I’m delighted to let you all know that PI Dr Serena Dyer and I (Co-I Sarah Bendall) have just launched the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC) funded đȘĄ Making Historical Dress Network đȘĄ today! We are so excited to be putting together a series of workshops, online talks, and a festival of remaking over the next two years!
The network aims to establish a hub for the international community of academics and practitioners who work on recreation methods in dress history, from costume makers to scholars, and from curators to YouTubers.
At the events, we’ll be encouraging discussion of best practice, terminology, how to capture and communicate tacit knowledge, and showcasing work in the field.
We will also launch a mentorship scheme, where makers and academics can learn from each other to improve both the material literacy of scholars and the academic skills of makers.
Over the coming weeks and months we will be giving more details about our events and how to get involved via our Instagram and Twitter (and eventually a website)!
Reconstruction of French Wheel Farthingale, c. 1610s
I’m delighted to announce that my new article was published on Friday! It’s about the experimental reconstructions I did as part of my PhD – some of which are documented here on this very blog. It talks about why historians should engage in experimental reconstruction, and what we can and can’t learn about artisanal knowledge and practices, as well as embodied experiences.
It is part of a bigger special issue in the journal Fashion Theoryon the “Making Turn” edited by Professor Peter McNeil (UTS) and Dr Melissa Bellanta (ACU), with editor-in-chief Dr Valerie Steele (FIT NY).
So far, only my article is available on early view. However, if you are interested in historical reconstruction as a research practice, please make sure to check back to the journal over the next few weeks as my colleagues’ papers will also appear. I will link them in this blogpost as they are released:
Now that the article is out I’ll be doing a more layman’s blogpost series about how I made the French wheel farthingale. But if you’d like to read the article please click on the link below to get institutional access. If you don’t have access but would still be interested to read it please get in touch and I will see what I can do!
Abstract:
This article showcases experimental dress reconstruction as a valuable research tool for the historian. It presents a case study detailing how two underskirts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, French Farthingale Rolls and French Wheel Farthingales, were reconstructed using historical techniques and experimental methodologies. The first section outlines my methodological approach to reconstructing these ephemeral garments, exploiting archival and printed records, visual sources, and knowledge of seventeenth-century sewing techniques. The second section focuses on the experience of reconstruction and shows how this process allows the historian to form tacit knowledge. This section also raises questions and provides answers about artisanal design practices such as reflective rationality, embodied experiences, and tacit skills that cannot be accessed in other ways. Finally, this article shows how reconstruction can inform understandings of the embodied experiences of dressing and wearing. Dressing the female body in the reconstructed underskirts discussed in this article made it possible to observe the garmentsâ practical realities and challenge polemical historical sources concerning fashionable sixteenth- and seventeenth-century European dress.
Man shearing a sheep, early sixteenth century. The British Library, Egerton 1147, f. 11v.
Wool was a commonly used natural material in early modern Europe. Besides being spun for use in cloth production and knitted garments (such as menâs felted flat caps), wool was also commonly used in structural garments as stuffing. My construction of a French farthingale roll and French wheel farthingale, made as part of my PhD research, required the use of wool as stuffing.
We know that some sort of stuffing like wool was used in the late-sixteenth and early-seventeenth centuries in the garments because wardrobe warrants, such as one for Elizabeth I dating from April 1581, specified its use:
âItem to Robrt Sipthorpe for making of a half verthingale and a rolle of peache color satten stuffed wt cotten woll whale bone and bent: for making of a half verthingale and a rolle of oringe tawnye & watchett damaske stuffed wt cotten woll whale bone & bentâŠâ[1]
Like most early modern sources, terminology often becomes an issue when trying to decipher what materials were used and how. For example, in this wardrobe warrant it is not 100% obvious as to what âcotton woolâ refers to. The fibre cotton as we know it was not unheard of in the sixteenth century, but it also was not very commonly used in garment production (although elite women like Elizabeth I would certainly have had access to this raw material from the Indian subcontinent).
