The design for my next project was inspired by a variety of fashion illustrations of women wearing high-necked gowns embellished with chevron-shaped stripes on the bodice. I was surprised to discover that nearly identical gowns could be found on women from a variety of European countries including England, France, Italy, and Germany. Instead of choosing just one country to claim as the origin of this design, I thought it might be fun to celebrate the open exchange of fashionable dress during the second half of the 16th century, which resulted from increased travel and trade and the emergence of popular fashion books illustrating costume from foreign lands. So instead of calling this a Neapolitan dress or an English gown in the French style, I can just call myself a "woman of the world" in this costume!

Since the illustrations are so important for this project, I wanted to take a minute to talk about some of the images that inspired my design sketch before I delve into construction details. There are hundreds of pictures of high-necked European gowns with elements that are similar to what I want to make, but since I was trying to find a good use for some striped cut velvet that I recently bought, I chose to narrow my focus to those which have chevron-shaped stripes as a key focal point.

Several illustrations show the chevrons on the bodice alone, combined with a solid (or occasionally patterned) fabric for the skirt and sleeves. Some examples of this are Amman's English woman from London, German woman from the Hessan region, Italian woman from Siena, and de Bruyn's Italian woman from Parma. I also really loved several illustrations by Boissard that included long hanging oversleeves with stripes that match the bodice. You can see this in several of his women from France and a few Italian regions such as this woman from Naples. (links and more info about these sources is on this page)

But it's important to point out that the artists creating these costume illustrations might never have actually seen these foreign styles in person, and they were known to borrow heavily from each other while changing elements of the design or even the location name to suit their whim. For example, Amman's Sienese woman is obviously taken from one of Boissard's Neapolitan gowns with minor changes to the pose, hem, and sleeves. You can find similar discrepancies in several of the other images that I have sited as well, which is another reason that I am avoiding a firm location for the source of my attire. But all of the general design elements of these gowns are so common that I do believe that they did exist somewhere, even if the specifics aren't known for sure.

So after looking at these images, I realized that there wasn't just one picture that showed the exact construction and accessories that I wanted to use. I ended up liking the sleeves from one, the hat from another, the open collar from another, and so on. But luckily, I was given a few blissful hours of drawing time while administering a test at work. As my sketch began to develop, I decided to make it into a pseudo-Vecellio by shamelessly copying the style that was used for the woodcuts in De gli habiti antichi et moderni di diverse parti del mondo. Although you might be able to recognize a few elements taken directly from Vecellio's Italian fashion plates, the overall design in mine. Since I was so pleased with the line drawing, I then decided to scan it, add color, and set it into one of the original borders so that it would look similar to the hand-colored versions of Vecellio's 16th century prints. There really wasn't any need to spend so much time on the sketch, but I was a printmaker and book-artist before I was a costumer, so I really enjoyed working on a period-looking illustration for this diary. Anyway, if you'd like to see a clearer version of my sketch without the border, you can find it here

3/7/04
Once again, I give you "The Plan":

I really should be sewing right now, but I'm feeling amazingly unproductive today, so maybe I'll just chat about my plans for this project instead. The whole idea for this outfit came from finding a yard and a half remnant of cotton cut velvet. Okay, okay... I know what you are thinking, but I swear it's not just corduroy that I'm giving a fancy name! Each stripe is 1/2 inch wide and very plush and rounded. There wasn't enough of it to make an entire gown, but there should be plenty for the doublet and hanging sleeves (although it may take a bit of luck to get the sleeves as long as I want). After digging around in my stash for awhile, I noticed that the cut velvet looked pretty cool with some blue-green velveteen that I picked up a year ago. The striped fabric is more of true green than the velveteen, but the difference isn't bad. If the colors don't look right when I start putting it all together, I can easily dye the cut velvet to be a tad more blue. (*note: the colors in the picture are more blue than they appear in real life, and the flash did funky thinks to the pile of the stripes)

I've been thinking about how I want to construct this thing for a few weeks now, and I'm torn between two options. After consulting Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd, there seems to be equal evidence that this style of gown could be made as a high-bodied gown with the skirt attached to the bodice, or it could be a kirtle and doublet combo. The long hanging sleeves seem like more of a full-gown thing to me, but the fact that the bodice and skirt fabrics don't match exactly seems more like a doublet. So I think the final decision is just going to come down to practicality. Although an attached skirt would make dressing easier and probably would make the bodice hang better, I think I'm leaning more toward the kirtle and doublet choice. The kirtle could be made like a proper pair-of-bodies, which would allow me to skip the corset, and it could also be used for other outfits. I might even make a set of 1540's Florentine sleeves for the kirtle as well so that I could get an entirely different look with it. That sounds like a pretty cool deal to me.

