I have several goals in the engineering of this dress:
1. Comfort: Virginia summers are notoriously hot and muggy, unlike 1500s England.
2. Versatility: Changing from middle-class jewelry merchant to a minor noble class lady by swapping sleeves, forepart, and accessories
3. Portability: The Maryland faire is almost three hours away, and I don't want to change in a privy...
Base Drawing courtesy of Sempstress' Dial-A-Dress
Underpinnings: Corset, Shirt, Farthingale, and Bumroll
Gown: Bodice, Underskirt, Overskirt, Sleeves
Not shown in the sketch is the hat- I have a broad-brimmed straw hat (Solana), but would like to make a tall hat.
2/22/05: But I realized I want to wear a caul under either hat, so I procrastinated on the farthingale, and started on an embroidered caul this weekend. The sewing machine makes a lovely "smocking" stitch- probably not period, but stitched in a grid pattern, it makes a cute design, and causes the fabric (leftover from the shirt) to puff very slightly between the grid lines.
I'm also making a feather fan- not ostrich feathers, but more accessible iridescent black rooster feathers. I don't have a design sketch for the girdle, but that should go together pretty easily.
5/27/05: And the girdle is really going together quickly- though I guess that's to be expected when using 12mm+ beads. As you can see in the rest of this site, I usually work on a much, much smaller scale. I've got a neat rationale behind this girdle, I think... my character is a jeweler's daughter (and Father has taught me some of his skills), so I feel justified in wearing a girdle that might be slightly above my station otherwise. However, it's not a pretentious one- the metal links are pewter ("easy to cast"), and the beads are pearl shell ("my father makes great use of precious pearls for his noble customers, and thus has many oyster shells left over"), and aventurine ("my family has kin in Scotland, where aventurine is common").
Seen in Public:
5/21/05: Grand debut! I wore this to the Virginia faire as seen in Version 1 above, and had a lovely time, the weather was just perfect, got lots of compliments, spent most of the day hanging out with nobles and the Queen's Maids of Honor, and took second place in the costume contest. The Queen judged the costume contest, and had much praise for my attention to detail and staying within my (uncommon, namely, middle-class) station as a merchant's daughter- i.e., small hoop, small bumroll, less voluminous skirts than the nobles, front-closing bodice, simple trims, the caul over my hair. This was exciting, no question, but...
5/22/05: This was the debut I was... well, "stressing" is too strong a word- but I was definitely devoting some mental energy to this lady's reaction. My best friend's mother does Living History for a Tudor manor house that was transported to Virginia in the 1930s. She's used to hanging out with people who would go into conniptions if someone *dared* to use cotton thread instead of linen to handsew their clothes. I bring the whole contraption over to their house (her husband makes the best grilled burgers!), get dressed, come into the kitchen, and she gapes. Nothing but compliments- I was shocked. Had I actually gotten it right? She's not like the "linen-thread" lady, she understands that the overall look is really the point, and using cotton instead of linen for a shift is entirely acceptable as long as it looks somewhat like linen. She even talked about possibly getting me to come to one of their Living History meetings to show it off!
6/11/05: Debut of version 2: I had taken off the epaulettes and replaced them with shoulder rolls, added a couple more pieces of trim to the bodice, and finished the girdle just before the final costume contest at the Virginia faire (the 1st and 2nd place winners from previous weekends were invited back the last Saturday for a costume showdown). There were just 4 of us- a splendid Tudor-era man dressed as the King of Portugal, complete with chain of office and astrolabe; an elegant noble lady from the 1560s-70s in dark velvet, gold, and pearls (the Queen commented about her sanity in regards to wearing velvet when it's above 90 degrees), a pirate (wonderfully accessorized aside from the combat boots), and little me. The Queen said that they had to get unbelievably nit-picky to make a decision ("that cuts me out", I thought, knowing how this dress was assembled). Then she announces that I took first prize. I had to retrieve my mandible from somewhere in the folds of the skirts. Thankfully, she explained *why*- she said she and the other judges could find nothing wrong with my outfit (for example, the King of Portugal had printed- not sewn- stripes on his slops), and that it was so perfectly in keeping with my station, from colors to fabrics to trim to accessories.
Musings and Wanderings
Why middle-class?
Well, I like hoops, for one. Spending a warm day in that wench outfit with my two skirts tangling and suffocating my legs was enough to make me want a hoop. Only problem: wenches don't wear hoops. The only hoops I saw at Faire were worn by noble ladies.
Okay, what about noble? Well, I'm not overly thrilled with the idea of wearing upholstery fabric, or worse, velvet, in muggy/gummy weather. (Gummy is my word for weather that exceeds even muggy, where the heat and humidity catalyse and congeal into a heavy mass not unlike corn syrup.) Plus (and I found this out after buying a "standard"- read probably bridal- hoop at Faire and wearing it), nobles have *big* hoops. Not crowd or booth-friendly in the slightest...
I also like being able to throw my clothes in the washing machine. A lightly-boned bodice designed to go over a corset (noble/middle-class) is much easier to wash than a heavily-boned bodice designed to emulate a corset (wench).
Now, why am I calling this a traveling gown? Well, the plan is to be able to put the majority of this costume on in the car. Yes, that includes the farthingale! I'll have the underskirt laced to the farthingale, the shirt pinned to the front-opening bodice and the overskirt hook-and-eyed to the bodice. I can loosely lace myself into my corset, put on a T-shirt and shorts like a normal person (my best friend would much prefer me not to stop in some random Arby's in full regalia) up until the last pit stop, then get everything out of the trunk and sit on the overgown, and toss the farthingale into the back seat. Since the farthingale is intended to be middle-class (and thus, a managable diameter), I should be able to grab the farthingale out of the back, stuff it down around my feet, lace it to the corset, take my T-shirt off (I'm still wearing the corset, it wouldn't be indecent), slide the busk into the corset and lace it tighter, then slip the overgown/shirt conglomeration on like a coat. I won't put the bumroll on until I'm almost there- or perhaps after we've parked. Yes, this construction is not period. Neither is the car, or the climate.... :-)