#medieval sewing

[milkywayan]

Late 15th Century Nun

I have teased this for a while, that I am planning to make a medieval nun habit, and well... here we are! I have started! (edit: here is a disclaimer in case you have any strong feelings regarding this project)

I have done a lot of research, and am still doing more, as I want this to be nice and as accurate as possible. Nun habits are different from order to order and from region to region. And of course depends on the nuns rank. Currently I am trying to base mine of German nuns, as I have most sources for that, but ideally I would like to portray a nun specifically from the 'Nonneseter kloster i Oslo', as I live and do reenactment mostly in Skandinavia and for this cloister we have some sources on! A big source is also this book:

which is amazing! If you can read German and are interested in medieval nuns, I can 100% recommend it, it is well written, well researched and gives such amazing insights into the life of nuns it is great.

The habits are either white, grey, brown or black, and consist of a base dress, sometimes a scapular, sometimes an overdress or a cloak. And of course veils in different styles, in some regions also a nun crown.

I am still researching but currently my plan is a white base dress, and then build onto it by also making a black scapular, a black overcoat and a black veil (on top of the white). I already got a thin nice white wool for the veil!

And I also recently bought a few meters of a nice, thin, white wool for the base dress

it is very nice and soft.

I reused the pattern of my 15th century gown for the top part, as I know it fits and has the shape I'm going for, and also the sleeves are fitted. The habits have usually quite wide sleeves so I made them wide too

these are the cut pieces. You see that both the front and back are just straight, this is because they will get gores. One in the front, one on the back, and then some in the side seams. As of my plan now, they will start in the waist, so the skirt part will be full, while the top remains as it is now, which is loose, but fitted.

I then proceeded to sew the shoulders, sode seams until the waist, and the sleeves

it looks a bit boring, but hey that is nuns for you! Dont mind the stretching, I was wearing a shirt underneath and that messed the fit up a bit.

Next step now is to see how large the gores have to be, to cut them out and sew them in.

I am going to prepare that step, but not sew it yet, as I prepared it for a medieval weekend I am going to in July. So soon I will sit in Sweden at a castle with good friends and show some medieval sewing to tourists, huzzah!

I have not been sewing for a few months due to stress, so it is nice to be back and have a project. also buying all that black wool will bankrupt me I already see it!

Also, here are a few more medieval nuns for you!

[devynconstance]

Finally started handstitching the eyelets for my medieval dress. And after marking the placement for everything I very quickly realized that I had underestimated just how many eyelets I needed to do. My original estimation was a little over 20 handstitched eyelets. The official count is 56 (and it might go up to 60 depending on how it goes). This is mostly because the eyelets need to be a lot closer than what I was eyeballing so here we are. On the plus side it's actually really fun to do and they're coming out better than I could have hoped for so I guess I don't mind the extra work lol.

[the-merry-otter]

Hey you have every right to kill me for asking this, but what is it about hose that makes them so difficult to get right? Like I’m genuinely interested in this akjdjs

To make a long story short, you’re basically trying to make skintight socks with non stretch fabric. Due to the way a leg Works, this means they then have to be veeeery carefully tailored so that they have the least amount of wrinkles possible, and also so that you can still get them on and off. The ankle is the trickiest area for this.

To help with this, you cut the fabric on the bias (diagonal) so that it has a liiiittle bit of stretch. Due to this, The Perfect Fit ™ is technically achievable, it just takes (for me at least) hours of patterning, and also occasionally sewing the damn thing while it’s still on my leg xD

The good news is, now that I have the pattern, any future hose will be vastly easier to make, as any tailoring will just be the final tweaks as I get everything in the right spot!

[beanbowlbaggins]

Medieval Cirilla Dress

Day One

I laid out my print out pattern and taped it together on my bed. Back pain level at 7/10.

Day Two

I laid out everything to measure and revise my pattern.

Day Three

I forgot to take a picture of my tracing step. I didn't have a colored chalk; all there was, was pink chalk for a pink fabric. I ended up using a water soluble pencil, which was really just a blue crayon.

I steam ironed for the first time. I realized I've never actually smelled fresh linen before, but I can see why it would be a popular candle scent.

I sat down in the evening to read up on historical hand sewing techniques. I have Bernadette Banner's book, Make, Sew and Mend: Traditional Techniques to Sustainably Maintain and Refashion Your Clothes.