The petticoat and undersleeves will be made from silk, but I haven't decided for sure on a color yet. I found several beautiful options the last time I was shopping (including rose, gold, and a peachy orange), but when I was colorizing my sketch, I really was drawn to blue more than any other color. I hate to get too matchy-matchy with the colors in renaissance outfits (lord knows they never bothered to make things match at the time!), but maybe I could make the sleeves reversible with a kooky period color-scheme on the other side.

3/13/04
Skirting the issues:

I had hoped to get a lot more done on this project this week, but I'm dragging my feet a bit because I keep changing my mind about the kirtle vs. gown issue. But in the meantime, I tried to at least get some work done on the skirt. I was happy to discover that I had saved my pattern pieces from my pink Florentine dress, which was drafted from the skirt pattern of the Pfalzgrafin Dorthea Maria von Sulzbach gown in Patterns of Fashion. This one uses an extravagant 4 and 3/4 yards of fabric in the skirt (compared to the more frugal 2 to 3 1/2 yard skirts in Alcega), but I thought this would better fit the heavily gathered look of the illustrations. I decided not to line this skirt because the velvet is pretty heavy already, so I used French seams and bound the hem with a strip of heavy fulled wool, which really does wonders for the drape of the skirt. I still haven't pleated it or attached it to anything yet, but I did take a quick picture of the skirt over my corded petticoat just to see how it was looking. I plan on cartridge pleating the skirt to the bodice, and I'll probably pad the pleats with more wool to create some moderate hip padding. I also will be wearing another petticoat under this skirt, so that will keep the hoops from showing and fluff it out even more.

5/2/04
Back to work:

It's been awhile since I worked on this outfit, but all of my other projects are finished now so I can devote my full attention to this dress. After changing my mind a few more dozen times, I finally decided to attach the outer skirt to the high-necked bodice and make a full gown of it. I just thought that this felt more accurate than the doublet/kirtle combo due to the hanging sleeves. So to make it look more unified, I overdyed the striped velvet with some navy Rit to make it match the skirt better. I'm much happier with the way it looks now. It's much more subdued and rich looking as a dark blue/gray green instead of "jolly green giant" green.

So while I was dyeing fabric yesterday, I decided to make the petticoat. I bought some gorgeous changeable silk a few weeks ago that is woven with aqua and bronze threads. It sounds weird, but it's really pretty. The result is a slate blue color that has flashes of gold and bright blue when it catches the light. I used my trusty Alcega kirtle pattern again, and I was able to get the skirt and sleeves out of 3 yards of fabric. The skirt is flatlined with an old red sateen sheet, and once again, I added a strip of wool to the hem for stiffening. I put it all together yesterday, but the hem looks a little sloppy so I think I'll try again today. (I really should quit sewing so late at night... I always end up re-doing it anyway!)

And since I was so enamored with the way my pretty silk petticoat was looking, I decided to go all out and add some trim to the hemline as well. I usually don't like a lot of flashy embellishments on my outfits, but I love having flash on the stuff you can't typically see. It's like the "Gone with the Wind" thing where Mammy always wanted a red silk petticoat. It's just so decadent! Although there were several trims at Joann's that really caught my eye, I ended up picking this wide passamenterie lace that I have been lusting over for months (it's scanned at actual size). Joann's is really selling some wonderful lace and trim lately. I bought all that was on the roll, but I'd like another 15 yards of this stuff to use on an Elizabethan gown at some point!

So anyway, I'll try to get some pictures up this week after I finish adding the trim. I'm still trying to decide what to attach this skirt to. I was originally thinking about making it into petticoat bodies with a self-supporting linen bodice, but this morning I realized that it would be much easier to add eyelets and points to my corded corset and just lace it to that. I think easy is going to win in this decision.

