Gold Silk Doublet - Documentation

Below is the text of the documentation I entered with my gold silk doublet. The photographic dress diary mentioned at the end is made up almost entirely of photos from my Flickr account. I'll post my appendices next, but I'll need to alter them. I'm comfortable that using most images in the printed documentation that sits on a table next to my entry should fall well within the boundaries of "fair use." I'm far less sure about re-distributing those images online, even as part of that same documentation, and I'll need to do some reading up on the matter to make sure I'm doing the right thing. No, I don't think anyone would send me a cease-and-desist letter or sue me if I included the images. But I know I would be frustrated if someone was using my pictures in a way I did not intend, so I'm trying to be considerate.

Historic Inspiration

I wanted to make a doublet that incorporated the design elements seen around Florence in the middle of the 1500’s, without directly copying any one individual garment. I studied a large variety of portraits and extant tailor’s books, and learned what elements of style were “must have” components, and where greater design freedom was exercised. A sample of the paintings and extant garments I used for reference is in Appendix A. Appendix B discusses several surviving tailor’s manuals and shows images of the doublet patterns. Some pieces of the outfit which are included for display only, and not for judging (skirt, farthingale, ruff, and shift) Information about these pieces may be found in Appendix C.

In formal portraits, the ensemble typically consisted of an outer jerkin, an inner doublet, and moderately sized ruffs at the neck and wrists. The outer jerkin often had short sleeves or hanging sleeves, and it was frequently (though not always) worn open for part of the chest. The jerkin’s standing collar may be pointed or sometimes slightly rounded, and which may fall back when open. Jewelry is common, though not universal. Pearl drop earrings are the most common style, and are sometimes fairly large.

I have made the whole outfit. My entry is the inner doublet. My key observations on the period design characteristics:

1. The inner doublets always have long, fairly fitted sleeves (Appendix A, figure 1). In the pattern books these sleeves are shown to be made with two pattern pieces (Appendix B, figure 1). The sleeves are a location of much decorative attention - horizontal bands of a variety of trims, decorative stitching, and decorative slashing are common, and one painting of an especially fancy outfit even shows sleeves that have what appear to be dangling gold spangles. A vertical strip of trim may accent the front seam of the sleeve (Appendix A, figures 1, 2, and 3). Some garments are made of complexly woven floral fabric, and these generally do not have much additional embellishment. Some of the sleeves show buttons at the wrist, while others do not. The style I have chosen to make are closely fitted, but not buttoned. They have an intricate pinked design cut into them, and a strip of narrow black braid stitched into place accenting the front seam. 
2. The stand-up collar may be worn open or closed (Appendix A, figures 1, 3, 5, 6). When open, it is sometimes obscured by open ruffs of varying size. If the collar is worn closed, often a small closed ruff is used. The backs of the garments are not shown in the portraits, but the surviving tailor’s manuals have patterns both for completely separate collars, as well as collars that have the back “grown-on” as one with the back of the doublet, with the front collar cut as a separate piece. This grown-on design is the style I have chosen to make. Some of the collar fronts are made in two pieces as well, for a total of six pieces used to make the collar. The seams they may be left plain, or they may be emphasized with a decorative prick stitch using heavy silk thread in a contrasting color (as I did). The collars that are worn open generally have an angular front edge, ranging from about 90 degrees to somewhat more acute. I did not see any inner doublets with rounded collars, but in some of the paintings the collar was obscured by the ruff, so I don’t know what shape they may have been. The collars in all of the surviving tailor’s manuals are about 90 degrees or slightly more acute (Appendix B).
3. The button closures are both thread-wrapped and metal made in a style somewhat similar to thread-wrapped buttons (appendix A, figure 5). Button size has a little variety, but for the most part the buttons are relatively small (in the 1/2” to 3/4” neighborhood), and they are spaced with a gap of about twice the width of the button being used. Some closures used button holes, and others used thread loops to hold the buttons.
4. Based on the appearance of the fabric painted in the portraits, as well as the explicit fabric specifications made in the surviving tailor’s manuals, common fabrics were silk, damask, velvet, and wool. I have chosen a low-slub shantung silk as my fabric - dupioni has far too many slubs and irregularities to recreate the look of the smooth silk shown in the portraits, while I feel that the occasional slight imperfections of the shantung keep it from seeming too artificial.

Construction Techniques and Materials

This garment was entirely hand sewn, using materials that would have been available at the time. The outer gold-colored fabric is silk, the fabric specified in the surviving tailor’s books for several women’s doublets. It is interlined with canvas-weight linen, which is padded for support in some areas with thin wool, and lined with handkerchief-weight black linen. All seams are hand sewn together using silk thread. Three different weights of thread were used in different areas of construction, depending on the needs of the particular task. The only exception to period materials is the store-bought braided black trim, which a burn test revealed has some synthetic content.

In January of 2014, I attended a weekend-long workshop on traditional late-period doublet tailoring, taught by professional tailor and historical costumer Mathew Gnagy. He has since published much (though not all) of the class content in his book Modern Maker. The training included flat pattern drafting to create a custom pattern in the style of Alcega or Burguen. We also learned historic construction techniques such as diagonal basting, pad stitching, and prick stitching. We stretched and sculpted the fabric into a dimensional and slightly self-supporting shape. We used traditional tailor’s needles, thicker silk thread, and open-topped thimbles. An in-depth discussion of the various needles, threads, and other tools we used is in Appendix E. Over the course of 2014, I made four other doublets to develop my skills and to refine the pattern. See Appendix D for pictures of these doublets. I learned that a basic doublet, made with machine-sewn construction seams, still requires a large amount of hand-sewing to secure seam allowances, diagonal baste and pad stitch, and to perform other tailoring techniques that are impossible to achieve by hand. A doublet done by that method requires about 40 hours of work for construction (not counting pattern development or fittings). I failed to track my hours for this hand-sewn doublet, but it was substantially longer.

For the pattern, I have mainly drawn from a surviving tailor’s book, written by Juan de Alcega and published in 1580 in Madrid, but other surviving books have very similar patterns. An extensive comparison of doublet patterns from a variety of extant tailor’s books is contained in Appendix B. I refined the fit and shaping of the pattern to me with a series of mockups and full doublets, as would have been done in a professional tailor’s shop of the time.

Pinking: A Cautionary Tale in Trypophilia

Trypophilia means “love of holes.” I had never used pinking before, but it is a decorative technique that shows up frequently in late-period clothing. I was able to find very little discussion on how to actually do it, so I just jumped in and guessed. The problem with an experiment is that sometimes it fails. I really like the look given by pinking, and I plan to use it again. But next time I’ll only cut through the silk, not the linen canvas underneath. I’ll also keep the cuts farther apart - these cuts look pretty, but they’re too close together, and they compromise the structural integrity of the fabric. I expect to wear the doublet a couple of times at most before I have to re-make the sleeves.

Construction Details

For a step by step visual record of the construction process and techniques, see the dress diary on the following pages.

Sources

Arnold, Janet. Patterns of Fashion 3: The Cut and Construction of Clothes for Men and Women C. 1560-1620. London: Macmillan ;, 1985. 128.

Gnagy, Mathew. The Modern Maker: Men's 17th Century Doublets. 1st ed. Vol. 1. CreateSpace, 2014. 146.

Sources for pictures are given beside the picture. Most of the sewing technique was learned in person, at Mathew Gnagy’s Dallas workshop in January 2014.