18 years in the life of a dress - a story in images

In 2002 I made this dress for an event in March. Our whole local group were making clothing inspired by images in the early 14th century manuscript Codex manesse, or Grosse Heidelberger Liederhandschrift.
It's made in green thin wool, and it has been used A LOT. You can read more about the dress here.

Here are photos of me and my husband, and lots of our friends. Back then I didn't have a digital camera, so I have very few photos from this time. More photos from this event can be seen here.

The trim at the sleeves is made with brass thread woven into it, but I never really liked how it looked, so I removed it in 2007, five years later

Here are some photos me in it without trim.

2007

2007

2008

When Måns and I became baron and baroness of Gotvik in 2016, I decided to bling it up a little again, and added a much nicer, vintage trim that I got from Passamaneria Valmar in Florence.

Here I am wearing it for a masked ball at Double wars in 2017:

Last week I decided to use it for Gotvik's second summer picnic this year:

And I noticed, that 18 years of dragging the hem on the ground had unsurprisingly caused some damage.

Since it was about a foot longer than to the floor anyway, there was enough fabric to cut off about 2,5 cm/an inch and re-hem it.

But, since the dress had been made when I wasn't as I am now at both this period of dress, and at constructing patterns, I decide to change some other stuff: I took it in 2,5 inches/ca 6-6,5 cm at the bust - yes, it should be loose, but this was enormous, it fit me better when I weighed 98 kilos - and I scooped out the armscyes more in the front to make it look more like preserved garments, and I also took it in a little at the shoulder, so that it fit my shoulder width, I have rather narrow shoulders, especially for someone my size.

So, this is how it looks now - still a loose fit, but better fitting.

I was inspired by this image from the Grosse Heidelberger Liederhandschrift for the photo.

As you see: green cotte, pink cloak, fillet with wavy edge, and a veil with trim along the edge. And a dog. I don't have a dog. But I have two cats, this is Esau, who doesn't want to be there.

And a few photos without the cloak.

It is still very wide.

Close up of the trim:

My new green wool 12th century gown has its own page now

The 12th century used to be one of my go to periods twenty years ago or so, but since than I haven't worn it much. However, having a baron and baroness wearing 12th century styles for hteir investiture inspired my to wear some of my old stuff, and then to make some new stuff. It also helped that I had found this gorgeous thin green wool fabric. The dress was finished a few weeks ago, but I also needed the under layers - and for it to be cool enough for me to want to put it on.

Yesterday was that day, so hubby and I went out to take photos.

Since I am on sick leave for exhaustion/burn-out I have plenty of time to sew, but very little energy to start projects - not to mention reading or writing, which is really, really hard. But given enough time some things actually get created, and even written about, which this is the proof of: A page for my new gown with some info on how I made it and lots of pretty pictures.