Sempstress

I had meant this to be a peasant gown, but I’m told that it
is not because it does not look “peasanty” enough. I’m not entirely positive
of what that means, but I’ve been trying not to quibble details lately. ;) It’s
suitable as the clothing of someone with enough money to afford lined clothing
that fits reasonably well (though not perfectly). It looks a little higher on
the social scale when worn properly with the bodice, but this summer was a little
crazy and a little *HOT*, so that didn’t always happen. (Moral: make all your
layers look nice, and your wardrobe becomes flexible enough to cover a variety
of social and weather situations.) This was the year of the flexible wardrobe
for me. I’m not sure why. I was not trying to be clever or sensible. It just
sorta happened.

Anyway, the teal bodice looking thang is, in fact, my effigy
corset. (That thing got a lot more exposure than a corset normally should, I
think, but it makes a dandy boned bodice since the outer fabric has no boning
channels showing.) (Note: There was a thriving trade in second hand fabrics,
remnants, etc, in the elizabethan age. Everybody (although, possibly not down
to the meanest milk maid as Stubbes claims) was getting really uppity about
ignoring those dingdang sumptuary laws and wearing silks and velvets. And yes,
I am justifying the silk on the corset being used with this outfit.) The skirt
is a almost-reversable affair of two shades of medium cotton, double box pleated
onto a waistband. Since I planned to always wear it tucked up, I made it the
same length all around in spite of the fact that I wear a bumroll with this
outfit. Technically, that means that it’s about 3″ too long in front. The underskirt
is a pink-green changeable cotton. (Yes, you read that right. It’s one of the
single most obnoxious things I’ve ever seen. The effect of mismatched warp and
weft threads is decidedly different in cotton than it is in silk. The pictures
do not to it justice, but then again, my pictures seldom ever do anything justice.
I’m really impaired in the photography department most of the time.)

the bodice is made with rose colored wool lined with off
white, er, something that is probably mostly cotton but I think not entirely
so. It’s a one piece jobby based off one of the alternate peasant type top
bits in the back of norris. The book is at home, I’m at work, and I don’t
remember the page number. It’s a couple pages after the spinster that was
the basis of the red and ochre dress. The bodice has trim on the outside and
the inside along the neckline. It’s closed with lacing tabs from ASL pewterworks.
I can’t tell you how much I love these things. Are they 100% documentably
period? Er, not so much. But they are darned convenient, and that’s
important. I think they also add a very nice decorative touch. I know ASL
does the bristol and kansas faires (and others that I don’t know), so look
them up. They’re great folks. You don’t have to tell them that I’m
recommending them like mad, ’cause I don’t get anything if you do (although
they’ll probably be ticked pink). The bodice laces with satin ribbon in a
shade that can only be described as ‘pepto-abysmal pink’.

This year’s middle class endeavor is a kirtle and doublet, based
vaguely on the "doublet for a slim young woman" on page 107 of Patterns
of Fashion. (Based? We’re far enough departed that "inspired" is probably
a better term. Y’all know me and plans by now.) The kirtle is a fairly uninspiring
affair made of red wool crepe (originally fuscia, but much more berry thanks
to a few packets of dye and a tip from Jen
that what I really wanted to do was overdye it with *green*, not red — this
sort of thing is why she has a degree in art and I don’t. ;) ) It’s based on
the Kohler pattern (pg 252, History of Costume and Fashion — draping instructions
here. This kirtle was actually
made directly from the pattern draped in that example, in case anyone wonders
if those things are for real….) I think it gives a nearly perfect line to
the front of the skirt. The wool crepe drapes beautifully, which helps. The
skirt of the kirtle has a slight train because, um, well, because I *like* them
that way. (Remember: if you’re in the dust cloud, you’re following the lady
too closely.)

