The Rest of the Gold Silk Outfit

This is what happens when I neglect my blog for months on end - I come back and find that an article had been left in draft form, never published. Oops.

This is another appendix from the documentation for my gold silk doublet, which competed at Kingdom A&S February 2015. I removed the picture that wasn't mine. The link to where I got it is in the text.

Appendix C 

Items included for display

The skirt

The skirt pattern that I used is predominantly based on the pattern in Alcega’s book, but Burguen and Freyle also have very similar skirt patterns in their books as well. This layout makes excellent use of the minimum amount of fabric, and fits nicely over the 3-foot-diameter farthingales that were used at the time. The skirt can then be pleated into a waistband, which is not shown in the pattern books because it could easily be pieced together from the small bits of fabric left after the skirts were cut. Alternately, the skirt could be pleated and then sewn directly to the bodice or doublet. Some of the paintings show a doublet with tabs along its bottom edge, which could indicate a separate doublet and skirt, or which could simply be sewn into the join where the two are sewn together. I have chosen not to sew my doublet and skirt to each other, and the skirt is knife pleated into its own waistband.

Many of the over-dresses in the pattern books, and in the few full-length portraits, were longer in the back than the front, and were designed to have a train. I did not to use a train on this garment as a measure of practicality. I have attempted to wear a dress with a train to events in the past, and I find the hem gets trampled by other people, or even myself, and once I stepped on my own hem and nearly fell because of it. I am not historical nobility, and I do not have servants to carry my items, to tend my children, and to keep the crowd of other celebrants at an acceptable distance so they don’t step on my train. Since my primary goal in making this garment is to have a beautiful and well-made piece of clothing that I can enjoy wearing for years to come, I have chosen to make the skirt just reach the floor without a train. 

This display skirt uses modern construction methods while preserving the construction techniques and aesthetics of the original clothing. The long seams are all machine-sewn since they will be hidden, and there was no sculpting or shaping advantage to doing such time-consuming work by hand. The skirt is knife pleated and then attached to the waistband by hand, since that part would show upon examination. I have used a metal skirt hook closure, hidden in one of the pleats. Alcega’s books do not give any indication as to how the skirt should be brought down to the waist size of the client, nor how the waistband should close, but the method I used would give a look similar to what is seen in the portraits, and it seems reasonable.

The skirt is cut from the same gold silk cloth as the doublet, and lined in the same handkerchief-weight black linen. I have seen nothing to make me believe that ordinary skirts were interlined or stiffened themselves (relying instead on the farthingale or petticoats underneath for their shaping). I used color-matched poly-cotton machine thread for all seams. Raw edges are serged to prevent fraying.
<I removed the pattern picture that was here, but for a really helpful discussion of the pattern and how to make it, see The Alcega Project: http://thealcegaproject.blogspot.com.au/2014/07/project-4-f58-kirtle-of-silk-for-woman.html >

The farthingale

I made this farthingale some time ago, using instructions I found online (alas, I cannot now find my notes or the original web link). It is boned with 3mm round basket reed, two per channel. I found the reeds to be affordable, historically plausible, and very easy to work with. Their only disadvantage is that I cannot fold the farthingale on itself to make it smaller for storage or transport. The 3’ diameter hem, and the general piecing and shaping, are consistent with the patterns in surviving tailor’s manuals, and work well with garments made using the extant patterns. When I originally made the farthingale the top hoop was too big and did not allow a skirt to sit smoothly over the top of the support. Simply removing the reeds from the top channel solved this problem.

The ruff

Doublets from the mid-1500’s are almost always painted as being worn with some kind of ruff. Often this accessory seems to be part of a sheer partlet, while other times it is quite opaque, and it appears to be part of the white shift worn against the skin, under the doublet. I have not worn a ruff before, and I was uncertain if I would enjoy it enough to overcome the hassle of starching and setting a linen ruff made in a fully accurate way. Never the less, a small ruff is an important part of the complete outfit, as shown in just about every depiction. As a compromise, I constructed this ruff using a theatrical cheat. It is grosgrain ribbon for which I made a decorative machine stitch on one edge, double box pleated to create the setts, and put the whole thing into a band to cover the pleat stitching. I have basted it temporarily to the shift worn under the doublet, as a person would for ordinary wearing - once ruffs begin to require the skills of a specialist to starch and set them, they must be cared for separately from the ordinary body linens.

The shift

The shift here is a cotton flannel, which I originally made to keep me warm at cold events. A more historically accurate shift of a similar nature would probably been of fine white wool, but I was disinclined to use wool both due to the high cost of fabric for a garment that it will usually be too hot to wear comfortably, and because my contact allergy to wool processing chemicals would have made sewing such an item (let alone wearing it) into a profoundly painful experience. The high-necked design serves as a good support for the ruff and works well with the high collar of the doublet. I simplified the pattern from an embroidered shift described in Patterns of Fashion.

Although stockings, shoes, jewelry, and hair accessories would have completed the ensemble as it would have been worn, I did not include them for practical considerations.