Two fitted dresses from the 14th century

I finished my daughter Vendela's new green mid-14th century dress the day before yesterday. Today I made her dress up both in her old navy wool fitted dress (from 2010) and the new one and pose outdoors. The result can be seen here.

12th century headwear for men

A friend asked for tips on suitable headwear for men from the 12th century, so I did a little research -after all I have quite a collection of medieval images in my computer, and on my pinterest album for the 11th and 12th century. There is an overweight for women's costume, naturally, but enough med to come up with a conclusion regarding men's headwear, which appears to be of five main types:

1. The hood. Which hasn't developed the liripipe yet.

Fecamp psalter from Flanders. A peasant rakes down acorns to feed the swine. 

Note the embroidered decoration on his hood. 

Interesting is also his legwear, since he has boots, but no hose.

Another one from the same manuscript:

I actually use this one for teaching, but only to show the harrow, which is a medieval invention. 

He also lacks hose and his hood is checked with white edges as decoration.

In the Fecamp psalter you also see  the cucullus, a hooded closed cloak known since Roman times in Gallia. But that's not mainly headwear I guess.

2. The coif

While more commonly seen in the 13th and early 14th century the coif probably has its origins in the 12th century; first worn to protect the hair against a maille hood, but soon spreading to other social circles and circumstances. Again there are nice examples from the Fécamp Psalter.

As you see there are embroidered decorations on the coifs. Very nice.

A German manuscript of Gregorius' Moralia in Job. Also with some decor around the edges.

And here's a green one, also from Moralia in Job, but an English manuscript this time.

From Spain we also find a preserved example from the 12th century

3. The Phrygian cap. Known since Ancient times and very popular in the 11th and 12 th centuries.

Geoffrey Plantagenet, count of Anjou has the prettiest one:

Embroidered with a lion and everything!

But you find them in lots of manuscripts.

This is a lovely one from a French manuscript.

A French glass painting

And a few German ones:

This is from a lovely manuscript from Münich, from the very end of the 12th century.

And some English Phrygian caps

This one is from the late 11th century:

And you see a Phrygian cap among some round hats behind the ladies here in the Hunterian Psalter:

As you see sometimes you can see the curved shape of the cap and sometimes they just draw a triangle. This may represent different types of cap, but may also be a style of painting. or even the same type of cap made from different fabrics, where a stiff fabric won't fold over the way a thinner fabric does.

Sometimes it is hard to discern the Phrygian cap from the next type: the round cap. Realism wasn't always the primary goal for the illuminators.

4. Round caps

The Hunterian Psalter has more examples of round caps than the one shown above, like these:

The ones to the left look like proper hipster caps.

Just like the Phrygian caps (and coifs) the round caps could be decorated. 

The guy in the middle has an interesting cap. Chartres.

Fécamp Psalter again, of course:

The two-faced look may be hard to take after

Or turned up in this sassy way

5. Hats to protect against the sun, probably from straw.

The Fécamp psalter has some lovely hats that probably ar emade from straw, but sicne they are decorated, maybe with paint, you can't be certain.

Finally there is this type of hat, which was used to designate Jewishness in paintings. 

A new 1920s dress

Not really historical, at least not as the other costumes on this blog, but since I did post about the fabric yesterday I thought that I should show the finished dress. It's no treally a one hour dress, as a pattern from the 1920s which has been doing the rounds on the Internet lately claims, but maybe 2,5 hours. Probably because I zig-zag the edges and hem everything by hand.

Fabric

I have been really ill for over two weeks, it will be three on Sunday and I'm far from well yet, though I don't have a temperature anymore. The flu can take a very long time to get rid of when you already have bad health.

And it couldn't have come at a worse time: I missed the deadline for one of the big research funds, I missed The renaissance Societyof America's conference in Berlin where I was going to present a paper on Swedish sumptuary law in the Early Modern period, and I missed the most fun party of the year, my friend Caroline's Witches' party on Maundy Thursday.

I have also been too ill to do any sewing. Today, however, I felt well enough in the morning to dig out fabric for coming projects:

This is cotton and will be a 1920s dress, much like my Nadezhda Lamanova dress.

This rayon damask will be a gothic fitted dress for my daughter Vendela.

This raspbetty silk shantung will be an Italian 15th century gown for my daugther Maja. 

This is another rayon brocade, which is already shapes as a semicircular cloak. I'm not sure if I will keep it as a cloak or make something else from it. It is teal, but it was hard to get the colour right in the photo.

Then I went for a walk and after that I sat in the sun on the balcony for hours with some friends, so now I am very tired and will probably not cut anything today.

My husband's dark green outfit from c. 1300

I am right now suffering from secondary infections after I got the flu two weeks ago, so I spend most of my time sleeping or coughing up my lungs. Somehow I today foudn the energy to add another costume to this blog, mainly thanks to the fact that I had once written a presentation of this outfit in Swedish so that I could just translate the text and put in some photos.

You find information and images here, including photos of my draping of a coif pattern.

My new purple silk bliaut

So, I have not only finished my silk bliaut. All hand sewn, which gos faster than one usually thinks. What stops med from hand sewing all my costumes is that my wrists and hands wouldn't be able to cope, since I have arthritis. I also sometimes find it boring, there's enough on a gown that has to be hand sewn that I sometimes make the long stright seams on machine before felling them by hand.

But, back top the bliaut in question. Trying to use as much of the pretty saree borders made me think about period silks and contruction and come up with a theory about trim on 11th and 12th century garments. It's here - enjoy!

And that's our cat.

Cheating with a sari

I'm making another 12th century bliaut. I am even going to make it fitted at the waist, ignoring the fact that I'm way too fat for that style. From a period perspective I mean - I've seen lovely ladies larger than me looking stunning in bliauts. On the other hand, just being this fat is un-period ;) And surviving a hole where the duodenum connects to the stomach, which I did one year ago. So I'll just give up on any tries to be perfectly period here :)

Anyway, I have already tried out the the contested bliaut-with-a-waist-seam-theory (discussed in the link) once, and while it was very pretty and worked well I would have preferred a rectangular cut without waist seam and a skirt that widens with gores this time. Unfortunately saris don't come that wide, and since I'm going to use a purple silk sari I will make it with a waist seam.

The fancy part with lots of gold will somehow be used to make a border around the neckhole, but I haven't figured out how yet. For now I'm just starting with sewing the skirt together.

Unlike my green bliaut (linked to above) this one will not have straight panels for the skirt, but slightly gored pieces. Like this:

If anyone wonders why the skirt pieces are made with an upward curve it is to compensate for the fact that I can't curve the skirt at the hem if I want to keep the gold border.

I think it will be pretty. Or maybe handsome, because while the hanging sleeves aren't that common on men in illuminations this is pretty much a unisex style.

St George, looking saintly unkempt in hair and beard, but very fashionable otherwise.