The Tudor Revolution

I am sure that anyone reading this blog has watched or read some historical fiction based on Henry VIII's reign. Remember the huge deal the Queen's Jewels were? When looking at portraits of Henry's many queens, you start to see the same pendant, or pearls with settings show up again and again. Bellow are images from Henry VIII's court. The crown jewels from this time period probably look unlike anything you have seen on showtime or in the movies. Necklace Grouping 1, Queens of England (Jane Seymour, Katherine Howard) Necklace Grouping 2, Queens of England (Jane Seymour and Katherine Parr) I am pairing up more portraits of Queens and their jewels, I have at least 2 other pieces i am tracing. Keep checking back.

At chocolate revel last year i saw sever very well made, and worn, loose gowns. It is my understanding that these gowns started as surcotes in Spain. As Spanish influence grew in the 16th century their popularity spread. In England, they started as an informal dress you might wear at home or after court functions were done for the day. They also grew in popularity with those who were older and shying away from fashions which were growing more ridged and complicated. Another demographic this gowns were especially popular with were pregnant women. Some women would lace kirtles looser and adujest placards over their belly, others especially heading into the mid 1540's and later, might wear one of these dresses. Queen Katharine Parr from the National Portrait Gallery, London, UK. I have a loose gown that I use at camping events as a glorifieid coat to stay warm. Now I have been inspired to create a new one from scratch and the proper under gowns. I did a little research and deci...

So now that I have had some distance from my work with the Tudor Project, I want to fairly analyze my work on the Anne Boleyn  portrait reproduction. The Research I wish I'd had 6 more months to do research. In the months since our project completed more research on early Tudor garments has been published by the Tudor Tailor workshop in England. In addition to their new book, The Queen's Servants , I have found illuminations depicting French and Flemish court ladies in full length.  It is my belief that Anne would not have been wearing a hoop skirt as I did last fall. According to the Tudor Tailor shop hoops are not worn in England until the 1540's, putting them well out of what Anne was likely to be wearing. Incase you need further help to visualize the difference, take a glance at these two portraits of Princess Elizabeth. The portrait on the left is from a mural at Hampton Court. On the right there is a portrait which was painted later for King Edward VI,...

Have you ever tried food from back in the 16th century? There are lots of manuscripts and cook books that have survived from this time period (relative to earlier periods). Hampton Court, the center of Henry VIII's court, today has period cooking demonstrations about once a month. Many of us in the States can't go and watch these demonstrations, but we can watch the videos posted by Royal Historic Places. I plan to try their recipe for a "Tarte owte of Lent." It seems to be a savory cheese pie made of things you are not allowed to eat, in the 16th century, during Lent. http://www.hrp.org.uk/HamptonCourtPalace/stories/thetudorkitchens/Tudorcook-alongvideos/TarteowteofLent Please check them out, buy tickets for a demo, or just download pdf's of their period recipes for free! You can also follow them on Facebook and Youtube for more updates and videos. Tudorcookery.com

Sixteenth century clothing has a multitude of closures. Sometimes garments were pinned in place such as ruffs or placards. Men would tie their hose to doublets to keep them up. Kirtles and doublets could be laced closed. But today we are discussing closures commonly used on doublets and jerkins, the thread covered button. Boy with a Greyhound by Paolo Veronese, 1570's. Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York  There is documentation in, Janet Arnold's Pattern of Fashion 3, that these buttons could also be placed on garments as purely decorative pieces. A loose gown in Nurnberg is held closed by a series of these buttons with loops, but other buttons appear to have been added among the embroidery to create impact and flare. Italian Camica (called "Blouse") Detail, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York We know from pieces in our modern museums that many men across Europe used thread covered buttons as a relatively inexpensive way to close there outer g...

I am thoroughly addicted to a new forum for research. Have any of you heard of the website Pintrest? Pintrest.com is an online pin board that lets you save images and describe them in your own words. You can browse other people's images and boards or save images from any where on the web. My favorite part of using this is that all of these images are basically saved to a cloud network. If my computer crashes, none of my images saved to pintrest will  be lost. The only issue I have found is that some of these images have been too small to  be "pinned" or that the "pinning" tool has had problems transferring them over. Its not a regular problem, but it does happen. I started using this so much that I have create a second sister account just for 16th century research. I encourage you to follow my pintrest boards and research I am in the process of writing up at: http://pinterest.com/ladyisabelle/