5/9/04
The skirts are done:

Today I fixed the hem and added the trim onto the petticoat. The trim is sewn by machine using transparent thread, which is a technique I haven't tried before, but I thought it worked really great. It has a small amount of wrinkling at the top edge that probably wouldn't be there if I hand sewed it, but I still haven't pressed it yet, so that might go away with a quick ironing. So anyway, there's nothing too exciting to report at the moment, but I promised pictures, so here you go. Here's a pic of the two skirts being worn together, and here's a closeup of the fabrics together. You can see the new and improved cut velvet color on the left, and the over-skirt fabric is under the petticoat. The velvets seem to be reading as black on my monitor, but it has some nice blue-green highlights in real life. I love these near-black colors!

6/19/04
Back on track:

I've been working on some other random projects lately, but they are all done now and I can finally devote my full attention to this outfit again. I'm hoping to have the majority of it finished by the end of this week. So today, I fitted the bodice and sleeves, and cut out all of the fabrics for assembly. The doublet pattern is the same one I've used for several other costumes. The flat pieces look just like those from my older Italian doublet, but I made the point slightly lower at the waist this time. I started by making the interlining with a double layer of heavy linen and 8 pieces of cable tie boning across the torso to keep it flat. I want to be able to wear this gown without a corset, and this does the trick perfectly. The hanging sleeves are based on diagrams of the Pfalzgrafin Dorthea Sabina von Neuburg gown in Patterns of Fashion. In this picture, you can see me trying it on for the first fitting. So far so good!

I also cut out the all of the outer fabric and lining pieces for the bodice and sleeves. The striped velvet required quite a bit of care to make sure the diagonal lines matched up at the seams. I also had to piece the sleeves since they were so long and I only had a modest amount of fabric. For the lining, I picked up some funky shot silk that is woven with red and khaki threads. The resulting color sortof reminds me of an old copper penny. It's a bit of an odd color combination with the dark blue-green velvet and blue-grey petticoat and undersleeves, but it was just calling out to me for some reason. I think it'll help the outfit look less modern and overly matched. I should have more pictures up tomorrow when I get the bodice assembled.

6/21/04
A bodice at last:

I put the bodice together today, and it looks pretty spiffy if I do say so myself! I still need to whipstitch the shoulder seams and tack down the lining on the sides, but I couldn't resist posting a quick picture. The wrinkling on the torso should go away once the skirt is sewn on, and the gap in the center with be filled in with piping that I'm going to add to the edges. The opening is fastened with black coat hooks. Oh yeah... and here's a picture of my lining fabric.

6/25/04
Collar:

Okay, so in the last few days, I've finished off the bodice, made the collar, and sewed on the piping. The collar is made from 4 pieces, and it is based on the high-necked bodice collars in Alcega. It is stiffened with a double layer of heavy linen that is pad-stitched together. Like my last doublet, I finished off all of the edges on the collar first, and then just whip-stitched it to the body. (I really like this method!) I made the piping by covering cotton cord with bias strips of the velveteen, and then I hand stitched it to the edge.

6/29/04
Sleeves, part 1:

I just finished the hanging sleeves yesterday, and I am so happy that part is over - they have been giving me fits! First of all, I didn't bother to do a proper fitting for the sleeves when I was making the mockup, so I had to drastically reshape the top of the sleeve head and make the armscye on the body bigger. The pattern that I used from PoF has a really shallow curve at the top, but I discovered that they wouldn't hang smoothly unless I cut this curve much deeper. I'm still not quite sure why it worked in the original dress and not on mine, but whatever.

So after I finally got the pieces fitted, I then had to line the sleeves... which seems like an easy task but my brain just wasn't wanting to cooperate this week. I must have sewn those silly things at least 6 times, but I kept putting the seams on the wrong side or making two left sleeves or whatever. But anyway, I finally prevailed, and got it all together. I've been going back and forth on whether I should make the sleeves functional (i.e. open all the way down) or if I should close off the bottom. I finally decided to close the bottom when I discovered that after all that trouble, I still had the lining for one side backwards at the bottom (the cuffs have a point on one side). So instead of re-doing it again, I decided to shorten the lining so that it only goes down about 6" into the hanging sleeves and makes a little pocket there, which is a pretty handy little feature. My original sketch shows a tassel hanging from the ends of the sleeves, and I still might add that eventually... but I'm having trouble finding something that matches the color of my velvet.