[cuties-in-codices]

medieval parchment repairs

in a psalter, south-western germany, late 12th/early 13th c.

source: Hermetschwil, Benediktinerinnenkloster, Cod. membr. 37, fol. 19r, 53r, and 110r

[dresshistorynerd]

Sewing a turn of the 15th century French kirtle in doll scale

Another day, another historical doll outfit! This time it's Late Medieval. This was a popular style from about 1380-1420 France and Alpine area, but I specifically based this dress on French illuminations from the early 15th century, which mostly effects the details, like headwear. As always I hand stitched everything and stuck to historical construction methods as much as I could.

Chemise

I made a very simple chemise. The construction is based on what we know from extant finds, made out of simple rectangles and triangles, like earlier unlaced kirtles. Based on illustrations, chemise was fairly slim but unfitted enough it didn't need closures. I made it from linen, because it's not very gathered and won't bulk up too much, so I don't need to use my very fine cotton voile.

Cote

Cote is just the French word for kirtle, so appropriate here. This is the supportive layer cote, which was sort of an undergarment, but was considered fully dressed, if informal on it's own. The sleeves on this underlayer were always long and either fully fitted or gathered at the wrist. Some fitted sleeve styles had a flare at the wrist which covered the hand. The very fitted look was achieved with buttons. The silhouette was smooth and fitted, the waistline was slightly above the natural waist, though that was not as pronounced in France as in Northern Italy. Abdomen was emphasized, round lower stomach was the body ideal. The cut of the dress left plenty of room there. To fill that room I folded the chemise under the abdomen as a sort of padding. This was common to do with any kind of skirts, primarily to raise the hem when working, but why not for this purpose also? The necklines were fairly low and very wide.

I used cotton because I didn't have suitable thin enough wool that wouldn't have created too much bulk on this scale, but the cote should have been made from. The cotton is tightly woven and sells the look of a woven wool in this scale well enough for me. I didn't finish seems or line it to avoid bulk. I did give the lacing a cording to reinforce it and avoid wrinkling. The cotton was originally white, but I dyed it with iron oxide, basically rust, which at least is very much historical.

Hose

I made the hose from cotton as well for the same reasons as I did the cote. Long pointed style became fashionable around this time, as well as sewing leather soles in the bottoms of the hose instead of using shoes. Though often pattens (wooden flipflops basically) could be used when walking outside to protect the leather soles.

Cornettes or horned hair

I tied the hair with a tape on cornettes, where the volume of hair was tied on the temples to create a bit of horned appearance, especially when combined with the horned headwear. The sort of fillet which became more of a forehead loop seemed to have been tied into the hair, which I did.

Cotehardie

Cotehardie meant literally "bold cote", and in France that was what the formal outer cote was called. It was basically the same as cote, but made from more expensive materials and often had large hanging sleeves. I went with widening triangular sleeves, since they were perhaps the most popular sleeves at the time. I used fine fulled wool (verka) I had enough scraps left from. White fur was popular lining material, but obviously I can't use fur in this scale, I wish I had some light white velvet, it would have been pretty good, but I didn't. I lined the skirt and the sleeves with white cotton to imitate the look without adding too much body or extra bulk. I decorated the neckline with a simple golden trim. I thought about adding a bit of golden embroidery around it too, like seemed to have been popular, but my local crafts store had run out of golden thread so I decided to go with this only.

Accessories

Unlike the belt used with houppelande, which was below bust, the belt used with the kirtle or cotehardie, was very low, under the abdomen to emphasize it. I went for a silk belt look, which I'm imagining is embroidered/woven with golden thread, since embroidery that small would have been too painful. I had an old broken necklace, which I could use for the metallic parts.

With the pouch I went for the tasseled drawstring look, with simple embroidery manageable in this scale. I used linen for it.

Headwear

I made her a chaperon, which likely was where the escoffion got it's beginning, escoffion being the round tube-like headwear worn on top of the head seen in several primary source images above. Early form of escoffion was becoming very popular at the time, though chaperon's were still seen on women too. Chaperon, as seen below both on the left-most woman and the man in the middle was actually just the hood rolled into a circle.

Because the horned look was popular, the escoffion and chaperon were often worn over the wired horned veil, so I first made that. I made it from cotton to make it as light as possible. It was just a square I hemmed. I just used some wire to poke out the horns from her hair and pinned the veil close from the back and onto her hair from the top.

