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Dear LJ brain trust,
What books, websites and dress diaries/blogs do you recommend to a beginner who is interested in creating historically accurate clothing for middle class people in Elizabethan England? I believe I'm correct in thinking that
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What I've recommended is under the cut. I've added and refined my earlier suggestions,
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Books
Arnold, Janet. Patterns of fashion. Costume & Fashion Press, 1987. Print.
Mikhaila, Ninya and Jane Malcolm-Davies. The Tudor Tailor. Costume & Fashion Press, 2006. Print.
Alcega, Juan de. Libro de geometría práctica y traça. -- Available partially on Google Books here. You can buy this one at AbeBooks UK. The price/shipping isn't too bad for a costuming book.
I know that Tudor Tailor is a controversial suggestion to some people, and I agree that the pattern diagrams are a little disappointing. But! The text introduction is great, and if you use the pattern shapes in conjunction with tailors' books like de Alcega's, then you can get clothes that fit with period pattern shapes. The bibliography and footnotes are also excellent. It is a great, reputable resource for someone who is new to 16th-century clothing. Beats the hell out of Winters & Savoy, OK?
I stayed away from recommending things like Moda a Firenze and Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd because they are SUPER expensive, and I feel that they shouldn't be purchased until you're at a point to make that investment. They're also hard to get through ILL, I've discovered. But if you've got a friend who has them and is willing to share . . .
Websites
- 16th Century Fabric Consumption by Susan Reed
- A Tour of 16th Century Costume
- Queen Elizabeth's Influence on Elizabethan Fashion
- Smock Pattern Generator -- Though I should point out that this is optimized for machine sewing -- the underarm gussets shouldn't be split in half -- and the pattern in Tudor Tailor is easy to size up.
- Pictures of Middle Class European Costume
- Check out the links in the Costume Books & Manuscripts section
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Places to look at pictures/portraits:
- Joris Hoefnagel, Fete at Bermondsey, 1569
- Lucas de Heere, London Gentlewomen and a Countrywoman by Lucas de Heere, c. 1570
I also suggest Googling for the names of Elizabethan artists as you come across them to find more images. The big miniature painter is Nicholas Hilliard, but the two mentioned above, Joris Hoefnagel and Lucas de Heere, are good choices too. But because they're both foreigners, you have to be sure you know that the subjects of their paintings are English and not some other country. Or, uh, plants. Hoefnagel did botanical illustrations, too. Wikipedia (noooo, not Wikipedia!) has a nice list of artists at the Tudor court to help find images. Unfortunately, most portraiture is of really, really rich people, so it might not be much help in putting together middle class clothing. But it can help with seamlines and stuff.
Anybody else have any suggestions? I'm sure I'm forgetting lots of things I should have in there! I am trying to stay away from modern sewing pattern suggestions, since those aren't actually as helpful as texts/websites if you're trying to do research yourself.
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Date: 2010-06-06 12:22 am (UTC)https://www.reconstructinghistory.com/rh208-elizabethan-commonwomens-outfit.php?s=&c=22&d=190&e=30&q=3&p=286&w=21
I wear this constantly. Complete historical notes are included. And it comes with a toll-free help line. =)
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Date: 2010-06-06 12:28 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2010-06-06 12:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-06 05:09 am (UTC)Web Gallery of Art is good for looking up artists and paintings, too, though probably not as comprehensive as Artcyclopedia.
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Date: 2010-06-06 02:51 am (UTC)However, it isn't meant to be scholarly. It was meant to show Renaissance Faire participants how to get the look.
*note: Janet Winter does not spell her name with an S. She was one of the first Laurels in the SCA, Mistress Janet of Breakstone. Great Lady, always happy to share her knowledge and a good joke.
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Date: 2010-06-06 05:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-06 09:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-06 03:59 am (UTC)I'll probably have some more specific questions as well, but I'll wait until I've looked through this info first because I may have more to add to the list after that.
Thanks!
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Date: 2010-06-06 05:06 am (UTC)ETA: Also, you should check out museum collections. The Victoria & Albert Museum has lots of 16th-century items in their collection, and a lot of it is online.
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Date: 2010-06-06 02:36 pm (UTC)All right, here are a couple questions. What did babies wear? I have a 6-month old (who will be 9 months when our faire happens) and am curious what I could make for her. I saw on one video where the lady had her baby in a fabric sling-type thing, but couldn't really see what the baby was wearing.
Also curious what social standing a seamstress/tailor would have had (since that is what I do). I had assumed that such a person would be "middle class", hence my original interest in that realm of clothing, and I'm not sure whether she would fall in the upper or lower realm of that. Perhaps it depends on who her clientele was?
...I have no idea how to Elizabethan-ise my husband's job. He's a web developer... hehe! But I expect he would wear the clothing appropriate to whatever my own social standing would be.
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Date: 2010-09-12 09:32 pm (UTC)Holbein -- child approximately 2
http://www.wga.hu/art/h/holbein/hans_y/1535h/05edward.jpg
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Date: 2010-06-06 05:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-06 05:39 am (UTC)But that's a general gripe of mine about most costuming books, even Patterns of Fashion. And I'm bitchy about things like original research, which, I've learned, is not always what people care about. ;)
I'm also totally flattered you put my website on that list. Yay! Someone finds it useful! :)
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Date: 2010-06-06 05:51 am (UTC)I have heard people say that TT isn't a good resource, because you can do all the same things with PoF and some brains. I . . . disagree. Pretty strongly. I think TT is a lot broader in scope and talks about things in the text intro that PoF doesn't. But I totally hear you about not doing original research and copying things. That can be difficult and frustrating, especially if you are doing original research and not copying.
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Date: 2010-06-06 06:07 am (UTC)So, while there's stuff in TT that *is* what's in PoF, there's also stuff in there that was developed by Ninya over the course of her career to streamline difficult and fussy bits of costumes, and/or redacting based on really super minimal amounts of info and which she will readily admit she basically invented. It's something that, if you're starting out on Eliz/Tudor costuming and you think you're really going to get into it, you want to comb it for the footnotes and bibliographical info because there's a lot of useful stuff that isn't in a diagram. But the stuff that is diagrammed is only going to get you so far. It is what it is.
*Caveat: This is basically what we all do, at the end of the day, obviously. We take the tiny piece of info we have and we try to make sense of it as best we can. But I think there's a big distinction between doing the legwork yourself and trying to formulate a working hypothesis on your own, versus just copying it out of a book because it's in print and somehow that makes it ResearchTM. And lest anyone think I'm picking on Ninya, I'm not. I've had people come up to me and announce with great enthusiasm that they made X thing EXACTLY LIKE MINE. It's actually pretty creepy.
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Date: 2010-06-06 06:36 am (UTC)As for French hoods -- :( That class would be one of the bad ways to use TT. It shouldn't be a bible. PoF shouldn't be a bible, either.
And copying your clothes is creepy. Even your clothes are really awesome. (I might be jealous of your white silk jacket with black trim. Maybe sad that I didn't think of making one before you did.)
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Date: 2010-06-06 06:47 am (UTC)That's right. I wore my cream Elizabethan jacket TO KENTWELL. Observe!
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Date: 2010-06-06 06:55 am (UTC)You wore it with jeans, you maniac! Obviously you should have held back with the butter churning -- you didn't know your own strength.
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Date: 2010-06-06 01:29 pm (UTC)no subject
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