and the second skirt corner. Luckily, funky piecing of brocades is a very period practice, and since the pattern is pretty busy, you really don't notice the extra seams anyway. I think I did a pretty decent job of arranging the pattern of the brocade on the bodice (which is a lot harder than it looks). I haven't cut the shape of the neckline yet (I'm going for the fool-proof "cut first, fit later" method) but the back will have a V-neck which follows the design in the brocade.

2/8/04
Another bodice:

I assembled the bodice today and tried it on for a few quick pics. After drawing in the neckline and front opening on my dressform, I then sewed it to the lining. The lining is some cheap mystery fiber that I picked up at a fabric outlet yesterday. I had a moment of insanity where I thought about buying silk for the lining, but since the brocade is synthetic already, there's really no reason to get uppity about wanting natural fibers for lining. It's a boring taupe that matches the brocade, but it's lightweight and silky, so it should work well enough. I didn't want to add any more bulk to the seams, so I decided to finish the edges of the bodice all the way around and then I'll hand-stitch the skirt to the waist. To make a bodice like this, I first sewed the side seams of the bodice on the brocade and lining fabrics. (but I left the shoulder seams for later) This gave me two complete bodices from both fabrics that could be laid out flat. I then placed the two layers right sides together and sewed around all sides, leaving one shoulder strap open so I could turn it right-side out again. (here's a visual aide) Finally, the open shoulder strap was finished off by hand, and the finished edges of the straps were butted together and whip-stitched.

Just as a side note... I really hope this thing starts looking better in natural lighting. I hate this taupe color on me. It probably would be beautiful on some Mediterranean woman with olive skin and black hair, but it really looks disgusting with my pale complexion. The red side of the gamurra seems to help some, but it's still not great. I'll finish it up anyway and wear it at least once, but It may turn into a loaner gown after that. But at least the gamurra and sleeves are still nice. Oh well... this can always be the practice version and I can buy some better fabric when I have money again for another cioppa in the future.

2/11/04
And the brocade fights back:

I should have kept my mouth shut when I decided to gloat about conquering the brocade... it's putting up even more of a fight than I expected! Okay, so I decided to pin the skirt onto the bodice just to see how things were looking and discovered some pretty annoying issues. First of all, the angled side seams make the pattern look like it is drooping on the sides, and all of the major repeats aren't horizontal anymore. This isn't a huge issue, but it could have looked better if I had used a different skirt pattern. Secondly, I didn't account for the higher waistline when I was cutting the skirt, so now I don't have enough fabric to make a hem. I could always bind the bottom edge with a small guard, so it's not a huge deal, but still annoying. Now here's the biggie - I didn't think about trying to line up the pattern at the waist when I was laying it all out, so now the repeat is 5 inches too low. Some people might be able to overlook a thing like that, but it bugs the crap out of me! Here's some pictures so you can see what I'm talking about. So now I need to make a decision. I can:

• Buy half a yard of fabric and re-make the bodice to fit the skirt pattern (but then I would loose my groovy V-design on the back!)
• Buy a yard of fabric and patch in an extra 5 or 6 inches either at the top or bottom of the skirt.
• Save up my pennies until I can afford another $30-$40 worth of fabric to make a new skirt. This would also allow me to fix the issue with the droopy side repeats.
• Get over it. Finish the project as it is, chalk it up to a learning experience, and make a better overgown from different fabric sometime in the future.

I must confess... couldn't stop being an obsessed freak with the overdress, so I ended up ripping it apart. It may turn into a giornea (or possibly pillows or a chair cover). But I've got my eye on some gorgeous gold brocade now, so hopefully I'll be able to make Cioppa Version 2.0 in a month when my birthday rolls around. But even though the overgown is on hold for awhile longer, I still want to finish the accessories to go with the gamurra so that I can wear that version of the outfit to Scarborough Faire next month.

I've been looking for a good Italian-style pendant necklace for months now, but haven't had much luck. But I finally found the perfect thing this weekend when I saw this pair of cheap clip-on earrings. It originally had pearls where the ovals are, but I popped them out and painted those areas with red stained glass paint so that it would look like enamel. Then I removed the clips and drilled holes so that I could hang it from a cord and add some large drop pearls. I'm really excited with the way my necklace turned out, and I think it does a pretty good job of recreating the look of the Florentine pendant in this painting.

3/9/04
In pursuit of partlets:

I made my pointed partlet yesterday, and the whole experience was a bit of an eye-opener. First of all, I enlarged the pointed partlet pattern from Birbari's Dress in Italian Painting to use as a starting point. It looks logical enough on paper, but the results make me wonder if it was ever meant to be used for an actual garment. My biggest beef with the pattern was the enormous front section, and the ridiculously narrow shoulder straps. So I started over again and draped my own pattern straight on the dummy using this painting as a guide. I know it goes against everything we think we know about rectangular construction theories, but here's the pattern that better replicated the portrait for me. Curvy seams! Wasted fabric! Oh my! *shrug* But it works, so what can I say? But if anybody out there got the Birbari pattern to work without serious alterations, I'd love to see it.