The doublet is more interesting, and took a lot more time, so
I don’t feel bad about focusing on it. The body of it is made of two layers
of black linen. This is something of a construction experiment — it’s stiffened
only with felted wool. (Yes, that includes the lacing edge. There’s no boning
in this puppy anywhere.) Most of that stiffening is worked into the design elements
of the doublet. All of the stripey bits are fancy gimp braid on top of a layer
of felt. This gives the doublet enough stiffness that I can wear it without
a corset if I choose too without it buckling. (I won’t — the lacing strips
weren’t designed to take that much strain.) The doublet laces shut via a set
of internal lacing strips from the bust down. The strips are set in so that
their edges never actually touch. Above that, it ties closed with seven sets
of ties and aiglettes (courtesy of Maggie).
The aiglettes not only look ridiculously cool, they help weight the ends of
the ties so that they lie nice and neat. The double row of small brass buttons
is purely decorative.

The shoulder rolls are relatively gigantic affairs that go completely
around the arm. They’re made of felt remnants, stuffed with rags (mostly muslin
off cuts from patterns and old bits of cotton that never got around to becoming
a curtain). The rag stuffing wasn’t so much an attempt to be more period than
anyone else — I didn’t have any normal stuffing around and I wanted to finish
the rolls. Now that I’ve tried it, though, I don’t think I’ll go back to fiberfill
for rolls — the rag packs down into a good, hard filling, and it has enough
weight that it the rolls lie nicely to the outside, rather than trying to flop
in and make me claustrophobic. The rolls were covered in strips of linen (dear
goodness, does that stuff stretch!), then with strips of felt and gimp to match
the decoration on the doublet body. I made the little tassels up because that
was the part of the doublet in PoF that I liked best. They’re just little tassels
made of rayon embroidery floss, which I brushed out with the cat "de-matting"
brush to make them look more like fine silk fibers instead of big horkin’ rayon
threads.

There’s a doubled over pipe of felt at the closing edge and
all around the collar, which helps to give the doublet form. The kirtle is supported
by my corded petticoat, and
has padded pleats. There’s no
bum roll under there. In fact, there are only about 10 pieces of "real
boning" in the entire costume (those are all in the corset, which is made
of three layers of light spring wool, and very lightly boned.

I’ve just finished a little italien style bonnet to go with
this dress, but I didn’t have it in time for the pictures, so I did my hair
up in the "3 minute court roll" style. It really needs something more
than that, but I didn’t have it at the time. (Feria, "Flaming Red",
before anyone asks. My sister and a friend of hers call the color "Jessica
Rabbit Red".)

After a lot of sewing for other people, I wanted to sew for
me. I *needed* to sew for me. I’d been wearing the same dress most of the season.
It was driving me buggy. I’d started a new set of pretty undies a while back,
started a diary for them,
and gotten no where. In sort of a fit, I finished the corset and corded petticoat
— badly. In another sort of fit, I tore all the cording out of the corded petticoat,
which makes it a, well, petticoat. ‘Nuff Said. I also found out that things
had grown, and my corset no longer fit as designed. (It wasn’t my waist this
time, which I suppose is good.) I made up a nice, simple black kirtle (more
or less from my own draping
instructions — I really do things that way). The whole skirt is pleated
onto the bodice with knife pleats — singles in front, progressively more stacked
on top of each other as they approach the center back. It’s worn over my old
corded petticoat, and the newly uncorded one. I think the silhouette, especially
at the sides, turned out quite nicely.

The sleeves are actually the legs of a pair if ludicrously
small pants I bought forever ago (I really liked the silk jacquard, and they
were all of 5$). They’re caught with buttons and handstitched button-loops (all
bar-tacked — ain’t that fancy?). I swear I had a close-up of the sleeves taken,
but I can’t find it. That’s what happens when you let your web updates sit for
several months.

