A mid-16th century Swedish woman's outfit

I assume that it is only natural that since I have researched the costume in Scandinavia professionally since 2000 it would also affect my sewing habits. My PhD thesis dealt with clothing in medieval Sweden and Norway, and what I learned through that research has affected most of my medeival clothing ever since. 

  

After I had finished my PhD I worked for a while and 2009 I got funding for a project about clothing, gender and status in Sweden 1500-1830. This in turn led to a couple of 16th century costumes based on Swedish sources. And an article in Costume, the Journal of the Costume Society, on Swedish women's dress in the 16th century.

The gown and apron were made in 2013, the cap and gollar, short cape, were made in 2014.

The gown can be worn as it is or with either a fitted gown with puffed sleeves over it or a doublet with short puffed sleeves. Written sources show that a gollar could also be worn, like I do here

The apron is pleated linen. You find them in images from Sweden, Denmark and especially Northern Germany too. You basically pleat a linen apron when wet and let it dry and then sew the edges of the pleats to a waistband, in this case a hand woven ribbon.

The skirt of my gown is trimmed with three bands of silk. If it had been after 1583 this would have been a crime, since the wearing of silk "below the belt" was forbidden for non-noble women. 

The gollar is probably what was meant by the term "kraga", which is found in swedish 16th century documents and could be made of wool or silk. It is made from black wool and lined with red silk tabby.

The decoration is lucet cord from wool yarn and the inspiration was this German painting

My headwar is a starched linen cap with a likewise starched linen band wrapped around it and pinned ot the back, a style that can be seen in many German paintings. Unfortunately there are very few Swedish paintings from after 1525 and before the 1580s, especially of women, so I had to find inspiration elsewhere.