The next hurdle involved the fabric. I've been searching for a silk fabric that can match the transparency of period partlets, so I decided to try silk gauze this time. Big mistake. Even though I starched it heavily in an attempt to keep it from stretching, my hand-sewn rolled hem made it distort like crazy. It's so crappy looking that it's almost funny, so I gave up after hemming just one side. I'm sure more accomplished hand-sewers could do a better job than I did, but I still think that this fabric is more trouble than it's worth. This just reinforces a theory that I've been knocking around for awhile now. I've started to think that we are missing the boat when we try to use lightweight silk chiffon or the stuff commonly sold as silk gauze for partlets and veils. It's the wrong type of silk (spun not reeled) and too solid of a weave. There is a photo of a surviving veil in Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd which is almost net-like. If similar fabrics were used for Italian partlets, it might explain the extreme transparency that you see in many examples. To test this idea, I made a second partlet out of some very fine tulle that I had in my stash. Although it's synthetic and the weave is more modern, I think the results would be pretty comparable. Wow... what an improvement! I'll have to keep looking for a stiff, open-weave silk fabric, and if I find any, I'll make a replacement for this test partlet someday. But until then, check out the difference between the silk gauze on the left and the tulle on the right... and yes, they were made with the exact same pattern and hemmed the same way. Big difference, huh? Oh yeah, and here's a back view.

3/14/04
Points, hair-pieces, and the first set of pictures:

I finally worked up enough energy to finish a few final details and take some pictures today. First of all, I needed to make some real points for tying the sleeves. I ended up using cotton dress shoelaces with aluminum tape wrapped around the tips (the sell metal tape in with auto-repair supplies). I was trying to match to look of simple Florentine points like you see on this woman's sleeve. Here's an actual-size scan so you can better see how they turned out. I also painted some of the point tips gold with enamel paint, but the silver ones worked fine for today.

Next, I tried making hair-pieces to reproduce that lovely cocker spaniel hair-style that no stylish Florentine woman would do without! I felt a bit silly buying hair extensions when I have hip-length hair, but luckily, I found some real human hair that matched my color perfectly. That has never happened before! But anyway, I stitched together a few rows of hair for each side of my head and then pinned them in place. The only problem was that the hair was really hard to curl, but I'll try to set it while it's wet next time and see if that works better than my curling iron. The hair taping was quite an adventure too. I'm not very good at "stitching" it to my head like some sites recommend, but I've always had nice results from just wrapping a braid with ribbon while it is still down and then pinning it in place.

And so that brings us to pictures! I only did the plum side of my dress today with the four different sleeve combinations. It's a big pain to switch out the sleeves by myself, so that's all I could stand for one day. I'll try to take some pics of the red side next weekend, but here's the first batch of photos.

4/27/04
An Italian cap:

I had originally planned to make a transparent coif to cover my hair so that I could look like a proper married Florentine woman, but then I thought: "what's the use of having hip-length hair if you can't show it off every once in awhile?" There are a number of pictures of Italian women from this period with their hair down. Conventional wisdom tells us that the loose hair would signify the fact that they were unmarried maidens. This is definitely true in the painting of 14-year old Lodovica Tornabuoni, who can be seen again with a loose ponytail and small cap in this portrait medal. I know I would never pass for a girl half my age, but I have also found pictures of Italian women with these net caps and long hair who don't look so obviously girlish, such as this example from the Lombard region.

My net cap was inspired by what Lodovica is wearing, but mine ended up being a bit larger and less delicate looking. I originally tried making gold net with knotting, but I failed miserably at that craft. I couldn't find any pre-made net that suited me, so I ended up making my own version by covering some extremely transparent gold tulle with running stitches of gold tatting thread. This was pretty time consuming, but the fabric is now very sturdy and holds it shape much better than net. I had also planned to use the smaller gimp around all of the edges of the cap, but I didn't buy enough of it, so I went rummaging around in my fabulous bag-o'-trim that was given to me by my dear friend Melissa. Luckily, I found this wider trim to use for the outside edges that looked great with what I had already started. I threw all of this together at about 11:00 p.m. on the night before we went to faire, so I ended up sewing everything on the machine. Honestly, it looks pretty darn sloppy on close inspection, but I'll try to make a point to re-sew the gimp by hand (and actually put it on straight this time!) before wearing it again.

So anyway, I think that will wrap up this diary for awhile. I still plan to make an overgown at some point, but I haven't found the perfect fabric for it yet. I'll just put that part of the project on hold until I do. I added a few more pictures of the red side of the gown to my gallery, and I want to add a few final pics of the other sleeve combinations as soon as I can find the time to get dressed up again.

5/8/05
A year later:

Yes, I know you all have probably given up on me by now, but here I am again with the overgown that I promised 12 months ago. Aren't you amazed? I was asked to give a Renaissance costuming lecture for the theater production classes at the school where I teach, and since they are doing Romeo and Juliet next fall, I really wanted them to see a full Italian gown from that period. It's not nearly as fun without all the layers, so I whipped out a quickie giornea over the weekend. I ended up splurging on some too-expensive fabric for the overgown, but it reminded me so much of the fabric in Giovanna's sleeves that I just couldn't pass it up. The dress pattern came from the early period volume of Period Costumes for Stage and Screen, but I reduced some of the width at the hem to conserve fabric. The edges are bound with bias linen strips that I pulled from my stash, and the whole thing is reversible (the inside has red as the dominant color). You can see pictures of the really really finished outfit on my new gallery page.

THE END.
(that feels good to say!)