Yvonne approached me a while back looking for a costume that
was "easy to wear", with the same sort of shoulder treatment I used
on my black doublet. Strict authenticity was
not her biggest concern, so we settled on a kirtle with a built in corset, and
a doublet. (Here’s a note for those of you who insist you don’t want to wear
a separate corset, and that building the corset into the bodice is "just
the same"…. It’s really not. If the boning ends right where the skirts
attach to the bodice, the line of the skirt at the waist is affected. (By "affected",
I mean "destroyed". Not that I have any opinions on the matter.) This
is because the excess of the abdomen that poodges out where the corset ends
pushes the skirts out and slightly up — it looks like you’re wearing some sort
of skirt support or bum roll too high under your dress. It’s not flattering.
I mean, it literally makes women look larger, instead of smaller, in the waist.
So if you *really* want to build the corset into the bodice, you’ll want the
boned lining of the bodice to extend at least a half inch lower than the outer
layer of the bodice does. (You’ll be hand tacking the outer layer of bodice
fabric to the corset lining, which is basically fine, or binding over the join
between the outer layer of the bodice and the skirts, and leaving it free from
the corset lining along the bottom, which I think works slightly better. The
slightly longer boned lining holds the body down below where the skirts join
in, and the line of the skirts at the waist looks nicer.)

She also wanted a small bumroll for the costume. Now, y’all
know I have a couple problems with bum rolls. Ignoring any issues of historical
accuracy (or the complete lack of evidence therefore in the 1570s), there’s
another wee little problem: Women almost universally put them on too high. And
it’s not just the women at Bristol: Jean Hunnisett remarks upon the problem
as well. "Never leave pads on tapes to be put on by the dresser or artiste
as the nearly always pull them too tight, making the pad ride too high on the
waist." (Hunnisett, Period Costume for Stage and Screen, p.29) Fortunately
(or not, really),Yvonne and I are the same shade of blond when it comes to remembering
underthings for costumes, so the roll that supports the skirts is actually sewn
in to the bottom of the built in corset. Since the bodice opens to the back,
the roll is made in two pieces, which meet when the bodice is laced shut. Now,
she can’t forget the roll at home, and I don’t have to chase her around faire
and redress her. ;) (And yes, I have done that!)

The kirtle is relatively plain and made according to my kirtle
with fitted bodies directions. Well, ok, we all know I can’t even follow
my own directions, but that’s the basic idea behind it. The doublet was made
from the bodice pattern from the kirtle, with obvious extensions in the shoulder
area. This was actually my first go at altering a pattern for a bodice directly
into a doublet pattern, and it worked out well — yvonne has nearly perfect
measurements for that trick. The doublet is made of linen, with panes of linen
over silk. (Lots of panes, actually.) The little yellow lines are cording couched
down onto the top layer of the panes. Since I hate the look of zigzag stitches
over cording, getting the cording down was more annoying than it really needed
to be.

I like it, though. I think it turned out rather elegant, and
I’ve been wanting to try a doublet with all that paning for a while. (Speaking
of things I’ve wanted to do for a while, I’ve only been meaning to put together
a page for this for the last, erm, 6 months.)

Many thanks to the fabulous Stephanie and her sweet baboo for
the pictures. I’m sure I *should* have some of my own, but I don’t.

I started a diary for this dress forever ago. I promised to
explain the agressious visual pun I was committing. I’ll start there: It’s a
slightly pretensions middle class gown, in brown, accented with mustard yellow
and dill pickle green. Like a hamburger. I’m a ham-burghess. Har. Har har har.