Then I made the open hood. It was just the regular hood which had become very popular during the last century and which had ever longer narrow tip, but it was pinned and worn open, probably because of the hair style and to again create the horned look. I made if from the same cotton I made the hose, even though it too should be from wool. But it was already too bulky as it was.

And finally I could make the chaperon. Here's first chaperon without wire or veil under it and then with those. The effect isn't as pronounced as I would have hoped because the hood is too bulky, but there is an effect which is nice.

[quiltingwitch]

Swords for a sword lover, finally complete ⚔️

[theartofmadeline]

wanted to share the medieval hennin that I made for the ren faire this weekend! I crafted it totally from scratch and i'm just really happy with how it turned out :)

(progress pics & steps in the reblog!)

[angelacostumery]

I'm not sure which is more surprising, the fact I finished this, the fact I photographed this, or the fact it actually fits. Usually I get two out of the three at best.

Anyway, this is my creatively titled "red dragon dress" which I sort of made to celebrate House of the Dragon being back, but also because I like dragons and wanted an excuse to use some of the many scale print fabrics I have hoarded while on my time away from making things.

(I may not be inspired to sew but I am always inspired to waste money on Etsy.)

It was made from a chemically pleated satin, a red jacquard, black brocade, and probably like forty yards of trim. It was fun to play with fabrics and texture again, I must say, even if this project tested my patience at times!

In total it took about 9 days of work from design to drafting to completion, spread over a period of two weeks. Made and modeled by me, as per usual. 

I hope you  like it, and if you would like to see how I made it, you can see me making it over on the YouTube -- part one [the bodice] and part two [the everything else].

[grimmborg-in-the-bog]

Since i showed my fancy viking outfit i thought i should show my normal/working clothes.

it's pretty much just a basic wool dress, hair out of the way, and a belt with a knife. super practical and simple <3

[chiropteracupola]

Morning rituals.

[milkywayan]

Had to take pictures of my things for an event this summer that I applied for, so here, finally a nice compilation of the things I have made these past two years. I documented all in seperate posts you can find in my pinned post if you like!

[devynconstance]

Practicing some handstitched eyelets and expirmenting with different stabalizing options for my dress today. Used a different colored thread so I could study my work but on the actual dress the thread will be a matching color.

[the-merry-otter]

If you’re on mobile, you may have to click on the images for better quality!

Plain text version with image descriptions is under the cut.

Please note that the image descriptions will be reflecting what I am trying to convey with the photo, rather than the total look of the photo itself. For example if I am trying to describe a dress, the hair colour of the person wearing it will be ignored. This is to reduce the total word count of the descriptions, because I have a lot of images to describe. On this note, I have also streamlined the information as much as possible.

[Plain text description:]

First slide: Mariota’s Guide to 14th Century (Medieval) Women’s Clothing

This slideshow is brought to you by @the-merry-otter on tumblr

ALRIGHT LISTEN UP MOTHERS AND FUCKERS. I’m bored, so today we’re going to be talking about medieval clothing. Specifically fourteenth century English clothing because that’s what I’m good at. (Source: trust me bro I’m a reenacter). Also this is all female stuff - sorry masc leaning folks, I’ll get to you someday!

Disclaimer: this is not completely comprehensive or nuanced in the slightest, it’s just a quick overview guide. Do your own research xoxo.

[Image ID: to the left is a picture of a woman in a light blue dress and a pink hood gazing out at a lake. The hood has a skirt that falls over her shoulders, and there is along thin pipe attached to the back of the hood that dangles to her knees. The edges of the hood are decorated with burgundy crochet. The picture is captioned “beautiful, stunning, gorgeous, literal goals.” End ID]

[Image ID: To the right is a picture of a typical renn faire outfit. It has a white poofy underdress, a black corset, and a brown skirt. There is a red cross drawn over the image. It is captioned “very pretty, but definitely not medieval sorry!” End ID]

Second slide: Underwear (ooh la la)

Now with nasty pocketses

[Image ID: a picture of gollum, from lord of the rings, snarling in disgust. There is a line in The Hobbit where he asks Bilbo what he has in his nasty little pocketses, which is what I am referencing. End ID]

So, corsets, stays, and shapewear in general kind of wasn’t a thing yet. So your underwear was a shift, which was awesome because it was also your pajamas. They were usually made of linen, though some might have been made of cotton is you were rich.

