- Rebato, c. 1600-1625 Part One: Brief History and Materials
- Rebato, c. 1600-1625 Part Two: The Pattern
- Rebato, c. 1600-1625 Part Three: Making the Wire Frame
- Rebato, c. 1600-1625 Part Four: Making the Linen Collar
- Rebato, c. 1600-1625 Part Five: Finishing the Rebato
My rebato is based on a pattern drafted by myself using the rebato from the Musée national de la Renaissance-Chateau d’Écouen in Paris as inspiration (see previous post).
The linen standing collar was based primarily on a portrait of a young French woman in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston:

I also used the standing collar pattern in The Tudor Tailor as a guide and took much inspiration from the rebato made by the Couture Courtesan on her blog.
Pattern
Click here to access a printable PDF version of the pattern.
The pattern will make:
Dear Sarah, Many of my ancestors in 17th-18th century rural Oxfordshire described themselves as ‘taylors’. I doubt if these fellows were making the sophisticaed garments of thier oxford colleagues (they also worked a few acres of land, kept the odd pig etc.) Would they have been members of any guild, and served apprenticeship?
Regards,
Noah Clinch, Tunstall Suffolk.
Hi Noah,
That’s so fascinating and great that you’ve been able to learn that about your ancestors. The question of rural tailors is really interesting. They definitely would have served an apprenticeship to train in the art of tailoring. One way they could have done this was to go to a bigger town centre (like Oxford) and apprentice under a tailor there, and then return to their village after finishing. There’s many instances in the London guilds of rural children being apprenticed in the city and then return to their home afterwards. Alternatively, villages could have had guilds. I know in medieval England there were definitely small guilds in smaller villages. As well as regulating the trades, guilds also gave access to citizenship and a say in local government. I’m not sure if many of these small village guild records have survived, and I’m not really aware of much work done on them if they have.
Sarah