I'm SO amazingly bored right now...
Nov. 29th, 2006 05:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
guenievreSo winter tends to be the slow season where I work - I suppose most companies don't want to deal with the hassle of new office equipment during the holiday season, not sure. Either way, I'm bored enough I started uploading random pictures to the gallery on my website - and that says something right there, as I've said many times that I Am Not A Picture Person. Unfortunately, I think Nick has some of the better pictures on his computer, and he's at a customer. :( I should probably caption/label/reorder the ones that are up there, but that's not nearly as fun as picking and uploading.
My other alternative is to go fabric shopping - 12th night is coming up soon, and I have (still fairly vague) thoughts about new garb. Some of my thoughts are here - I rather like the embroidered red dress with dagged tippets and the blue/white outfit for Girard. Both of these outfits have some major weirdnesses, which is partially why I picked them, but on the other hand it makes it a bit hard to decide if and/or how to recreate them.
Background first - these scans are from a set of tapestries that were in the Paris 1400 exhibition catalog. My french is limited at best, but as far as I can tell they date from about 1400-1410; they were created in Paris, and they were either reassembled in 1890 or at least brought to the same place then, and there was some conservation work done on them in 1905. (BTW,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
intrepida, if you happen to read this and know of any resources where I might find more info on these particular tapestries, I'd do a happy dance. Or if anyone else has any info on them, for that matter, much happy dancing would ensue).
So on to the clothes - the red dress first. First, I've never seen dagged tippets before - if the tapestry was any later, I'd guess it was some artist doing something that was never actually done, but as far as I know from other artwork, all these styles of gown were being worn in 1400-1410 time frame (the proto-houppelandes, the gowns with tippets and the gowns with fancy sleeves). So there's weirdness #1. Weirdness #2, in the other tippeted gowns, the artist goes to great lengths to emphasize that they are Fur, specifically Ermine, what with all the little tails. Not so much on this one, so maybe it isn't fur? or at least it doesn't seem to be ermine. Wierdness #3, and this is even odder, is that all of the decoration on the red dress, and on the blue-and-gold dress next to it, seem to be placed on the diagonal. This, of course, may be entirely coincidence. But... maybe it isn't - to my (admittedly modern) eye, it suggests the possibility of bias, kind of like those crazy Spanish plaid cotes. I can/have made dresses that fit snugly, like these, over a supportive underlayer and yet had no method of closure (the pink dress of doom, my current blue one which needs a bit of tightening, but was a proof of concept anyway). But these two dresses depended on a certain amount of intrinsic stretch to the fabric, just because, well, let's say I'm not underendowed on top so getting into a dress that fits tightly under the bust can be a bit interesting. Doable, but interesting. Wool has this stretch... but silk or velvet? not so much. And I'm a SUCKER for luxurious, impractical fabrics - so the idea of a gown made of two layers of bias cut silk is REALLY TEMPTING. But I can't decide whether it's even conceptually period.
As for the man's garb? well, the hosen and the white garment are fairly straight forward, even if the sleeves are a bit interesting. but the blue garment with the dags and the possible bezants? IS BIZARRE. My first throught was "fancy cloak", in the same family as those others shown in the gallery. BUT... the pleats across the front seem REALLY regular, and looking at the man's left shoulder, it almost seems as though there are dags, similar to the ones on the right shoulder. That would kind of imply a sleeveless garment of some sort, maybe similar to an Italian man's giornea (though I thought those were later). Some preliminary web searching (as I said, I was bored today) also brought up the word ganache (yes, like the chocolate, which made googling interesting) as a possible word for an open-sided gown of this sort. So still thinking there too. This may reqiure more research than I have time to do before making the garb for 12th night!!!
On the other hand? I don't have time to do those quite as shown (embroidery!!), and I don't have fabric that I *quite* like for doing it with, nor have I found anything cheap. I do, however, have a fairly large amount of black wool with a gold honeycomb pattern on it, that's begging to be some interesting set of matching outfits - so appropro for 12th Night, as it's one of the few times we're really in the same place the whole time at an event (usually we hit events and wander in opposite directions, one or both of us are in armor, I'm in the kitchen, or something...) So maybe I'll do something with that instead. Either way, in order to do that, I need to quit doing what I've been doing for the past week, which is Playing Too Much WoW.
However... Playing Too Much WoW has been good to me. I made Sargeant in PvP, (those of you who are serious PVPers are probably laughing now, but considering that I only started doing PvP to get the mount discount, that was an achievement), bought my Swift Riding Frostsaber, and got the Sinew for my bow. Now, to kill the demons...