[Image ID: A plain white linen garment laid out flat on the floor. It is a dress that hangs to about knee length, with elbow length sleeves. An arrow points to it with text reading “this is a shift”. End ID]

There is evidence for supportive shifts for busy support, like this one from the fourteenth century!

[Image ID: a second shift, worn by a female presenting person. It is laced up the front, and is a lot tighter and more fitted, especially around the bust. It has straps instead of sleeves. End ID]

There’s also this bra like fragment found in Austria, but that is a whole debate so.

[Image ID: A bra-like garment fitted to a mannequin. It seems to be made out of white linen, coloured with time. The left cup is damaged, and overall the garment looks incomplete. End ID]

Then, over the shift, yet under your main dress went your pockets, which tied on at the waist. Your dresses had slits do that you could get at your stuff without flashing everyone lol.

[Image ID: A picture of medieval pockets. They are upside down teardrop shaped, but the point is flat and is part of the waist ties. There are slits in the side up the top to access the inside. They are cream coloured with bright floral embroidery. The caption reads “these bad boys can fit so many cool pebbles.” End ID]

[Image ID: A young female-presenting person wearing medieval clothing. She has her hands in the pocket slits of her dress. They are just below hip height. End ID]

Third slide: your dress, or the cotehardie. (Pronounced coat hardy)

Over the shift you put your dress, sometimes referred to as either a kirtle or cotehardie. 14th century people started actually form-fitting their clothes more than previous centuries. These needed fastenings, which were mostly lacings (spiral lacings specifically), or buttons made of either metal or cloth, used at the front of the dress from neckline to waist, and on the sleeves from elbow to wrist, with exceptions of course.

(Sidenote: fuck sleeves, all my homies hate sleeves)

[Image ID: a woman in a warm yellow dress to the left of the text. The dress is constructed simply, with a single piece of fabric used for the length of the body so there is no waist seam. The skirt is widened by inserting four triangles, one each at the front and back, and one on each side. The front has buttons made of the same fabric as the dress, that go down to the belt at the waist. The sleeves have similar buttons from wrist to elbow, on the outside of the arm. The woman is also wearing a liripipe hood. End ID]

Dresses seemed to be mostly wool, though I often use linen for mine because I live in Australia and it’s hot in summer and I don’t want to die. Most often they weren’t lined (that is what the underwear was for).

[Image ID: in the top left of the slide is a woman wearing a green woollen dress. It is constructed the same as the previous image, except it has spiral lacing on the front instead of buttons. The sleeves are fastened by three small buttons. She is wearing a simple and veil. End ID]

[Image ID: the top right of the slide shows a woman in a teal coloured dress, similar to the one before. This one has metal buttons at the sleeves and down the front. She wears a veil only. End ID]

The neckline of these dresses was usually round or an oval shape, and some manuscripts have it so wide that it falls off the shoulders slightly.

[Image ID: A photo of a medieval manuscript, depicting six medieval ladies in a row holding hands. The neckline of their dresses is wide enough that the tops of their shoulders are visible. The image is captioned “me and the girls on a Friday night”. End ID]

Clothing was a lot more colourful than the movies would have us believe lol.

[Image ID: Three women, each in dresses similar to the ones before. To the left is a forest green, the middle one is bright saffron yellow, and the one to the right is a vibrant tomato red. End ID].

Fourth slide: Dress two; electric boogaloo

[Image ID: Merry and Pippin from lord of the rings. Above them, meme text reads “we’ve had one, yes”, and then continues below with “but what about second dress?”. End ID]

You could also wear an overdress, which was usually of a contrasting colour and had shorter sleeves.

As well as fashion, they would have been used for extra warmth, and so were usually made of wool.

[Image ID: a woman in a maroon coloured dress like the ones on the previous slide. The sleeves stop just above her elbow, revealing a blue dress underneath. End ID].

Common people would have only owned a couple of different outfits, as fabric was super expensive.

[Image ID: various pictures of women with examples of an overdress. They are all constructed the same as the overdress, but with shorter sleeves that reveal a second sleeve of a different colour underneath. End ID]

A common late thirteenth to mid fourteenth century overdress was the ladies surcoat, which had big holes instead of sleeves.

Belts would have been worn underneath the surcoat.

