A green 16th century velvet Venetian gown

 Outdoors on the balcony

And indoors

The outdoor photos are of course the ones that reflect the colour best.

This gown is based on a fantastic fresco by Giovanni Antonio Fasolo, from c. 1560-65:

I love green, and since I have white cinquefoils (five petaled flowers) on green in my heraldic arms (for the SCA) I tend to be drawn to anything with white flowers. Especially on green. 

And I had two large cotton velvet curtains form a charity shop to make the dress from.

The fresco isn't detailed enough to show how the flowers were made. It appears to be the same fabric as the gown, just with added decoration; so I think we can exclude woven pattern. That leaves embroidery/applique, and cut out patterns. Both are known techniques from the period, but I have decided to go for the cut out patterns, which is very common in portraits.

I used a cookie cutter and a pencil to mark the general pattern of the flowers

And then I cut out petals more or less freehand. The white fabric which I am hand sewing the edges of the cut out petals is white silk, taht is the lining of the sleeves.

Progress picture.

After finishing the sleeves I also cut slits at teh top of the sleeve head and pulled a tube of white linen fabric through the, creating, puffs, and again handsewing the edges of the cuts in the velvet to the lining, through the linen.

The skirt is lined with grey cotton sateen from thrifted bed sheets. I don't always line my skirts, but there is something about cotton velvet that makes me want to have a lining. It also gives a little more body to the skirt.

When I make costumes with modern tools and techniques, and this gown is definetely one of those because I am not going to completely hand sew a gown made from second hand velvet curtains, I have a few tricks that I use. One is to sew the lining and skirt together at the hem and then let them hang for a week, to ensure that any stretching is done before I start pleating the skirt to the bodice.

So here you can se 3,5 metres of skirt hanging. The lining is a thrifted cotton sateen bed sheet.

The satten and the cotton velvet did stretch differently, so I had to cut off some excess cotton satin before zig-zaging the fabrics togetherat the top. And hand finishing the split in front of course.

Then I pleated the skirt and was ready to attach the body. A Venetian gown has a point both in front and back, and the best way to make those end up on the right level is to pin the pleats down the where the point ends and to sew the the points of the  bodice by hand from the right side.

I ended up hand sewing the whole bodice to the skirt from the right side, it just seemed easier. All that velvet was heavy to handle, so I put it on the ironing board, and sewed for short periods, then taking a rest.

The bodice is lined with two layers of sturdy cotton sateen, another charity shop find, and has two bones along each front side, and two going diagonally from the bodice front toward the armpit. And two in the centre back, to keep the point in place.

You can see the back bones in the photos where the gown is draped over the ironing board. 

The placing of the front bones can be seen in this photo, where you also see the lacing rings that I use:

 We have no evidence that Italians used boning in their bodices in the 16th century. The evidence suggest that they used buckram, felt, and pad stitching to create a smooth line, not boning. But I have 36 H boobs and need a little more support. And it's not like the rest of this project is perfectly period. Especially not the materials.

The sleeves have cuffs made from two vintage linen bobbin laces joined together by hand, and then tacked to the cuffs.

The partlet is drawn theard work, not by me, because it's from another thrfted piece: a linen table cloth. I made it for my striped green Venetian, but I need to unpick some seams and take it in, because it is too big.

Ths shift I am wearing under it is linen with another vintage linen bobbin lace, and was made for my first green Venetian, from 2019.

So, of all the things worn in these photos the only new materials are the sewing thread, the boning, the linen in the shift, the lacing rings (a gift from 2019), and the ribbon used for lacing. I like making things from thrifted materials.