Yay! Husband is back from a customer! I can go home now!!!!
My other alternative is to go fabric shopping - 12th night is coming up soon, and I have (still fairly vague) thoughts about new garb. Some of my thoughts are here - I rather like the embroidered red dress with dagged tippets and the blue/white outfit for Girard. Both of these outfits have some major weirdnesses, which is partially why I picked them, but on the other hand it makes it a bit hard to decide if and/or how to recreate them.
Background first - these scans are from a set of tapestries that were in the Paris 1400 exhibition catalog. My french is limited at best, but as far as I can tell they date from about 1400-1410; they were created in Paris, and they were either reassembled in 1890 or at least brought to the same place then, and there was some conservation work done on them in 1905. (BTW,
intrepida, if you happen to read this and know of any resources where I might find more info on these particular tapestries, I'd do a happy dance. Or if anyone else has any info on them, for that matter, much happy dancing would ensue).So on to the clothes - the red dress first. First, I've never seen dagged tippets before - if the tapestry was any later, I'd guess it was some artist doing something that was never actually done, but as far as I know from other artwork, all these styles of gown were being worn in 1400-1410 time frame (the proto-houppelandes, the gowns with tippets and the gowns with fancy sleeves). So there's weirdness #1. Weirdness #2, in the other tippeted gowns, the artist goes to great lengths to emphasize that they are Fur, specifically Ermine, what with all the little tails. Not so much on this one, so maybe it isn't fur? or at least it doesn't seem to be ermine. Wierdness #3, and this is even odder, is that all of the decoration on the red dress, and on the blue-and-gold dress next to it, seem to be placed on the diagonal. This, of course, may be entirely coincidence. But... maybe it isn't - to my (admittedly modern) eye, it suggests the possibility of bias, kind of like those crazy Spanish plaid cotes. I can/have made dresses that fit snugly, like these, over a supportive underlayer and yet had no method of closure (the pink dress of doom, my current blue one which needs a bit of tightening, but was a proof of concept anyway). But these two dresses depended on a certain amount of intrinsic stretch to the fabric, just because, well, let's say I'm not underendowed on top so getting into a dress that fits tightly under the bust can be a bit interesting. Doable, but interesting. Wool has this stretch... but silk or velvet? not so much. And I'm a SUCKER for luxurious, impractical fabrics - so the idea of a gown made of two layers of bias cut silk is REALLY TEMPTING. But I can't decide whether it's even conceptually period.
As for the man's garb? well, the hosen and the white garment are fairly straight forward, even if the sleeves are a bit interesting. but the blue garment with the dags and the possible bezants? IS BIZARRE. My first throught was "fancy cloak", in the same family as those others shown in the gallery. BUT... the pleats across the front seem REALLY regular, and looking at the man's left shoulder, it almost seems as though there are dags, similar to the ones on the right shoulder. That would kind of imply a sleeveless garment of some sort, maybe similar to an Italian man's giornea (though I thought those were later). Some preliminary web searching (as I said, I was bored today) also brought up the word ganache (yes, like the chocolate, which made googling interesting) as a possible word for an open-sided gown of this sort. So still thinking there too. This may reqiure more research than I have time to do before making the garb for 12th night!!!
On the other hand? I don't have time to do those quite as shown (embroidery!!), and I don't have fabric that I *quite* like for doing it with, nor have I found anything cheap. I do, however, have a fairly large amount of black wool with a gold honeycomb pattern on it, that's begging to be some interesting set of matching outfits - so appropro for 12th Night, as it's one of the few times we're really in the same place the whole time at an event (usually we hit events and wander in opposite directions, one or both of us are in armor, I'm in the kitchen, or something...) So maybe I'll do something with that instead. Either way, in order to do that, I need to quit doing what I've been doing for the past week, which is Playing Too Much WoW.
However... Playing Too Much WoW has been good to me. I made Sargeant in PvP, (those of you who are serious PVPers are probably laughing now, but considering that I only started doing PvP to get the mount discount, that was an achievement), bought my Swift Riding Frostsaber, and got the Sinew for my bow. Now, to kill the demons...
Yay! Husband is back from a customer! I can go home now!!!!
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-29 10:47 pm (UTC)have you picked the collective brains on the AOTC list?
good luck!
no subject
Date: 2006-11-30 02:58 pm (UTC)Yeah, I've read the R. Netherton article and was definitely planning to do the "integrated" thing, NOT the separate band thing, though it does make it a bit more complicated what with having both a turnup and a tippet.