[Image ID: three photos of women wearing surcoats. They are normal dresses, except there is a large D shape cut out of either side, leaving a large hole from the shoulder to below the hip. They have no buttons down the front. One of the surcoats is made of red brocade, and obviously belongs to an upper-class impression. End ID].

Fifth slide: Hair and headwear

Hair was worn braided and pinned up, with a coif (cap) and either a wimple or veil, or both. The wimple and/or veil were usually pinned to the coif, or secured on a band of fabric around the head.

Veils would be either oval, or a D shape. Wimples were rectangular. A wimple goes under the chin and a veil goes over your head.

[Image ID: a close up of a woman wearing a wimple. It is made of a light fabric, likely silk. The wimple wraps under her chin and is secured at the back of her head. A narrow band of fabric or possibly leather circles her brow, which would have been used to secure the wimple. End ID.]

[Image ID: A picture of YouTuber Morgan Donner wearing a wimple and veil. The wimple wraps under her chin, and the veil is placed on top of her head, draping down past her shoulders. It does not cover her face. Loops of hair are visible either side of her face. End ID]

All the headwear would be made of linen, thin wool, or silk, depending on class. The veils could also be made really fancy by ruffling the front edge or by attaching pearls.

[Image ID: a woman in a wimple and half-circle veil. The edge of the veil that frames her face is elaborately ruffled. The edge of a coif is visible under the veil. End ID]

I ride the bus in my medieval gear a lot because of events, and way too many people think I’m Amish because of my veil. It’s honestly just funny at this point. I should keep a tally.

[Image ID: a woman wearing a St Birgitta’s coif, pinning a wimple at the back of her head. The coif is a simple white linen cap that encloses the head, with a line of lace down the centre of the head. It is secured with a loop of linen around the head. End ID].

[Image ID: a picture of someone with plaits that have been pinned around the head like a crown. It is captioned “you could also pin your hair up like this”. End ID]

Working women might have just wrapped their head in a scarf instead, fuck this fancy shit right?

[Image ID: a woman in a headscarf that has been twisted and then looped around the front of her head. It is captioned #girlboss. End ID].

Fake braids were a thing! Blonde hair in particular was very fashionable, and bleaching or fake braids were sometimes used to achieve that.

[Image ID: two fake braids made of a coarse fibre. They are blonde in colour, and are looped like a hairstyle seen on many of the reenactors. They have white ribbons attached to the top end to help secure them to the head. End ID]

Sixth slide: Cloaks and hoods

These would have actually been two seperate garments! Integrated hoods on cloaks didn’t actually become a thing until the … seventeenth century or so? (Citation needed).

Cloaks were a lot simpler than the typical cloak we think of nowadays. Often they were just a rectangle of wool, or by the fourteenth century, sometimes a half circle.

They were almost always wool as far as I know, and were generally fastened by a cloak pin or buttons.

[Image ID: a metal cloak pin. It is a circle with a small opening at one point. A long pin is attached via a loop, allowing it to slide along the pin. It can fit through the opening in the circle. To use one, you would gather the fabric on the pin, and then slot the circle over the pin and then turn it, so the fabric is trapped between circle and pin. This is much easier to demonstrate than describe. The picture is captioned “these bad boys are the real MVP’s though”. End ID].

[Image ID: a diagram showing the construction of the bocksten man cloak. It is a half circle pieced together by laying strips of fabric together. In the centre of the flat side, a half circle is cut out for the neck. End ID]

[Image ID: a reconstruction of the bocksten man cloak. It is orange wool, and lined with an off-white linen. It is fastened on the right shoulder by three fabric buttons. It would fall to just above the wearers knees. End ID].

Women’s hoods could be short and open, or with a longer skirt and closed with buttons. Liripipe (pronounced leery-pipe) hoods were named for the tube of fabric that dangled off the back of your hood, varying in length. As well as a fashion statement, it could also be wrapped around the neck like a scarf if it got cold.

Hoods were nearly always wool I’m pretty sure, though they were often lined with linen, silk, or cotton.

