Glam Destruction

When I visited the Louvre museum in September, I jotted down the name of some paintings and artists that were formerly unknown to me. The Louvre is huge, so I only took note of those paintings that elicited a curiosity in me, or tickled my fancy.

One such is L'ange guardien, by Henri Decaisne.

There are two versions of the painting, and I like this one better. It was painted in 1835-36. From what little information seems to be out there about Decaisne, he was an historical and portrait painter.
Now, upon examining the painting, it is clear that the mother is not wearing a corset. Her outfit certainly doesn't strike us as Victorian. Must be one of his historical interpretations. Okay, I can deal with that, let's do some research.

I was able to gather that the outfit depicted is most likely Italian, originally from around the area of Naples. I could possibly be wrong, I'm basing that information from the very particular headdress that she is wearing. All bits and pieces of information - which remains scattered, thin, elusive, and haven't brought up a name for the headdress yet - point in the general direction of being worn by Italian women.

The next clue is brought by the chemise, or rather, camicia. The sleeves that go all the way to the wrist, and their fullness definitely rules out being originally from the 19th century. Let's roll back in time until we find what period it comes from. 18th century didn't have such long sleeves, they stopped at about elbow length. 17th century, much like that of the 18th century in the second half. Early 17th century seems to be a fit. So is 16th century.

Next up, her bodice. We can clearly see the curves of her form in it, and the fabric slightly rippling under her breasts. It's not boned. It confirms the theory of 16th-early 17th century. During the 16th century, stiffened bodices were just starting to emerge and become fashionable and would have been worn most likely only by the gentry.

It is also difficult to accurately research peasants, because there is so little remaining evidence pertaining to their everyday lives in comparison to what we still have from the higher classes. And generally speaking, high class clothing is much more impressive and interesting than that of peasants.

From this, I'm fairly confident that we can agree on say mid-late 16th century. Suits me.

Determining the layers that she is wearing and their materials is straight-forward.

Camicia: white linen

Bodice: natural linen lining, red wool georgette outer, edging in black silk ribbon

Underskirt: black linen

Overskirt: ochre silk-wool gabardine

Belt: same black linen as the underskirt

These are quite nice fabrics, and brightly coloured. She could be from the lower-middle class. Maybe these are her festive clothes? In any case, the bright colours are an indication that they are nicer fabrics than just plain ol' linen. Animal fibres dye more brightly and retain colour better than vegetal fibres. It makes sense that her bodice would be a thin wool. And for the over skirt, it looks like a nice thick fabric.

I used my 17th century cartridge pleated skirt (see my post from December 8) for the underskirt. Time period wise, it's still mostly correct, and it's an underskirt, so mostly not visible unless I hike the overskirt.

Then I decided to make the belt. I finished it in Februrary, and it had been sitting, dejected, on a shelf since then.

A picture during construction. At this point, I've finished the rolled hem on both sides, picked out all the crosswise threads from one end, and tied the remaining lengthwise threads into little tassels to create a fringe.

After that, still in February, I sewed up the side seams on the ochre skirt - leaving a 10 cm opening on each side, as I was planning on having a double-tie fastening system - and hemmed it. Then it sat dejected on a chair until a week and a half ago, when a violent rage came over me like a storm of bundled up, frustrated energy that needed to be released. And so I pleated the waistband - I used rolled pleats, because I decided that I'd never used them before, and I already have a skirt with cartridge pleats, and two with knife pleats - until it was the required half width of my waist on both the front and back panels. I used twill tape on the back panel to secure the pleats and extend into ties. Along the front panel I used a silk ribbon - that I had bought in Paris in September because I liked it, and never really intended to use it for this purpose, but which happened to match my fabric perfectly.

Pleats ready to be sewn down. I left the turned down edge raw on the inside of the skirt. I don't think it will ravel too much, no worries to be made over this.

As soon as the skirt was finished, I decided to start on the camicia. As I had only ever made an 18th century chemise and my only other references to under garments are for the medieval period - since all my books are in a box in my parents' basement while I'm in Germany - I had to do some looking around. I came across this website here that details quite well how to make a Venetian camicia from A to Z. I looked at the diagrams and briefly read through her notes. They were helpful, though I didn't feel like reading every single thing on the page, as I only needed a few key pieces of information. Such as the size of the underarm gussets - which are quite large at 9" - as well as the width of the sleeves and some clues on the construction process.

Working with only two metres of fabric, I couldn't include the two extra side panels, which isn't a problem anyhow, the camicia is already quite full.

On Friday (Apr 24), I took the preliminary pattern I had drafted for the bodice back in February and made a few changes. I elongated the front wait into a point, and I moved the shoulder strap seams. Then I cut out one layer from the natural linen, basted them together and tried it on. For a first try, it was almost a perfect fit. I raise the back waist to reduce the puckering and fiddled with the front points, and then I cut a second front to use as interlining. Then I sewed the entire thing together, along with a strip of twill tape at waist level to prevent stretching and to give more stability to the bodice. I cut out the bodice in my outer fabric, sewed it to the lining, and put more twill tape into the front edges. Like this:

Then I turned it right-side out, and started to apply the black ribbon edging.