Now that we’ve gotten that out of the way…. I really did plan
to diary this. I did. Then I put it off, because I’m a shlump like that, and
the underthings were totally misbehaving. (Ok, technically, my own flesh was
the underthing that was misbehaving. It happens to the best, and the rest of
us as well.) Then there was this thing, where a couple of crazy
brits and my good friend sarah
were coming out to Bristol, and I swear, I Didn’t Have A Thing TO Wear ™.
So I had to finish a dress in a big gosh darned hurry, and I decided that I’d
have the best chance finishing the dress that was already begun. (That was hard
for me, since the dress had been started a year before and I was officially
Bored With It ™. It was a heavily trade-marked moment.) So, the day before
I was supposed to meet them all up at bristol, I got off my butt and started
sewing. (No, I’m not exaggerating.) I made the kirtle. I have no pictures of
that to put up yet, honestly, y’all should be happy enough that I’m finally
writing for the site again, so let’s not pick knits. ;) I’ll pull it out of
storage at some point and get pictures. (Silver lining moment: while I’m awful
at remembering to take pictures, I’m going to marry a man who is infinitely
fascinated by taking pictures of me doing sewing and crafty things. Honest.
I have the guy all picked out, and all we need to do is find a house. Then I’ll
be able to bombard the world with pictures of sewing! BwaHAHAHAHA! Oh, um, right,
ok, forgot the topic again….) It’s a back closing kirtle, which I almost never
do because I’m obsessed with being able to dress myself. It has trim across
and down the front, and around the skirt. It was a cheater jobby with ribbon
and flanged cord, but at least I didn’t stoop to fabric glue this time. (And
I wonder why people don’t always take me seriously as a historical costumer?
Oy.) Overall, it looks just like a kirtle because it *is* just like a kirtle.

The overdress is a little more impressive, because it’s hard
not to impress when you throw 5 yards of velveteen at something. I wanted a
paned doublet, sleeves, and a matching skirt. Ironically, there are no sleeves
present in the pictures because I finally got my FREAKING FABULOUS SHIRT from
Blackwerx, and it would have been a sin to cover the arms. It’s totally fab.
Look at the pictures. See all the grapes? The folks who run the business are
friends and know what inspires me. ;)

The doublet was an experiment. I mean, hey, if you’re trying
to impress people you’ve never met before, why not throw caution to the wind
and try experimental techniques the night before you need the costume? What
could possibly go wrong? Er… Ok, well, this time, fairly little actually did.
I was playing with the idea of panes as really gigantic button-holes, instead
of the normal ludicrously complicated pattern-made-of-many-little-strips method.
I mean, when you look at panes on the chest area of doublets in Arnold, you
seldom see a seam beneath them. That’s because there are things that you can
do with hand sewing that you just plain can’t do on a machine, but basically,
*basically*, distilled to it’s absolute essence, it’s a freakin’ button hole.
So that’s what I did. And that basically worked. I realized very quickly that
this was yet another occasion in life where a little sew-in interfacing would
have been a good idea, but I didn’t have any (read: I had no idea where mine
was), so I went along without it. The interfacing would have stiffened up the
panes a little and given them more body, and I think the overall effect would
have been nicer. Eh, live and learn, right? Right. And that’s all that.

Apologies for the slightly dopey look on my face. For myriad
reasons, when I’m at faire I tend to drink. When I’m visiting a faire other
than bristol, I tend to drink more. And when I’m there with my sweetie and his
friends, well, ok, shnockered about begins to cover it. So if you ever meet
me at some random faire, and I seem a little, well, you know, it’s probably
because I am. These really are the only vacations I get.

So, sometime during the season, while bemoaning the fact that
I had absolutely *nothing* to wear to faire, the clue fairy dropped in to give
me a good whack with a blunt stick and I said, "Hey! What about that grey
dress that teddy told me I should actually *finish* someday?" (From one
of last year’s diaries.) So I
dug it out of the closet, and I thought about finishing it, but I’d long since
lost the fur I was going to use (more accurately, a cat left a memo on it, and
it had to go byebye), and I could only find one of the lower sleeves (I swear,
I thought I only had one box left to unpack!), and I never did figure out what
to make a hat out of. So rather than finish, I wore a simple wired veil with
it, and stamped it Close Enough(tm).

There’s a great lot about the construction in the diary. It
worked out pretty ok. There’s a horridly annoying wrinkle diagonal-wise on the
bodice to remind me that I need to take it in about 3/4" at the armscye
on each side, and I should take in the sleeveheads a little at the bottom.