[General description: a short liripipe hood would be open, with the bottom only reaching your shoulders. They were made from a single piece of fabric that would wrap over your head, with the seam down the centre back of your head. It was flared at the bottom by inserting triangular gores. At the front edge near your face there would be a strip jutting out that went from one side of your chin, over your head, and down to the other side. This would usually be folded back, revealing the lining colour. The bottom of the hood could either just reach the base of your neck, or reach down to just past your shoulders. The former would usually be open at the front, with fastenings optional. The latter option with the longer skirt was almost always able to be fastened up the front with fabric buttons. The liripipe itself was a thin flat tube of fabric fastened at the centre top back of the hood. End ID]

Fun fact, 90% of why I decided to reenact the fourteenth century specifically was because of liripipe hoods.

Seventh slide: Feet (not in a weird way)

Hose were used to keep your legs warm. For women they were usually knee height, and fastened just underneath it with a garter or tie.

[Image ID: a single light yellow hose, belted beneath the knee with a leather garter. The seam is down the centre back of the leg going all the way to your toes, and then around the top of the foot in front of where it connects to your leg. End ID]

Hose usually would have been made from wool, and were cut on the diagonal (bias) of the fabric to get the maximum stretch possible from the fabric. They still were looser than modern tights are though!

Knitted socks were also a thing I’m pretty sure, but I don’t know enough about them. Sorry!

Shoes were simple, usually referred to as turnshoes because of how they were made. Fun fact: the lack of foot support means that turnshoes are similar to going barefoot in terms of how you walk. Some reenactors love it, some hate it, and some are indifferent lol.

[Image ID: a pair of turnshoes made of dark leather. They have a strap that would fasten around the front of the ankle, similar to some modern shoes. The toes are pointed, and it is captioned “pointy toes were fashionable, especially for men”. End ID].

Because shoes were really hard to waterproof, (ask me how I know), and didn’t have solid soles, wooden pattens (pronounced pat-tens) were worn to keep you off the ground while outside.

[Image ID: a person wearing a pair of wooden pattens over their shoes, standing on a drenched cobblestone street. They are wooden platforms with an archway on the bottom, and are attached to the foot with leather straps around the toe, ankle, and around the back of the heel, similar to modern sandals. The image is captioned “ye old crocs”. End ID].

[Image ID: a woman’s leg with the skirts drawn back, revealing the bright yellow hose underneath. It is fastened below the knee with a strip of fabric. She wears a turnshoe with a buckled strap. End ID]

Eighth slide: Accessories

These are a few other items that might have made up a working woman’s outfit.

Aprons would definitely have been used while working. One were just a large rectangle of cloth tucked into the belt, some were smocked to draw in the fabric. They generally stopped at the waist.

[Image ID: a woman in a red dress, with a very light brown apron. It is smocked at the top, and is attached around the waist with a string. End ID].

Pretty broaches and other jewellery existed! There was cheaper stuff made of pewter for the lower classes.

[Image ID: five gold brooches, studded with different jewels and pearls. End ID].

They had a funny sense of humour as well… and they weren’t all prudes.

[Image ID: a pewter broach of a cat carrying a dick and balls in its mouth. It is captioned “you can actually buy these. I know a website.” End ID].

Eating knives were worn on the belt, though it is debated whether women would have carried one. I do because I’m a modern fourteenth century woman.

[Image ID: a small knife with a wooden handle, laying on top of a leather sheath that has been dyed red. End ID]

Belts are a curiously debated topic. Some people reckon that women would have definitely worn them, others say they they weren’t used by women much at all. As far as I know there are depictions of both, so choose what you’d prefer. They are great for hanging stuff on I gotta say.

[Image ID: a coiled up brown leather belt. The buckle and tip are a gold metal, and it has decorative flower studs along its length in the same metal. End ID]

Pretty little purses would have probably been worn. I don’t know enough about them to say anything else though.

[Image ID: two different pictures of reenactors wearing purses. One is brocade and the other a red fabric. They are in the shape of an upright triangle, and both have five tassels hanging from the bottom edge. They hang off the belt with long drawstrings. Unrelated to the purses, one of the women is wearing a gorgeous orange liripipe hood, that is embroidered and dagged on the bottom skirt edge. End ID]

Ninth slide: Fancy Shmancy

There is a lot I haven’t covered, especially in the realm of the upper classes. Here is some of what has been missed. (Buckle up because this section is very image heavy. I will be as concise as possible).

Heraldic dresses! If you are interested, go check out Morgan Donners video on YouTube.