It was tedious to sew this part on, but really satisfying once it was done. Also bound the armhole with the ribbon. And then onto the eyelets. According to the period and the painting, it is spiraled lace, which means that at the top and bottom there are two eyelets level with each other, but in between they are all offset by an equal amount. My eyelets look fine right now, but I might have to redo them in the future. I should also stabilize them with a small metal washer on the inside.

Then I got to dress up! Even though it was 2 in the morning. From this point on I have mostly really lame cellphone-mirror-selfies, you know the type. Warning has been given.

Sideview, I'm quite happy with it.

Then when I tried to take it off I realized that I was stuck. Couldn't get the lace back out of the eyelets - until I had the idea to use a large darning needle and gently stretch a few eyelets.

Once freed, I put on the camicia and jumped back into the bodice.

And into the underskirt.

And into the overskirt.

And finally came the belt.

I'm definitely proud of myself for sewing the whole thing by hand, though I realized how much I miss my Precious. I never claimed to be fully sane in the first place, and I think I've left some of that somewhere during the past week. (Sewing till 2-3 am almost everyday for a week and a half almost nonstop can't be healthy, can it?)

I already knew that I'm not incredibly fast at hand sewing, and the sheer amount of time it took me to complete these pieces confirms that fact.

Nonetheless, now I have a spiffy outfit to wear whenever I feel like it's the 1500s.

At first, I bought the piece of linen that I used for this skirt thinking that I would make a surcoat, a cotehardie or something in the like. Then, I decided that I really missed my green linen 18th century petticoat. I was tempted to recreate it, then I thought: "No! Foolish you, Audrey, you don't need another 18th century petticoat! Make something else, expand your knowledge!" And thus, listening to the loud voice in my head, I decided to recreate a mid-17th century skirt.

First step in the endeavour: gathering relevant information.

For example, this outfit. When looking at the ensemble closely, you can tell that the front of the skirt is left straight, while the sides and back are gathered into cartridge pleats. The very top of the pleats are bound by a strip of fabric that is also used to tie the skirt at the back.

Since I have plain black linen, and that the only interesting details are the pleat at the waist, it is very straightforward to make. I measured from my waist to the floor for the length, and added 2 1/2 inches. 1/2 inch at the bottom for the hem, and 2 inches at the top to be folded over at the waist and offer support to help the pleats stand up.

Now that we know what the skirt needs to look like, and how long the fabric needs to be, it's quite easy to proceed. I used the full width of my fabric, and cut two rectangles of the required length. I joined the selvedges together, and since I kept them intact, no need to finish those edges! Hurray.

Then I did a double fold at the bottom, and hemmed my skirt. It took me a few days, because I was sewing at a very leisurely pace, and because this is done entirely by hand, for a lack of a sewing machine.

Next step, fold the top edge down by 2 inches. Remember the extra that we added at the beginning? Yes, that's where it goes. The skirt should now be the exact length that we wanted, in this case, waist to floor. Perfect.

I cut a slit in the center back, about 20 cm long, and bound it with a 1 inch wide placket.

Now to the pleats! From looking at the image above, I would say that the pleats are probably 2-3 inches long. I decided to make mine 2 1/4 inches, just a little longuer than the extra fabric on the inside. I left 5 inches at centre front free and flat, and marked it with pins. There are going to be three rows of stitches holding the pleats in place, the first one 1/4 inch from the top, and the subsequent will be an inch apart from one another.

I started poking my needle through the fabric, 1/4 inch from the folded edge, at 1 cm intervals. (Okay, okay, I know, I keep switching between inches and cm... Sorry. I'll blame it on my Canadian-ness, where we use the metric system in school, and the imperial system at home...) I got bored quickly of this method, it was slow, and holding my measuring tape up to the fabric was starting to get annoying. Had I brought some smart marking device, like my tailor's pen, I would have used that. Unfortunately, my bare-minimum-survival-sewing kit only has a small chunk or rather non-too-sharp wax chalk. I had a brilliant idea though! I created a paper template. And used it. It was glorious.

It's a very simple thing indeed! I took a piece of paper, marked a line 1/4 inch from the edge, and another an inch lower, and cut the paper 1/4 inch after that second line. Result, a piece of paper that is 1 1/2 inch wide. Then I marked the edges at a 1 cm interval, and cut little channels based on those marks. All I had to do after? Paper to the folded edge of fabric and one over, one under, one over, one under. Then do the same on the bottom row. Remove paper from first line, fold over second time, repeat the over-under sequence to create third row of stitches. Rinse and repeat until the top edge is pleated completely on both sides.

This is the picture of the first side pleated. It's incredible how much fabric can be gathered up in these pleats. But this is definitely not the finish width... I had to release the pleats on a few inches. Then I tied the threads in the back.

After the correct waist measurement was attained, it was time to bind the top of the pleats. I took a long-ish strip of linen, folded one edge over, attached it to the front of the pleats and along the flat edge at centre front. Then folded the other edge under, and whip-stitched it to the inside of the skirt. I finished the ties, and now my skirt is ready to wear!!