Beyond that, it’s a rather solid little middle class number,
and I kinda like it. I’m even enamored with the silly little veil. ;)

Photo Credits: Yvonne Curley, who takes some of the best darn
pictures… Chainmail Girdle Courtesy of Chris Kailhoffer. If you’re looking
for one, I can put you in touch with him.

The images above and to the left are pictures of my new italien style woman’s
doublet being worn after the italien fashion; that is, sans farthingale. This
is always a nice option to have if you anticipate ending up in a crowded room.
The doublet was finished in time for the winter faire party for bristol back
in january. Theoretically, I have some better pictures of the full dress with
farthingale coming along any time now, but for the moment, I’ll just put up
the polaroid scans that I have. (Note: better picture have been procured, and posted above and to the right….)

The doublet and skirts are made of a heavy brushed cotton –
another $2/yard special. My mother said the fabric was a ‘heavy small whaled
whaleless corduroy’, or something like that. She knows these things. This one
did not need to be dyed. The doublet is fully self lined with the cotton. There
are two lines of boning in front. The boning casing is made with biased tape
sewn to the inside of the lining piece, so that there are no stitches visible
on the outside of the doublet. The boning runs to just below the corset line.
The doublet is shaped by a pair of curved seams at the side front and side back.
In the closeups on the dummy, you see an epaulette at the shoulders. The epaulette
is there as a mounting for the double shoulder roll in the finished doublet.

The trim on the doublet is rows of open work oatmeal colored
midi-braid surrounded by dark red gimp, layed chevronwise (in V’s, for the non-heraldry
literate) on the front and back of the doublet. Please see the closeup of the
front of the doublet, modeled by my dress dummy (the Lady Jane Beige). Actually,
the trim had to be put on the doublet pieces before they were sewn , so that
they raveling ends of the braids could be safely hidden in the seams. Getting
the braids to match up at the center back seam is more difficult than you might
imagine – not only do you need to measure everything so it comes out in the
same place, but you need to keep the braids from slipping past each other while
you sew. I don’t think I will do anything quite like this again!

The
skirt is lined with very cheap costume satin, so that it moves freely. Had I
been thinking, I would have gotten the satin in yellow or green or some color
that I am not likely to use as an underskirt. I didn’t realize this until the
night before I was supposed to have pictures of the costume taken, and then
I had to go on an emergency fabric run to try to find an underskirt fabric that
did not clash with the red, and did not make me look like I was decorated for
xmas. The green underskirt in the full pictures above is actually striped, with
a triple row of gimp braid along the bottom. The back and top two halves of
each side of the underskirt are faked with cheap black broadcloth. The overskirt
is just shy of 6 yards of fabric gathered down to the waistband. It is heavy.
(Combination clothing and exercise equipment.) It drapes beautifully, though.

I was happy with the end result.

This dress is my “one day special”. (I was having some issues and needed to spend some
quality time with my sewing machine.) The doublet and skirts went from pattern drafting
to done in about 16 hours. (Yes, yes, quite that many issues to work out.) The doublet
is based on the picture of a spinster on page, erm, 794 or something in Norris’ “Tudor Costume
and Fashion”. The book is out in the car just right now, so I’ll have to get the page
number later.

When I started working with elizabethan costume, I only wanted
to do noble. (I wasn’t quite doing it, mind, because I wasn’t entirely clear on
the concept, but I *wanted* to do noble. *laugh*) My sewing skills have improved over the
years, and my focus has shifted a bit. I still love to do nobles. But I am developing
an increasing fondness for middle class dress. In a way, doing middle class well is
more of a challenge than doing noble. With noble, you reach a point where you are constrained
as much by your budget as your abilities. If you start with 9 yards of cotton velvet,
it’s pretty difficult to come out with something less than impressive. (Not impossible, however.
I’ve seen it done.) For most people, noble is about fancy, expensive fabrics, fancier
and more expensive trims and laces, and beads beads beads. Middle class is different. Your options
for fabric and trim are limited by an imaginary budget and faire guidelines. (In many
cases, that “imaginary” budget is pretty close to what your real budget should be.) You
can’t just assume that you can cover all your errors with beads.