Further compounding this uncertainty is that âcottonâ often referred to a type of woollen cloth in the sixteenth century.[2] Although these entries might certainly refer to raw cotton, it was probably more common for structured garments in England to be stuffed with wool, a natural fibre that was very readily available and a staple of English industry. As a result I chose to use wool instead of cotton to stuff the rolls of my French farthingale reconstructions.
Not only did I choose to use wool due to its ready availability in early modern England, but it was also easy for me to obtain because I was raised on a sheep farm in rural New South Wales, Australia. So I asked my dad to put some wool aside for me next time he was shearing.
Raw, unwashed lambs wool
Preparing the Wool
One of the downsides of using this raw material though, especially when it comes from rural Australia, is that it contains a quite a lot of dirt and organic matter. So in order to use it for my reconstructions I had to wash and prepare it. However, as anyone who has ever worked with wool can attest, it is a temperamental fibre to wash. The first difficulty is that if wool is agitated too much in water it has a tendency to felt; great if that is your intention, but a pain if you just want to wash it. Secondly, wool fibres shrink at the high temperatures required to wash it correctly, so I ended up having to use twice as much wool as I thought I would need to allow for this shrinkage.
After chatting to other costumers I decided that the best way to wash and prepare my wool would be to buy some large laundry wash bags, stuff them with the wool and allow them to soak in a tub of hot soapy water (oil removing dish-washing liquid seems to be the best option here).
While these bags were soaking in the hot water I slightly agitated them every now and then, but not too much in case the wool felted together.
As you can see from the pictures the wool did shrink after being immersed in the hot water and A LOT of dirt came out. In fact, I had to repeat this soaking process about three times for each bag of wool in order to get it to a satisfactory state.
After getting the wool as clean as I possibly could, I laid it out on pavement in the hot summer sun to dry.
As you can see in the image above, the wool was still full of burrs and other organic plant matter. I did my best to pick out as much of this as possible, but Iâm certain that some of it is sitting in my reconstructions, which is fine.
The wool when stuffed into my French farthingale roll reconstruciton
I hope this post has been helpful to anyone thinking of preparing their own raw wool for spinning or stuffing. If you have any tips or tricks that you use to prepare your wool, feel free to comment below and let us know!
[1] Wardrobe Warrant of Elizabeth I, 6 April 1581. The British Library, Egerton MS 2806, fol. 166r.
[2] Ninya Mikhaila and Jane Malcolm-Davies, The Tudor Tailor: Reconstructing sixteenth-century dress (London: Batsford, 2006), p. 36.
William Larkin, Portrait of Grey Brydges, 5th Baron Chandos, of Sudeley Castle, Gloucestershire, c. 1615, Yale Center for British Art.
The structural fashions of the early modern period in Europe reached a peak at the turn of the seventeenth century. Women wore farthingales, whaleboned bodies and wired sleeves, whilst men donned puffy hose and peascod-bellied doublets. Whilst the ruff, a gathered and starched linen frill that was worn around the neck, was still widely worn, at the beginning of the seventeenth century a new type of standing linen collar became fashionable. Like the ruff before them, these accessories forced the wearers, both male and female, to keep their head held high as they slightly impeded normal neck and head movement. These standing collars also halo-ed the head with bright white, sometimes translucent, linen or silk that was often trimmed with expensive bobbin lace. As a result, early modern neck wear such as ruffs and standing collars projected aristocratic ideas of wealth, power and prestige.
The rebato, also known as a piccadill, underproper or whisk (in England) and a suportasse (in France) was a stiffened support for a standing ruff or collar. These accessories were often made from wire or pasteboard that was covered in silk. Although “piccadills” or “piccadilly collars” appear commonly in English sources, it seems that “rebato”, an Italian term, was most commonly used in England to refer to those collar supports that were made from wire.[1] Unlike the structures made from board and silk, the rebato, with its intricate wire motifs, loops and scallops was both a collar support and a decorative neck ornament.[2]
There are well preserved examples of these stiffened collar supports in many museums in Europe. For example, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London has three examples of piccadills and supportasses made from pasteboard or cardboard.
Fig. 1 Picadil of silk satin, pasteboard and silk thread. English, c. 1600-1615, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Fig. 2. Supportasse of linen, silk, whalebone, card, wire and linen thread. English, c. 1595-1615, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Fig. 3. Supportasse of cardboard, silk, linen, silk and linen thread. English, c. 1600-1625, Victoria and Albert Museum, London.
