Thanks for the lead. (The particular costuming project went in another direction, but the theoretical question is still fascinating.) As you note, the really problematic aspect for the bias cut is the lack of genealogy. (There's a similar problem for that handful of Spanish bias-plaid garments, but in that case I'm willing to put more weight on the careful depiction of how the pattern behaves with respect to the cloth. I still have reservations in that case on the genealogical side, but ...)
The woven-in-diagonals theory seems quite plausible to me from parallel evidence for lozenge patterns. One of the 13th c. garments at Burgos, Spain is made from a silk fabric woven in square checkerboard-style checks (i.e., alternating solid colors, not a gingham-style pattern) but set lozenge-wise with respect to the grain of the fabric. Heather On Oct 30, 2010, at 1:11 AM, Danielle Nunn-Weinberg wrote: > Hi Heather, > > I don't get on here much these days but this caught my eye because I was > pulling my hair out over it lately. I have seen, a couple of manuscript > images and I believe I might have at least one of them *somewhere* of weavers > actually weaving the diagonal stripes. But I will be damned if I can figure > out where I have seen them. I believe one was in a "book of trades" type > manuscript, one might have turned up in one of Shelly Nordtorp-Madson slides > that she showed us in class one day, and I'm sure one is one of my > manuscripts or manuscript related books but I haven't been able to track any > of them down yet. The problem with collecting those sorts of things is you > wind up with a lot of books. Now I'm not saying that those are proof either > way, but they open the door of possibility that it is fabric woven that way > rather worn bias-cut. Personally, I have trouble with the bias-cut garment > theory as well purely on the garment evolution issue - what did it come from, > and what! did it become afterwards? Just my two cents... If I ever do turn up the pictures, I will send them to you! > > Cheers, > Danielle > > At 11:47 PM 10/20/2010, you wrote: >> With the caveats that artistic representations aren't always intended to >> represent actual clothing construction, and that representations of clothing >> decoration are sometimes intended to convey symbolism rather than fabric >> structures, and that there are multiple ways to create any particular >> decorative effect in fabric ... >> >> What are people's thoughts on the garments depicted in the early 14th c. >> Manesse Codex that have diagonal striped designs? Woven as diagonal >> stripes? Print? Woven as straight-grain stripes and cut on the bias? >> Symbolic interpretation of armorial designs not intending to represent >> actual garments? Some other option? >> >> How is a given hypothesis affected by other stripe-like designs in the >> manuscript? (Primarily horizontal stripes, but also chevron designs.) >> >> Here's a link to an image showing a variety of these designs, just for >> reference. >> >> I'm contemplating the plausibility of the bias cut hypothesis, but I'm >> failing to convince myself, given that the reasoning that would support it >> would also conclude that the diagonal-stripe and horizontal-stripe garments >> in the manuscript represent two entirely different ways of cutting garments >> that are otherwise identical in depiction. >> >> Heather >> _______________________________________________ >> h-costume mailing list >> h-costume@mail.indra.com >> http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume > > _______________________________________________ > h-costume mailing list > h-costume@mail.indra.com > http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