I really like the way these things look now, but boy are they heavy! I've never had a costume with this much weight on my shoulders. I am kindof wondering if I should have made them detachable, but they are pretty easy to take off and on as they are. The shoulders and the top edges of the sleeves are all finished off separately and then just whip-stitched in place with upholstery thread. If they annoy me too much after I wear this outfit, I can easily take out that one thread and still have everything with nice finished edges. But they do look pretty from the back, don't ya think?

6/30/04
Attaching the skirt:

Yesterday I attached the skirt to the bodice. The gathers are like small cartridge pleating that I just did by eye so they would be less regular. The gathering stitches were about 1/4 inch long, and the top of each pleat is hand-stitched to the bodice with heavy thread. The top of the skirt is faced with a double layer of cotton flannel, which gives it a bit of padding at the hips. The padded pleats and the corded petticoat really give it a nice soft shape that looks a lot like my source images (like this one) instead of the overly huge farthingale look. Although it isn't very obvious in this picture (I think I was standing on my tiptoes when I took this picture), the hem of the skirt drags the floor a bit, which wasn't intentional. It looks cool, but I think it would be a pain in the rear at faires, so I'm going to shorten the front by an inch or two so I'm not tripping over it.

So all that's left now is to add wings to the shoulders and make the undersleeves and hat. Yay!

7/1/04
Shoulder tabs:

I had a hard time deciding what type of shoulder decorations to use on this outfit. My original sketch had standing loops (which was the most common style in the source illustrations), but I decided that I wanted something different since I've used loops on several outfits already. So I looked through a bunch of other portraits for inspiration and finally decided that I liked the flat tabs that you often see on Spanish gowns with hanging sleeves. I think they do a nice job of adding a bit of decoration without interrupting the clean lines of the outfit. So once again, the tabs were finished off separately and then hand stitched in place.

And while I was taking pictures, I also turned my dress inside out so people could see the padded pleats that I mentioned in my last entry.

7/5/04
Undersleeves:

My attention has started to waver a bit in the past few days, but I finally finished the undersleeves, which was the last major chunk of sewing that I had left to do. I used the undersleeve pattern from the Pfalzgrafin Dorthea Sabina von Neuburg gown in PoF, but once again, I had to cut the armscye a little deeper to get them to hang right. I decided to decorate the sleeves with a double row of narrow gold gimp, and the cuffs are finished off with small tabs. They are lined with cotton sateen, and there are ribbon ties at the top to connect them to the bodice.

I still have a few accessories that I'm working on, but I'm going to switch gears and make Mike a new hat and cape before I do anything else for this outfit. But I promise I'll take a batch of nice finished pictures sometime in the next few weeks as soon as I have time to make a hat and a bit more jewelry.

7/17/04
Adventures in millinery:

I've always loved the look of little poofy Elizabethan hats, but my attempts to make one in the past have been pretty pathetic. But after a full day of trial and error, I finally ended up with something that I really like! The hat is black velvet with an interlining of latch hook canvas and a lining of wool felt. All 3 layers were bonded together with fabric spray adhesive to make them stiff and flat. The poofy part is a 14" circle that is pleated to fit the brim. The brim is 9" from front to back (it's slightly narrower across), and it is only 1" deep. The edge is stiffened with wire.

The caul is made from some semi-sheer silk sari fabric that I also bonded to a piece of wool. It was made from a 15" circle that was gathered into a band. After seeing these pictures, I decided that I'm a little unhappy with the band on the caul. I think this one is too wide, so I'm going to take it off and bind the edge with a narrower strip.

So now I just need to finish my jewelry and take some pictures tomorrow. Woo-hoo!

7/18/04
Finishing touches:

I just wanted to add a few last comments about my accessories before I wrap this up. The girdle is something that I put together from 2 chain belts, a $2 flea market brooch, and a fancy bookmark with a cross-shaped pendant that Mike brought home for me last week. (I have such a great husband!) The cross and brooch didn't really match, but I popped out one of the black stones on the cross, made a mold of it, and then made 3 copies from black polymer clay to add to the brooch. So now they look like they go together a little more - especially if you don't look too closely. I also made some earrings by adding a large pearl to some small gold loops. And finally, I'm wearing my miniature that I painted last year. I gave the frame a good polishing with some gold-leaf wax and hung it on a red silk ribbon. I wanted to paint a new miniature portrait of Mike to wear with this outfit, but this one will do in the meantime.

So that's it! If you haven't seen them already, be sure to check out the finished pics in the gallery page.