While most of 16th century Italy loved to dress in bold colors, there were some groups of people who wore the ancestor of our little black dress. Frequently this dress was prescribed based on social customs and laws in the different cities over time. My primary inspiration for this dress was focused on Roman women in the later 16th century. The history I found while making this dress deserves its own video, so today we are going to focus on how I made this 16th century little black dress called a sottona.
This Week's vlog is the follow up to my Viking Age Tunic dress which I posted last week. When discussing the clothing of Birka and other Norse cultures, a woolen dress is an iconic look which is functional while tending a fire or many other activities. My apron dress is inspired by the finds out of Birka. The wool I used was a light weight suiting with a 2:2 twill weave. The long seams of this dress were finished with a machine for speed, and all of the seam finishings were hand sewn. I used a woolen finishing technique I learned about while flipping through Woven into the Earth by Else Ostergard. The technique involves using wool yarn and a couching stich of sorts to encase the raw edges of the wool. The end result is a low profile and durable seam around the neck and hem of my apron dress. I love that all of the hand sewn elements of this dress start to create a decorative finish on the outside of the dress and the only extra embellishment I added was a herringbone stitch over
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