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1560s Flemish Marketwomen’s Outfit

Drea Leed — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 04:29:30 +0000

Item a SERVAUNT-WOMANS GOWNE of the Flemisshe facion with tawney bayes guarded with murrey wool with a redde petticoate and sleeues of green wool to the same, wyth twoo partelets one white linnen one black wool to the same.

This gown is based on that worn by a marketwoman or servant in 1560s Flanders. It laces across a sleeveless kirtle of red linen (which laces up the back) and has green woolen sleeves pinned to the gown shoulder straps. A close-fitting white smock is worn underneath. Two partlets, one white linen and one black wool, are worn over the gown. A caul is worn over the hair, and a straw hat over the caul.

For more information on this style of dress and how it’s put together, and pictures showing the original items, visit 16th Century Workingwomen’s Dress and Making a Flemish Workingwoman’s outfit.

Kirtle and Gown, c. 1570

Drea Leed — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 04:12:01 +0000

Item a gown of russet worsted guarded with blak vellat with bent to the sleeves the bodies lined with brown linen styffened with buckram and fustian

and

Item a kirtle of bezoar culler satten the forebodis and forskyrtes of wrought silk with broade gards of cloth of gold laced with passamayne lace of silk and silver and gold chayne lace lyned with yellow linnen faced with brown taffata with sleeves of whit sarcenet and cloth of gold cut and tact in rising panes laced with chayne lace.

This gown represents what a well-to-do gentlewoman would have worn in London c. 1570. The outer gown is designed based upon portraits and pictures of women in the 1560s and 70s, particularly Lucas de Heere’s sketch of English Gentlewomen c. 1570. The kirtle is constructed and decorated very much like the loose kirtle in Arnold’s Patterns of fashion, the only change being the side and back seams were taken in to make it fit closely around the torso.

The gown is russet wool lined with brown linen. It hooks up the front with hooks and eyes.

the gown has a side front seam which, now that I know better, I wouldn’t have used if I was making the gown now.The sleeves are boned with artificial whalebone.

Showing the lining and kirtle beneath. The gown is faced as well as guarded with black velvet. I’m wearing a small farthingale beneath.

Side view of the gown. The sleeve base is a close-fitting sleeve of canvas, to which a network of poly-boning was sewn. This was covered with a layer of batting, and this covered with the outer fabric. I tried using shaped buckram, but found that it wouldn’t keep its shape when wet. Stuffing the sleeves created a lumpy shape that wasn’t smooth and clean.

Side back view

Gown with the collar laid flat

The Satin kirtle was made of charmeuse backed with canvas. If I was to do it again I’d go with true heavyweight silk satin; it prevents the wrinkles seen here at the side. The front section is brocade, and the guards are a layer of brown taffeta covered with a layer of metallic silk gold-and-purple gauze.

The placement and type of trim and guards was copied from that of the kirtle in Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion.

The bottom is stiffened with an interlining of coarse canvas

The sleeves of the kirtle were patterned after several pairs in Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion and her article on Pinking and Slashing.

The sleeves were made of a layer of china silk over a layer of linen and metallic silk gauze. Early experiments showed that the china silk flattened easily and frayed a lot. I backed the silk with lightweight fusible interfacing to add body and reduce fraying. What you see here is 10 years of wear and fraying; it’s held up pretty well.

The puffs were mounted to the base layer and sewn down along the horizontal lines. Then the edges of each strip were caught back in the middle. Gold trim was sewn over the horizontal stitching lines, and small, looped pickadils of white silk sewn to the wrists of the sleeves. All sewing was done by hand with gold-colored silk thread.

The sleeves were laced to the kirtle. I stopped the puffs at bicep level, and just above the elbow on the underside, to reduce bulk and wear and tear when it was worn with an overgown.

The gown works equally well without a farthingale. The stiff layer of additional lining around the bottom third of the inside of the kirtle, combined with the layer of velvet guarding around the bottom edge, gave a lot of body to the bottom of the skirts.

Another pic of the gown without a farthingale. It was more likely to be worn without a farthingale by women of the merchant classes than with.

Green Waistcoat and Red Petticoat, c. 1600

Drea Leed — Fri, 20 Dec 2013 03:33:16 +0000

Item a Grene Waistcoate of mixed Linen and Sylke in a diamant pattern, lined with fustian, welted with caddis lace.

