Have you seen the "Three Musketeers" and the "Four Musketeers" with
Michael
York, Richard Chamberlain, and Oliver Reed? Talk about costumes!!! They
are
amazing, and they have recently become available on DVD. Although again,
Raquel Welch's costumes were designed differently from all the rest, and
are
not authentic. But very pretty.
Gail Finke
This is the period in which I specialize and I have never seen such good
costuming in a film. Completely ignore everything Raquel Welch is wearing
and the rest are amazing. The Queen's costumes were taking almost line for
line from some of her portraits, and so were the King's. There are a
multitude of tavern and town scenes that I recognize from paintings, also.
The corsetry of this time is an unknown. The only existant corsetry between
1603 and 1650 is a bodice in the V&A with a boned lining, although I have
heard rumors of a corset tentively dated to 1635 having recently been found
within an English farmhouse wall. From extensive study of the visual
evidence, it's pretty clear that they wore some sort of foundation garment,
because while the dresses and necklines have a more natural, rounded look
than previously, they are still very smooth and supported. My own personal
theory is that some women discarded their corsets and went with boned
linings in their dresses, but most probably all of them didn't. Just look
at how many women still wore bras during the 1970's "braless" era. Again,
my theory from experimenting with the shape and boning placement for corsets
under these styles, is that it's something between the very flat fronted
Elizabethan styles, and the very rounded, off the shoulder style of the
1660's. The corsets I wear with my 1635 dresses are cut much like the
Elizabethan effigy corset, but with a higher back, higher waist, tabs cut in
a piece with the body like the 1660's design, and horizontal (actually
slightly diagonal) boning at the center front neckline. It seems to work
pretty well and gives me more of a rounded front shape than the
Elizabethans, without looking too late.
Disclaimer: most of the above are my opinions and theories. If anyone has
knowlege of existant garments that I don't, I'd love to know about it.
Melusine
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