Pondering

[msmcknittington]

Friends who have made 16th-century hanging gowns, I have questions.

I have these five yards or so of burgundy cotton velveteen, and I think it wants to be a hanging gown/loose gown. It will be a loose gown. I need an Elizabethan overcoat, and I think this will be a good, easy project. A get well project, if you will.

Has anyone used any of the patterns out of Patterns of Fashion? Looking at those, it looks like all the loose gowns are just widths of fabric pleated to an internal yoke, with armscyes and necks cut as required. The Sir Francis Verney gown just has ribbons as stay tapes, right? I'm thinking about basing it on one of the young girls' gowns, as the length on those are right for me, if not the bust. The Sir Francis Verney gown is 60-inches long at the back, and as I am 62-inches tall and narrow-shouldered, that's not going to work. Besides, I loveloveLOVE the round sleeves on the girl's gown on page 122 -- the one of cut velvet.

What I'm wondering is if there's any precedence for a separate shoulder yoke -- external, like a man's shirt -- with the body/skirts of the gown gathered/cartridge pleated to it. I seem to remember someone doing that in a dress diary, but hell if I can find it now.

So, internet-friends, have any resources or advice? Is it really as simple as cutting the right length or fabric and then pleating it to a yoke? What did you use for lining? Do I need a lining? Attached at the hem or free?

_{Y HELO THAR, help vampirism!}

If this doesn't work out, I'm going to make a fitted English gown with a full skirt.

Comments

[ciorstan.livejournal.com]

I know of one extant illustration of a ropa with a visible back yoke outside of Hunnisett's examples in Elizabeth R and her costuming book, and that is discussed here:

http://ciorstansdress.livejournal.com/8443.html

(Yes, I have a dress diary, and yes, I hardly ever use it-- my bad)

Otherwise, there seem to be two types of ropas in Arnold that are differentiated by sleeve/front opening. The ropas meant to close up from hem to the neck have a standard collar and sleeve tabs that are worked as one element. This means that the sleeve head is essentially a one-piece epaulet rather than a bunch of tabs folded over and let stick out on their own. The sleeves are either stitched into the armseye or tied securely in as a unit.

The ropas with no front and no front collar treatment are all tabbed on the shoulder. Most of them don't have tabs that go all the way around the armseye epaulet-wise like the other style.

The sole ropa that doesn't fall into these guidelines is the ropa in the matched set on pages 110 - 112. Now that I've had time to study all the portraits in Moda a Firenze and a couple of others elsewhere, it looks remarkably like the general style of clothing favored by Joanna of Austria as Duchess of Florence. So that leads me to believe that those two garments are heavily Habsburg-influenced... after all, there is at least one cousin of Joanna across Europe (I'm thinking of Catherine of Austria-Queen of Portugal, here http://ladysarafina.home.att.net/cathofaus.JPG)

The problem with wearing the Austrian ropa is the hilarious hairstyle. Leia Organa much?

[ciorstan.livejournal.com]

Also, yes, I have a 25 year old apple-green watered taffeta ropa with a back yoke, and the cutting plan was taken from Winters & Savoy (::chokes up a hairball::). There wasn't a better source for the 16th century back then other than Norris, which could not be had for love or money anywhere.

http://ciorstan.livejournal.com/263116.html

It is not lined, and I think it would be a better garment if it were. And even though I've only worn it, like, six times since I made it, it would have a longer wearing-life if I'd lined it.

*sigh*

At any rate, the ones I have in various stages of incompletion are all done with the pleat-it-first-and-cut-out-a-shirt-back method, which I think is the more common and non-Italian way to do it. Moreover, I'm suspicious that the one Italian ropa with the back yoke is SHORT.