1510-1530 German Wool Dress

My final entry for Queen Adelhait's Persona Challenge is this early 16th century dress in the German style.

 

I was primarily inspired by these gowns as painted by artists like Barthel Beham, Albrecht Durer, and the Cranachs. I wanted a center front closing dress out of wool and trimmed in velvet. I plan to add a gold brustfleck later on when I wear it to fancier events. 

Barthel Beham (1502 -1540) — Portrait of a Young Noblewoman

Bildnis der Barbara Schedlin, 1524 Albrecht Dürer

 

Detail of a painting by Lucas Cranach

 

My fabric is a lightweight worsted wool in a fantastic teal color. You can see this color in the above painting (also trimmed in black) so I knew the color was documentable. The velvet is a silk/cotton blend. The lining is natural colored linen and the interlining is linen canvas. All of the hand stitching was done with silk thread. 

The gown has a hidden lacing strip on the inside edges which you can see in the above photo. This enables me to get a much more supportive fit than just using hooks and eyes. I actually chose to completely omit any hooks and I just stitch the edges shut when I wear the dress. It only takes a moment and makes the front very smooth.

 

This gown has zero boning and is stiffened with an interlining of linen canvas and linen buckram. Its very comfortable and quickly molds to my shape. I used machine stitching for all of the inside structural seams and hand stitching for everything visible. All of the guards are sewn on by hand to make them lay nicely.

I used my basic body block pattern and lowered the neckline so that when I wear it with a brustfleck, it will show. When I wore this gown for the first time, I wore it with my linen partlet to fill in the low neckline. I also added a black wool gollar over the dress to keep warm. 

The skirt is sewn to the bodice after making rolled pleats. A roll pleat instead of a knife, box, or cartridge pleat will make the folds in the skirt hang all the way to the hem, which is what you see in the period images. Here you can see that there is a guard on the hem too.