Made by hand in my dorm room, I used a McCalls pattern called 'Maid Marion'. The material was dark green poly-cotton, which had not been washed prior to sewing. While that is bad, the outfit itself is worse -- a straight skirt with elastic waistband and the equivalent of a green pirate shirt with a flounce around the neckline, which could be worn on or off the shoulder. In this get-up I trotted off to my first event feeling very stylish. Once I got there however, I saw that others wore clothing that did NOT look like a cheap Halloween costume, so I ended up spending the rest of the day hiding in my friends cloak to 'hide my shame'.
Since then, my love of doing research (I have a PhD...call me a glutton for punishment) has extended to my SCA hobby. In Australia, my husband and I had the particular good fortune to fall into the Barony of St. Florian-de-la-Riviere, where we were encouraged to do research before creating our garb or developing a persona (long story - check out http://www.sca.org/ for more information). Under the careful tuteledge of Mistress Constanzia Moralez y Zamora, Raphael (my husband Ken) and I made some of our first researched and correctly made (and fitted!) garb. Finally we didn't have costumes, we had CLOTHING....who knew there was such a distinction?!
A bit about my persona
Initially I planned to have a celtic persona, but my love of research and accuracy won out. Sadly, there is very little concrete evidence regarding the clothing and lifestyle of the Irish or Scotts during my preferred time period (1480-1540). Given that Constanzia was so knowlegable about Spanish clothing and lifestyle, I opted to develop a Spanish persona.
My current SCA name is Esperanza Sanchez de Calatrava. I don't have a fully fledged 'persona' story like some SCAdians do. I don't claim to be a 'noble', in fact most of my current garb is more 'workaday' wear -- simple costumes made of cotton drill and muslin (at the time I couldn't afford linen which would have been more period). For instance, the dress to the right is a light sage green drill, with a lined bodice (canvas and drill), a simple cotton chemise and tie on sleeves.
My current SCA name is Esperanza Sanchez de Calatrava. I don't have a fully fledged 'persona' story like some SCAdians do. I don't claim to be a 'noble', in fact most of my current garb is more 'workaday' wear -- simple costumes made of cotton drill and muslin (at the time I couldn't afford linen which would have been more period). For instance, the dress to the right is a light sage green drill, with a lined bodice (canvas and drill), a simple cotton chemise and tie on sleeves.
This has been my 'fancy' dress for several years now, as the neckline has some black gimp accented with pearl beads and the sleeves are lined in black linen with fancy pearl and goldtone button closures. As a basic dress it works, but there are accuracy issues that I want to correct. First, the bodice needs more appropriate boning. No, I'm not talking about using 'whalebone'. Rather I need to add more boning to avoid the unsightly 'wrinkle' just under the bust. The second change I intend to make, is to add more appropriate sleeves. Spanish sleeves never opened where I have the openings. I also plan to make a farthingale (a 16th century 'hoop skirt') to give my outfit the right structure.
Since the time the picture above was taken, I have raised the waistline of the dress ab
out 2 inches, as it was cutting me in half when I sat down. Having tried the dress out with the raised waistline, I'm not particularly impressed with the way it looks. I think the best bet is to keep the 'regular' waistline of the dresses, but create a long line, Elizabethan style corset, using somewhat flexible boning. As seen in some drawings/paintings of the time period, some of the dresses had a distinctly rounded, yet supported bodice (right: close up detail of a female listener from 'St. Felix Preaching', by Joan de Burgunya, 1520).
With this dress I plan to raise the hem approximately 4-6 inches and add a black (velveteen or linen) guard (vergarde) around the hem. With the material taken from the hem I plan to make some small cap, 'strip sleeves' with contrasting black trim like the sleeve shown in the picture to the right (picture a close-up of one of Mistress Constanzia's latest fashions).
out 2 inches, as it was cutting me in half when I sat down. Having tried the dress out with the raised waistline, I'm not particularly impressed with the way it looks. I think the best bet is to keep the 'regular' waistline of the dresses, but create a long line, Elizabethan style corset, using somewhat flexible boning. As seen in some drawings/paintings of the time period, some of the dresses had a distinctly rounded, yet supported bodice (right: close up detail of a female listener from 'St. Felix Preaching', by Joan de Burgunya, 1520).
With this dress I plan to raise the hem approximately 4-6 inches and add a black (velveteen or linen) guard (vergarde) around the hem. With the material taken from the hem I plan to make some small cap, 'strip sleeves' with contrasting black trim like the sleeve shown in the picture to the right (picture a close-up of one of Mistress Constanzia's latest fashions). Since I will be raising the skirt hem significantly, particularly as the farthingale will hold the skirt out further, I will clearly need to add something beneath it -- to show legs (even covered ankles and calves) would have been scandalous during the time period! To that end, I plan to make a new, colored underskirt/petticoat. I'm thinking of gold, with black pomegranate (apparently a symbol of Spain during the time period) or cinqefoils (a type of heraldic flower with 5 petals) appliqued around the hem.
While this is a great plan, it is a project for another day -- first things first, I need to FINALLY make myself the proper 'underpinnings' -- a farthingale and some form of corsetry.
While this is a great plan, it is a project for another day -- first things first, I need to FINALLY make myself the proper 'underpinnings' -- a farthingale and some form of corsetry.
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