Brrr…its cold out here!
Eek! It's Election Day and I can't handle the anticipation. I've decided to start a dress diary since studying isn't working and watching TV is agonizing. Actually, this project has already started but now it's definitely a plan. In the West there are a lot of camping events, these tend to get rather chilly at night, one might say even frigid. Before I moved to the West I used to have a black wool cloak, I have no idea where that went, perhaps when I attempted to store stuff at my mom's house after college it fell victim to her purging the house of things that looked like they were being stored by children who no longer lived there. In the past 3 years I have borrowed cloaks from others because I could never really decide on what color I wanted to use when I made a new one. I know that's kind of a lame excuse, but finally I've decided that I don't want a cloak at all, I want a loose gown.
There are a few examples from Venetian and Florentine portraits from the 1560s that I'm basing my design on. The first three are Florentine (two of Eleanora de Toledo) and the other three are Venetian. I like the one of Countess Livia by Veronese best followed by the Bronzino from 1550.
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| Bronzino 1550 Portrait of a Lady |
Bronzino 1560 Eleanora di Toledo |
don't know the artist on this one Eleanora de Toledo |
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| Parrasio Micheli, 1565 Portrait of a Woman |
Follower of Titian, 1560 Emilia di Spilimbergo |
Paolo Veronese, 1551 Countess Livia da Porto Thiene |
Many of these gowns seem to be red or gold, which is what I'm planning on using. I have a chenille brocade that was originally a lightish gold color. When I dyed it the chenille parts became red and the synthetic parts stayed gold.
Here's are a couple of pictures
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| Gold Background - smooth | Red background - chenille |
I think the design looks vaguely like some found in Fischbach's Historic Textile Patterns.
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| N. Italian silk, 16th/17th c. | N. Italian 16th c. |
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| From 15th c. painting | Cologne 14th & 15th c. |
I ended up going to see Stage Beauty at our local movie theater, the Balboa, on Election Day. I really enjoyed the movie and the costuming was lots of fun, I think I need something 17th century. I haven't cut the fabric yet because I'm trying to decide which side I want it on. I think I'd prefer the red chenille background and the gold parts as the figures. I drafted the pattern both from Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion and Jean Hunnisett's Period Costume for Stage. The reason for this was because the men's loose gowns in Arnold are sized for people around 6 ft tall, while Hunnisett's are sized for someone who would be a size 8ish in women's clothes. While there is no chance I would be wearing an 8 anytime soon at least the proportions for something that fits as loosely as a loose gown would be closer using Hunnisett's pattern. However, it seems that Hunnisett's pattern is based on the loose gown in Arnold that has a gathered back (Verney); I prefer the other pattern, the one from Hardwick Hall, which has a flatter back. I fiddled with the pattern until I have something that looks like it will work with the body pieces like the Hardwick gown and the collar from the Verney gown.
I will also be using the sleeve patterns from the Hardwick loose gown.
I picked up some fake fur during Halloween, it's a bit fluffy and is a somewhat odd pattern, but doesn't shout "I skinned 8 teddy bears to make this coat". I'm planning on just lining the first few inches around the edges instead of the entire gown. I'm actually having a difficult time deciding on the lining. I initially wanted to use some cotton flannel I've had lying around for a while because it would be warm. Recently a friend pointed out to me that if I wear a kind of grabby fabric over something else grabby, like wool, then things would probably stick together and get tangled. I'm still leaning towards the flannel but if anyone else has suggestions I'd be glad to hear them. Also, I'm considering interlining the whole thing in canvas to give it more body and make it warmer. Have to go study for a Fisheries exam now…
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Faux Fur - as you can see it is some sort of heinous pattern not regularly found in nature. Still, this fur felt the best of the lot and it was on sale. I've decided that I'm going to use it in strips so the pattern will never be visible. This means that the pile will run horizontal but if figure this will be ok and if it isn't I guess I'll try something else.
A bit more cutting and some decisions have been made. First, I re-dyed the brocade using some more red Rit and some wine Rit, the color is a bit darker and much richer. I’ve decided to line the gown in some purpleish linen, for some reason it wrinkles just by looking at it so I’ve never wanted to use it for the outer fabric of anything. I’m still debating about the interlining because I’ve basically cut out everything else. Also in the mean time I’ve decided what to do about closures. I didn’t want anything really showy since the fabric is patterned and was originally thinking of just using some hooks and eyes. Then I was snooping around the internet and found this Elizabethan loose gown.
And I really liked the way they did the buttons, which kind of look like the 1565 Micheli portrait. So buttons it is. I used small wooden beads and basket-wove cotton crochet thread around them, so far I have made 12, since I’m kind of bored with that now I might just use those.
The gown is mostly finished. I decided to add some shoulder rolls for the sleeves. I think next time I might use some tabs instead. I also decided to use some darker fake fur than the previous pictures, it is more of a pelted look and has shorter fur. Hopefully I’ll be able to finish putting that in tonight after I put the buttons on.
The gown is mostly finished. I decided to add some shoulder rolls. The roll idea came from this fresco of Eleanora di Toledo from the Palazzo Vecchio. Does she have rolls or tabs? I’m not too sure but rolls seemed quicker.
I also decided to use some darker fake fur than the previous pictures, it is more of a pelted look and has shorter fur. Hopefully I’ll be able to finish putting that in tonight after I put the buttons on. I ended up flatlining the whole thing (including an interlining of the cotton flannel) and finishing a lot of the seams on the inside. The shoulder seams are unfinished and I think I might just stitch some bias edging over those since bits of the brocade ended up fraying quite a bit more than other bits. After using the color pattern from Hunnisett I decided to trim it down to much more of a mandarin collar. The original seems intended to be a yoke and was ridiculously large when I tried to use it as a stand up collar.
The gown is finished. As it turns out I put on the shoulder rolls, decided I didn’t like them and tried to take one off. Unfortunately I also took the sleeve off as well. I then decided that I didn’t really like the look without the rolls and although I would have preferred to make tabs I couldn’t figure out how to do that and wanted to wear the gown the next day, so I put the roll (and the sleeve) back on. The gown also has about a 2 inch edging of faux fur around the hem. Although I’m really pleased at how it turned out it was actually because I had cut the hem unevenly. Rather than cut more off I decided to edge the whole thing so it would end up even. That measure twice cut once thing is really starting to sound like a good idea.
Wore the gown to Boar Hunt today. Basically the way the hunt goes is there is a fighter in armor with two maces, they are the boar and go off and hide. The rest of the hunt consisting of hunters with spears, hounds that have daggers, and dogs that are unarmored folks that run around looking for the boar, go off after the boar, there is a fight (amongst the armored folks) and then we do it again. The event was lots of fun and I ran around looking for the boar (sans loose gown) and then went off to the feast. It turned out to be rather cold when I wasn’t running around and the loose gown was lovely and warm.
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Some more pics from Estrella
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© Sahrye Cohen, 2004
Updated on December 13th, 2004.
