On Fri, 23 Jan 2009, Zuzana Kraemerova wrote:
Hi, I am planning to make a silk dress inspired by this picture: http://www.sca.org.au/st_florians/university/library/articles-howtos/heraldry/HeraldicFrocksS_files/image042.jpg But I cannot remember what the actual source for this picture is (if there is one). I mean, is it a redrawing from a certain manuscript? Do you think such dress is historically accurate? If yes, I would really like to know what do you think about it's fastening. There's no visible fastening at the front and I guess a side-lacing would not be very frequent at that time, not to say about back lacing. How would you fasten this dress? I would say with fron spiral lacing, but that would really distort the pattern... Hooks and eyes might be a solution, but again, I'm not sure if they would be right for this period and dress. One other thing - the tippets seem to be a separate garment, though I believe Robin Netherton's theory of them being a part of the gown, but on this particular picture it wouldn't make sense. The undergown would have to be mi-parti as well to exactly match the outer dress colours and pattern. I think medieval dresses werent THAT sophisticated. If you think the dress is totally inaccurate, just a creation of someone's mind, I'll go for one of the Luttrell Psalter dresses: http://www.forest.gen.nz/Medieval/articles/surcotes/luttrell.jpg These are cotes and surcotes, so no problem with lacing there. But I really like the first picure...so i would prefer it if it were worth it. Thanks for help, Zuzana
I'll let Robin speak to the matters of the Gothic Fitted Dress, heraldic dress and also of tippets. :-)
IIRC that's one of the color plates from Mary G. Houston's book on 13th-15th c. costume. The one plus to that book is that she lists her sources at least some of the time so one can go investigate the originals. I have a copy, so I could check and see whether there's a citation for that one or if it's something she made up. She may have based the drawing on an actual illumination but I don't *think* it's taken completely from a real source. As I mentioned, I can check when I get home.
Jen _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