This waistcoat and petticoat are representative of what a fairly well-to-do goodwife would have worn at the turn of the 17th century.

The waistcoat is patterned upon the waistcoat in Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion 1560-1620. Additional inspiration came from images of women’s waistcoats in the Trevelyon Miscellaney of 1611. I chose this handwoven fabric due to its similarity to a green-and-cream birdseye twill used in a mid-16th century Italian Serving woman’s bodice. The fibre of my waistcoat, however, is cotton.

Close-up of the mixed linen-and-wool fabric worn by a servant of Eleanora de Toledo. Taken from the book La Granduchessa.

Bodice of a gown worn by by a servant of Eleanora de Toledo. Taken from the book La Granduchessa.

Although such fabric wasn’t as esteemed as the other mixed linen-and-wool fabrics that made up some of the “New Draperies” popular in England at the time, such fabric would have been made and sold locally in small English towns.

The waistcoat is lined with an unbleached linen fabric, and is trimmed with a narrow band of wool tape. The tape, originally white, I dyed red with brazilwood using a recipe for red from the 16th century dye-book “The Plictho”. Simple wool tape, or “lace” as it was called, was frequently used to trim seamlines, shoulder epaulets, and other garment edges at the end of the 16th century.

The petticoat is made of red wool. The fabric is admittedly finer that a woman of modest means could have afforded in 1600; it closely resembles scarlet broadcloth, a pricey, high-quality wool used in the petticoats of the better-off merchant class and nobility. The pattern for the petticoat comes from a c. 1600 petticoat in Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion 1560-1620. The pleats are interlined with a layer of heavy wool to aid in shaping and in achieving the proper silhouette, a practice frequently referred to in wardrobe accounts and tailor’s bills of the late 16th century.

Waistcoats could button up the front, tie together with ribbons, be pinned together, be fastened with hooks and eyes, or fastened with lacing rings. All of these methods are seen in extant waistcoats of the time or in paintings of women wearing waistcoats. My waistcoat fastens with lacing rings up the front, with a lace run through them.

The jacket and petticoat combination, worn over a smock and with or without boned bodies underneath, was the standard dress of workaday women at the turn of the 16th century.

Jackets of this style did not have darts or princess seams to handle shaping around the bust area. Shaping was accomplished by a curved front seam and clever shaping of the armescye curve and side-back seam. Some doublets had the armscye eased into the sleeve head and the front shoulder seam stretched to fit the back in order to shape the shoulder area more closely to the body.

This jacket does not have a collar at the back, although some jackets did at the time. The collar was used to help prop up a ruff.

The red lace is stitched down over most of the seams on the garment.

The wide flare at the waist of the jacket was necessary to accomodate the bulky petticoats of the time.

At the turn of the century, jackets like this one sat at the natural waist. As the 1600s became the 1610s and 1620s, the waistline rose to mid-rib.

When sewn in correctly, lacing rings are invisible. At a distance,it can almost look like another seamline.

The sleeves are sewn into the armescye with a backstitch, the excess turned down and a sleeve lining of unbleached linen stitched over the raw edges. Seam allowances in garments of the time were narrower than they are today; 1/4 to 3/8 of an inch was common.

PERIOD STRYP-TEESE!

Shillings goe here. I prithee, Give thou Generousely!

The lacing rings are visible here. If the jacket is very tight, all rings are neaded to avoid gapping in the front; it is fairly loose on me, so I lace up with every other ring. The fabric stretches quite a bit and molds well to the body with few wrinkles, even when it’s laced tight.

The petticoat is bound with a narrow band of black silk taffeta at the waist. It sits about an inch lower than my natural waist; I find this most comfortable when wearing it with jackets.

The points along the waist of the french bodies are used to tie the petticoat to the bodies. This transfers the weight of the skirts from the waist to the torso, making them feel lighter. It also keeps the skirt from slipping down or rotating.

This petticoat laced closed at the back. The pleats are knife pleats, with a layer of wool pleated in with the outer fabric. The waistband is bound around the raw edges of the pleats.

point laces through two holes on either side of the petticoat’s back opening. This allows for considerable adjustability. Also, when the laces are tied together after being threaded through both sets of holes, they stay laced remarkably well–it takes work to loosen the hitch.

Here is a view of the layer of wool used to interline the pleats.