Italian Renaissance Costume Challenge 4 Wrap Up

Yesterday was the closing date for Anabelle Wake's Italian Renaissance Costume Challenge 5. Part of me wishes I had signed up, but the practical side of my mind reassures me that life is a bit too busy to join the fun and games this year. Maybe next year. I also realized that I failed to share my final product of the IRCC4 here. I am honored to say I won 2nd place in the competition and received the designation "Best Handwork." My progress reports have been archived by Anabelle and the link below will take you to the archive.

IRCC4 Maridith Feher 

What I learned!

My goal in making this dress was to create a dress patterned off of Elenora di Toledo's funeral dress as described by Janet Arnold in Patterns of Fashion. As a result I did lots of research into women's clothing from 1540-1560. One of the biggest changes this research yielded what the average silk fabric used in Europe usually around 20-22inches wide. I cut the dress with this in mind and used more period piecing techniques that I had previously. The result was a dress that was fitting closer to the way Bronzino's paintings depict, and I used 3 yards less fabric than I had originally planned. I even added a modest train to the gown because of the fabric surplus. I highly recommend all interested parties to examine the side gores used in the gown's skirt. I believe this is where I was able to save the most fabric. 

Another interesting detail I found while researching was the idea of padding my hem with felt. Because of the extremely light weight fabric I chose to avoid heat issues, this technique became a must. I have to say that I love my padded hems for a few reasons. 

1. My hems stand out from my body. With light weight dresses it can be hard to get the volume depicted in art from the period. Padding your hems with felt will help give that fullness without more bulky underskirts.
2. Skirts hang straight. Particularly with light weight silk, fabric has a tendency to crumple. These padded hems add just a bit of weight to help light weight fabrics hang straight. It has also reinforced my train so it does not deteriorate quickly . 
3. Skirt hooks. I have started using skirt hooks to keep my trains up (more posts on skirt hooks to follow). The padding from the felt give my skirt hooks another layer to grip without damaging the delicate gold silk. 

Slashing was another technique I wanted to experiment with  for this outfit. The first thing i learned is there is more than one way to get the cuts you want. I originally my research made me want to try using chisels and a mallet to make my cuts. I quickly learned not all chisels are sharp enough to cut even delicate silk. My cut work was achieved using a mixture of rotary cutters and craft knives with lots of chalk marks on the wrong side of the fabric.

What would I do differently?

When I initially finished the dress for the competition last year my shoulder straps were about 1 inch too long for me. This created the wrinkles seen in the images for the competition. This problem has since been adjusted, but some weight redistribution can still cause wrinkles from time to time. These wrinkles may well be the nature of having a gown made of such light weight summer fabrics.Wearing the dress with a pair of bodies does smooth out most of the wrinkles. I did not put boning into the bodice it self because it was not detailed in the construction of the funeral dress. The funeral dress was worn with a velvet pair of bodies which may have smoothed the natural lines of the body.

After I completed the gold couching on my partlet I learned about starching before stitching. The silk chiffon I couched all of the handmade gold braid to was a monster to work with. If I had starched the chiffon first it would have held its shape better while I stitched away. Lesson for next time. Many of the paintings by Bronzino show a textured, sheer layer underneath the gold lattice patterns. It makes since to have fabric under the gold lattice because the it protects the gold threads from the bodies' oils and acids. Wearing the metal threads against the skin is also very uncomfortable. The wire filaments will scratch your skin throughout the day. 

While gold braiding will seamlessly disappear under the neckline of the bodice, 9mm fresh water pearls will not. I removed several fresh water pearls from lower intersections because they created bumps under the bodice.
After I finished this project I purchased a better bead reamer. Natural pearls are not always drilled with uniform holes. This is one reason they can be harder to work with. A bead reamer allows you to make the holes more uniform. In some cases it can take longer, but I feel having the natural glow of these pearls is worth the extra effort.

Sleeve attachments. This is mostly a matter of personal preference. My cut work (slashed) sleeves attach to the gown using loops of ribbon that go around the jewels on my shoulder straps. Now that I have worn this style quite a bit I prefer the look of small bows around those jewels, even if I have to get assistance to put on the sleeves. When i eventually replace the loops for laces, I plan to make aglets from brass sheeting to dress up the edges of the laces.

Conclusions...

Enjoying my dress with some costume jewelry sourced from Charming Charlie's.
Linen partlet was hand sewing on the way to Pennsic in 2013. 

I love this dress. In the last 6 months it has become a "go to" outfit for my reenacting wardrobe. The side-back lacing can be done on my own because of the spiral lacing, but almost anyone can assist with me getting dressed. The most complex part of wearing this ensemble is creating the correct hair styles. Usually I wear this with basic hair taping, but more complicated styles have been fun to experiment with. Because of the long lived popularity of this cut in Florence there is an abundance of accessories to create different looks for the same dress. This was also a time of prosperity in Tuscany, which makes finding source material on the style's variations easy.

I am extremely thankful to Melissa Jones for the late night pep talks and Anabelle Wake for giving me a playground to create in when my personal life did not allow me to create in the way I was used to.