And no, I haven't picked the AOTC brains yet, as I wanted to do a bit more looking around before I even got that far - brain dumping on LJ helps me focus, sometimes.
no subject
Date: 2006-11-30 03:51 pm (UTC)Tippets and bias
Date: 2006-11-30 12:39 am (UTC)First off, let me introduce myself as a fellow member of the SCA (with a Laurel in 14th century costume) and a soon-to-be grduate student in clothing history. :-) Nice to meet you!
I love that dress, btw. There are fair number of dagged tippets in Italian art for this period, so don't count those out.
However, in fifteen years of 14th and early 15th c. research, I have never seen any evidence for cutting on the bias. It's incredibly wasteful in terms of fabric, at a time when about 40% the wealth of a noble household could be comprised of textiles, and when a cloth of velvet cost as much as a small village - I'm not kidding - it seems highly unlikely. Added to that is the fact that there is little evidence of bias-cut garments throughout Europe until the 1930's. had they figured out a technology that was effective and not cost-prohibitive, they probably would have continued it through the Reniassance.
It's more likely that the fabrics depicted on these tapestries were embroidered (as you suggest) in that pattern, or they could have been diapered or brocaded as well. There are extant textiles from the 15th century woven with a digonal motif like the ones pictured. (Come to think of it, Kaufmann makes a chenille upholstery brocade that is almost exactly the same pattern - if you're not averse to using chenille, which is 17th or 18th century, it might be a fabric you can find and avoid the embroidery altogther. I suggest checking eBay for a decent price.)
Speaking of fabric, *all* of my own gowns are laced, because the ratio of my ribcage to my shoulders won't allow a fitted dress that I can get into, even with stretchy wool. I have made patterns that work for other body types that can be wiggled into without lacing, but I;ve nevr managed one for myself. But I have had luck with the method of lacing them on the side, from just below thr armpit to the high hip, and no-one can see the lacing unless I put my hands over my head...
yay for costume geeking! :-)
-E.
Re: Tippets and bias
Date: 2006-11-30 02:52 pm (UTC)Hopefully, I can go over to a friends house tonight and peruse her copy of Jacqueline Herald's Italian Dress in 1400-1500, as I'm betting that might have more similar garments in it. I usually stay so very focused on France that I never even look at Italian stuff, but hey, I've got Italian-esque armor, might as well "import some clothes" too...
And nice to meet you as well? where are you from? and how did you stumble across my LJ? :-)
Re: Tippets and bias
Date: 2006-11-30 04:48 pm (UTC)Those Spanish ones are a little tricky to figure, I admit :-) But Spanish clothing in general has so much Moorish influence that it tends to be *quite* different from Western Europe until the Renaissance, and I tend to concentrate on France, England, and Germany, with occasional sojourns into Italy. (I also have tendency to be conservative in my recreations - I generally won't make it if I can't document it 3 times by at least 2 artists. Just my upbringing, I guess.)
Italy is fairly into the Renaissance - and out of the fitted dresses, by 1400, so there's not much in Herald (I just checked mine.) Try looking at frescoes from the early to mid 14th century for those sleeves, instead.
Re: Tippets and bias
Date: 2006-12-01 03:59 pm (UTC)Thanks for the advice on the frescos - I'll definitely have to go do some digging.
And I understand your "conservative" streak on making things - it certainly means you don't end up with anything that's out of someone's fevered imagination - but I'm not quite sure I agree. However, I think that'll be today's post, as it's a bit too long for an LJ comment. (which is good, really, I didn't have anything to write about today).
Re: Tippets and bias
Date: 2006-12-01 04:10 pm (UTC)Some folks want to be re-creationists, and some want to use a looser approach in order to express their interpretations - and both are equally valid in my book.
Re: Tippets and bias
Date: 2006-11-30 06:40 pm (UTC)I knew she would enjoy seeing what you were doing, so a posting I went. ;)
Moira
West Kingdom
Re: Tippets and bias
Date: 2006-12-01 03:59 pm (UTC)Re: Tippets and bias
Date: 2006-12-01 04:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-30 02:55 am (UTC)I need to start thinking about 12th night- it's coming up and my madness with my concert and the fund raiser at our winter market (Kriskinder) will be over by then. hrm. Maybe I can do some sewing...
no subject
Date: 2006-11-30 03:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-30 01:34 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-30 03:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-01 04:25 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-01 02:58 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2006-12-01 04:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-01 04:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-04 04:58 pm (UTC)I need a WoW icon... hmm
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Date: 2006-12-04 05:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-04 05:07 pm (UTC)