A well done middle class is more of an exercise in economy,
creativity, and tailoring than most noble gowns turn out to be. Economy and
creativity go hand in hand. You are working with the idea of a budget, and you
want to get as much impact, as much detail, and as much “period” value as possible
into a reasonable small budget. Most of the entrants for the middle class category
of the costume contest at Bristol represent the upper end of the middle class
– the really uppity types who would have paid sumptuary taxes to dress on par
with members of the nobility. Very few people think to do something with the
less pretentious, and far larger, segment of craftsmen, tradesmen, and comfortable
merchants who had enough money to be stylish and possibly purchase tailored
garments, but not enough money for silks and pearls. The tailoring of middle
class costume really stands out. There are no jewels and such to distract the
viewers eye. The tailoring, therefore, will either make or break the garment.
The fit and silhouette speak not only to the skill and research of the costumer,
but also to the apparent rank and status of the wearer. This dress is made of
an ochre shade of brushed cotton, and a reddish wool. Both fabrics are equally
suited to (and often used for) peasants. The fit of the costume, as well as
the use of metal buttons and aiglettes and the modish tall hat, are what makes
it middle class.

The bodice is red wool, and the inside of the collar is lined
with a double layer of white wool (scraps from a chemise). The whole thing is
lined in green denim (left over from last year’s corset). There are shaping
seams on either side of the front and back. The only piece of stiffening is
at the center back, to keep the standing collar standing in the back. The front
edges of the collar are as stiff as they are because of the amount of material
in the seam – the inner and outer wools, the denim lining, and the grosgrained
ribbon I used for decoration. That thick seam is sewn again 3/4″ inside from
the edge (from where I sewed down the other side of the ribbon), which creates
a ‘stiffening by quilting’ sort of effect that was popular in period. The ribbon
serves two purposes. Most obviously, it is decorative, but it is also there
to hide the back ends of the loop closures on the front of the doublet. The
doublet buttons up the front with alternating loops and buttons. A number of
people told me they thought that was a very nice touch, but it was actually
a born of desperation – the buttons were from one of those ‘jumbo tub of buttons’
assortments, and I only had about 2/3s as many as I needed. I think it turned
out rather nicely, though. One thing I will point out is that I started the
curve to the center point of the bodice two far back on the hips, which is what
causes the wrinkling at the waist. Ah, well. I’d never made a bodice with this
much of a point to it before, and I got so hung up on getting the right length
for the point that I made a mistake on something I know how to do! These things
happen.

The shoulder rolls were made as separate pieces, wrapped tightly
with yellowish soutache cord to create the sort of puffy effect, and the whip
stitched onto the shoulders of the bodice. The sleeves are made of the ochre
cotton. They are unlined. The top edge is finished with more of the orange gross
grained ribbon used on the bodice. The cuffs are finished with red wool, and
have an appliqued placket looking bit at the back seam that I keep meaning to
put buttons on. They are made from a single piece “pattern” for a bent sleeve.
(Actually, I put my left arm down on the fabric with my elbow at an angle, and
cut along the outer edge of it with my right hand. If this inspires a pretty
odd vision, that’s because it was a pretty odd posture. Then I cut the top curve
of the armscye, folded the thing in half, cut the other side of the sleeve,
and took a triangular piece out of the middle of the lower arm area. It doesn’t
sound quite like it should work out if you think about it, but it was late enough
that I had stopped thinking almost entirely and it all worked out. The sleeves
tie in with the points at the shoulder. There are ribbon loops inside of the
sleeve for the points to thread through.