[Image ID: a picture of Morgan Donner in her heraldic dress. One half of the dress is red, and the other is green, except for where it has been cut out by white with an ermine pattern on it. Her hair is unbound and uncovered, except by a small flower crown. It is captioned “Morgan bestie do your hair properly :(“. End ID]

[Image ID: a drawing of two women in heraldic dresses. The first has a blue right half with a yellow printed design. The top left of the dress is yellow with a blue fish, and the bottom left is red with a white fish. Her train is held by the second lady, who’s dress is blue on the right, and white with green birds on the left. End ID].

Fancy headpieces for rich bitches only.

[Image ID: a reenactor doing a high class impression. Her hair is bound up in Pearl studded hair nets on either side of her head like modern earmuffs, with a spiked coronet around her brow. She has a sheer silk wimple on. End ID]

Fancy dagged edged on hoods, sleeves, dresses, etc.

[Dagging description: where the edge has been cut away to make decorative dangly bits. One hood has red leaves around the bottom edge for example, and another just has a pretty geometric pattern. End description].

Brocade gowns! So pretty!

[Image ID: several different pictures of high class ladies wearing brocade gowns of different colours. These are similar to the wool dresses we were looking at earlier, but with longer trains, and often long draping sleeves. There is even a brocade surcoat. End ID]

Fancy sleeves!

[Image ID: examples of different long sleeves. On some, the sleeve is normal until the elbow, and then it falls away to a long strip of fabric that dangles to the ground. Not mentioned on the slide itself is tippets, which was a band of (usually white) fabric just above your elbow, with a thin strip of the same fabric that draped down to the floor. End ID].

Dresses that were two different colours.

[Image ID: examples of dresses that are exactly like the earlier wool dresses, except they are literally half one colour and half another. The manuscript example is a blue and red overdress with fancy sleeves, and the reenactor example is a yellow and green underdress with a red hood. End ID]

And of course, some of the funky fun fabric choices.

[Image ID: a manuscript depiction of a woman carrying a dead bird. Her hood is red and white striped horizontally, and her dress is dark and light blue striped, also horizontally. End ID].

[Image ID: a manuscript depicting a woman talking to a second lady in a chair. The dress on the first has horizontal stripes of white, red, yellow, and blue, repeated, and the second has horizontal stripes of white, pink, and light blue. Interestingly enough the latter colours are very similar to the transgender flag which would make a very cool dress project. Hmm. End ID].

Tenth (and final) slide: In summery

(Small red text below title reads “I hope you have enjoyed” with a drawn smiling face).

Dis you notice all the “usually” “commonly” and “often’s” in there? That’s because I cannot possibly illustrate everything that we know of the time in only ten slides, nor do I know everything, so I have just tried to show what seems to be the most depicted.

Note: I probably even got some stuff wrong by the way.

If you’re interested in this stuff, I really recommend doing your own research now! Hopefully I have given you a good overview of what a fourteenth century womens outfit might have looked like, so now you can go fourth and know what you’re looking for.

If you have any questions about costuming, reenactment, or anything else, feel free to contact me!! I respond on Timblr decently fast ☺️

[Image ID: a reenactor sitting on a log, staring into the distance with a slight smile. She is wearing a grey-blue dress, belted at the waist with a small purse dangling from it. She has a dark blue cape and a light blue hood, that has fallen back to show a ruffled white veil. There is a pewter broach on her hood. A leather turnshoe peeks out from beneath the hem of her dress. End ID]

A list of helpful YouTubers:

Elin Abrahamsson

Morgan Donner

Opus Elenae

Miss Joss (her instagram is more active).

Now go hydrate!!

[Image ID: a woman in fourteenth century garb drinking from a jug. End ID]

[beanbowlbaggins]

I googled how much fabric I'd need to make a chemise and kirtle, but now that I'm drafting the dress I see that it calls for a lining, or at least facings to make the linen sturdy enough for eyelets. I already have a pink linen, and a beige embroidered linen. I just dont want to line my sheer dress with the extra pink fabric.

So my next thought was that I don't have enough of the pink, so I decided to just order more now that I know I love it. (so I ordered enough to make a second dress from it.) Then I found another cream colored linen to use for facing because I dont want to use the embroidery for the lining at all; thats just a waste given how pretty it is (and I plan on using the extra yard if beige linen for a matching veil and wimple). So that's how I arrived at a cream linen.