This is the grey and silver costume that I made the week before
Bristol opened this year. (Apologies on the image quality – you can only expect
so much from a 50$ toy digital camera.) The costume itself is representative
of the particularly uppity segment of the Elizabethan middle class. It is made
of grey corduroy . If you look at the larger photos, you will see that the center
bodice pieces and alternating skirt pieces are cut on the bias and have silver
lame thread couched between the wales of the corduroy (every other wale for
the bodice pieces, and every 8th wale on the skirt pieces). There is also blue
velvet cording between all of the pieces of the bodice and the skirts. The hanging
sleeves are of blue velveteen, lined with silver windsor satin. The decoration
on the sleeves is made from blue satin ribbon with grey gimp on either side
of it. The doublet collar/center is edged in black fur, and lined in blue velveteen.
The forepart is also blue velveteen. The decoration on it is blue satin ribbon,
edged in a silver trim with small poofs of silver thread. The very bottom of
the forepart is done in silver twisted fringe. The hat is an escoffion, done
in the blue velveteen. it is decorated in the silver trim from the forepart,
and with some silver lace and blue sparklies on the flat back. The feathers
are antique burnt ostrich, with little spangles on the tips. They are very hard
to see in this photo.

The costume started with 8 yards of grey corduroy that I bought
from another costumer about two weeks before faire opened. I think he was a
little surprised when i wore the dress opening weekend. ;) There’s about 4 spools
of heavy silver lame thread in there – I used two threads together for each
line of couching so that it would show up better. It’s pretty spectacular in
sunlight.

The costume is officially upper middle class, and not lower
noble, for two reasons. The first is that I have sworn up and down that I would
never ever *ever* try to make a noble out of corduroy. (I know it existed, I
know it was obscenely expensive, but these days it generally just looks cheap.)
The second reason is that I have also sworn up and down that a noble gown cannot
be made in a week. Therefore, it is upper middle class. Trust me, it all works
out ok this way.

On a construction note, the bodice is made differently than
I normally make bodices. In order to get the bias cut panel in, I had to redraft
my bodice pattern to move the center seam a little more towards the center and
higher onto the shoulder. Essentially, I have redistributed the bustline curve
over two seams, instead of just one. I don’t recommend this at all. First off,
it’s kind of a pain. Second off, enough of the bodice is cut on the bias that
it does stretch and shift a bit. It’s probably not noticeable, but it really
annoys me.

This one is only semi historically accurate. The peril of doing
work for other people, especially on commission, is that you have to make some
concessions to their preferences and desires. In this case, the subject wasn’t
really sure he was comfortable wearing tights, and wanted “real pants”. C’est
la vie, n’est-ce pas? The doublet is documentable. The biggest glaring inaccuracy
with it is that the buttons down the front aren’t as close together as they
ought to be for the period. There are portrait and surviving examples of doublets
done with a different color at the shoulders than on the lower part of the front.
The smaller area of contrast at the back of the shoulders is an idea copied
from a women’s spanish surcoat shown in Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion.
The shoulder bits are quilted. (My poor little Brother machine dealt with this
much better than I had expected.) You cannot see this, because the cloak is
in the way, but the doublet actually uses a period pattern with a seam that
runs from the back of the armscye to a point on the waist right between the
center back and the side seam, on either side of the back. This seam and the
curve of the front edges were the primary means of contouring the doublet to
its wearer. All of the doublet/sleeves, the cape, the hat, and the front yoke/collar
and wrist bands of the shirt are lined.

This is supposed to be in a gold-ticked black upholstery
velvet, accented in green velvet and plain gold cord. The digital camera used
to take the picture seems to have felt it would look better in maroon and green.
Technology is a little wacky sometimes. The cape and pants are mostly black
denim. In period, they would likely have been wool, as cotton was prohibitively
expensive and the climate in england was rather chilly and damp, but in the
here and now, cotton is cheap and summer is hot. The cap is corduroy. The feather
is actually a small ostrich plume, with small bundles of peacock drabs sewn
to it’s spine. The ends of the feathers are covered with a gold filigree cone.