[dresshistorynerd]

This is kind of random, but would it have been a struggle for a big busted women to wear fashionable silhouettes in the medieval era? I’ve heard some costume historians discuss that there were forms of bust support, but most of what I’ve seen pre-1500s seems like it would have been a nightmare for any ancestor with a similar bodytype to wear. Am I just from a line of women doomed to horrible back pain? (On the flip side of the situation, I’ve found corsets and stays to be rather comfortable, so that’s not a problem)

As a fellow big boob haver, I have good news for you! There were pretty good Medieval bust supporting garments and I have tested one of them.

With sturdy fabric, tailoring and lacing you can create pretty good bust support. Lacing was popularized first in 12th century in form of bliaut, and in 14th century tailoring became standard for everyday garments. I don't know how well bliaut supported the bust, but since it doesn't fit super snugly, I assume it doesn't distribute the weight of the boobs as well as tailored supporting garments and therefore isn't as supportive. I'm also not actually sure if there was proper bust supporting garments before that, I haven't looked into it. I know Romans bound their breasts with cloth wrapped around the chest, so maybe that technique continued (at least for those who especially needed it) till lacing and tailoring became a thing. For more about how supporting garments developed in Europe through history, I have a post about development of lacing, which coincides pretty well with that history from 12th century forward.

Personally I have experience with Medieval Bathhouse dress, which was used in the Germanic Central-European area roughly in 14th to 16th century. It's called the Bathhouse dress because most depictions of it are from bathhouse settings, but there's depiction also in bed chambers and other contexts, so I think it's pretty safe to assume it was used more generally as an undergarment. It often had separate cups for the boobs (see the only extant garment left of it, the so called "Lengberg Castle Bra"), but not always. Unlike most other undergarments at the time, it was sort of a shift (the lowest layer) and a supporting garment combined into one.

I sewed my own recreation of it (with some alterations because I made it for my everyday use, not as a historical recreation) and did a post about my results, where I go deeper into the history of the garment too. I didn't construct it very well and I did an error in the design of the back, which cause the strain of the shoulder straps to focus too much on very specific spots in the back panel, which eventually made the fabric there break too many times. (There were some other smaller design flaws too, like the waistline is lower than my natural waist so it rose and wrinkled annoyingly.) I did use it daily (except when I washed it) for a fairly long time though and it was super comfortable and helped a lot with back pain (and shoulder pain caused by use of modern bras). I hate that I've had to go back to modern bras because I haven't had the time to remake it yet. (I'll probably make a follow up post once I get around to it, where I go through the issues of the first version and how I addressed them in the next attempt.) Well fitted and shaped bodice which is then laced does surprisingly much even without any additional reinforcements.

I haven't made a Medieval kirtle (though I will some day), but it was the more widely used Medieval supporting garment, which eventually replaced Bathhouse dress in the area where that was used. Kirtle is worn over a shift, but it broadly works similarly. Kirtles could be front, side or back laced depending on the time period and how the Kirtle was constructed. Multiple layers of kirtles could be used and looser overgarments (like houppelande) were often used on top of it. Kirtle was used by everyone, including men, but for those who didn't need bust support, it's purpose was mainly to create the fashionable silhouette. Here's three depictions of kirtles from 15th century. First unlaced, but has lacing on the front, second close up of the side lacing and third shows nicely how both front and side/backlacing shaped the bust.

Morgan Donner is a costumer, who focuses a lot on Medieval costuming and has a big bust, so while I haven't personally tested the supportiveness of kirtle, she certainly has. The kirtle bodice part needs to be patterned to accommodate the breasts by giving it round shapes and the kirtle needs to be a little too small so there's room to lace it to fit well. Lining also helps to reinforce the fabric and make it more firm and supportive. Here's Morgan's pattern from the tutorial in her website and how the kirtle eventually fits for her. (Also look at the handsome boy in his handsome matching outfit.)

She also has a video relating to the same kirtle project, where she explains her method to pattern a kirtle specifically so it's supportive for big bust.

In 16th century more stiffness was added to kirtles, first with very stiff lining and then with boning, but that doesn't necessarily add to the bust support, rather it just allows the kirtle to shape the bust and the body in general more and better support a heavy skirt. Firm fabric secured snugly with lacing is already very good at distributing the weight of the boobs to the whole torso.

In conclusion, at least since 14th century people with our body type were not doomed to eternal back pain and even before that some ways to help with it were probably used.