Tutorials on how to recreate two of these collar supports, the piaccdill in figure 1 and the supportasse in figure 2, are featured in Seventeenth-Century Women’s Dress Patterns: Book Two for anyone who is interested in constructing these.
At least three examples of wiresed rebato exist in European and American collections:
Fig. 4. Rebato of wire, metal-thread bobbin lace, cotton, French, c. early 17th-century, Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.
Rebatos in museum collections are made from varying types of metal wire, including iron wrapped in silver gilt or gilded copper wire. So, for the outer frame of my rebato I decided to use a relatively thick galvanised tie wire that I picked up from my local hardware store. This was to make sure that the rebato would be sturdy and keep its shape. For the intricate loops and inner frame I chose to use two sizes of copper jewellery wire, as this was easy to bend and mould into any desired shape.
Ruffs, standing collars, and later, falling bands, were usually made from fine linen or silk. So for the collar I chose to use a lightweight linen fabric. As I was making this for an event I didnât have enough time to buy period accurate lace from the somewhere like the Tudor Tailor Shop. Instead I found some period-looking 3cm wide guipure lace, which is a type of bobbin lace and was known as Genoese lace in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and used this instead.
Additional tools needed were: pliers and a wire-cutter, as well as thread (I used a cotton thread; silk or linen would be more period accurate). As I was pushed for time I also cheated a little on the linen collar and machined sewed parts where a straight running or back stitch would have been used.
Make sure to stay tuned for my next blog post as I’ll be posting my pattern for the rebato frame and collar.
References
[1] Susan North and Jenny Tiramani, eds., Seventeenth-Century Womenâs Dress Patterns: Book Two (London, V&A Publishing, 2012), p. 100.
The second ‘bodies’ (ie. 17th-century corset) reconstruction that I’m undertaking for my PhD research is of the Dame Filmer Bodies at the Gallery of Costume, Platt Hall, Manchester Art Gallery.[1] The exact dating of these bodies is disputed. The museum has dated them according to their provenance: they are believed to have belonged to Dame Elizabeth Filmer, and they have a letter âEâ near the shoulder of the garment. Dame Elizabeth Filmer died in August 1638 and so a reasonable date range for these bodies of 1620-1640 has been given by the Museum.
Yet in Luca Costigliolo’s examination of the garment he states that the âlong-waisted styleâ of the bodies is more characteristic of the 1650s, than of the higher waisted styles of the 1630s and 1640s, and subsequently has given the date range 1638-1650.[2] Iâm more inclined to side with Costigliolo, but regardless these are an amazing and rare example of foundational undergarments from the first half of the seventeenth century.
Bodies and Stomacher of Dame Elizabeth Filmer (back), c. 1630-1650. Gallery of Costume, Platt Hall, Manchester Art Gallery, Manchester.
The Pattern
At the moment there is no available pattern for these bodies, although Iâm hoping that there will be one in the upcoming Patterns of Fashion 5. When I was in the UK last year, I did not have a chance to examine these bodies in detail as they were on display. I did, however, get to look at them closely from different angles through the display glass and there is quite a lot of detailed curatorial/conservation notes on the garment on the Gallery of Costume website.
So how did I draft a pattern?
There are two pictures of these bodies lying flat, one in Norah Waugh’s The Cut of Women’s Clothes, 1600-1930, and the other in Jenny Tiramani and Susan North’s Seventeenth-Century Women’s Dress Patterns: Book Two. On the Gallery of Costume website there are also some measurements for the bodies. So by scaling up the pictures that I have with the measurements given, I was able to draft my own pattern for these bodies. Of course the nature of bodies, being boned, means that they may not have been laying completely flat in those pictures, however, after making a mock up I feel fairly confident that my pattern is accurate in shape and size to the original.
Testing the mock up
The Filmer bodies consist of four separate parts: two front sections and two back sections. These bodies lace together at the front with nineteen pairs of eyelet holes, but unlike the effigy bodies, they have a separate stomacher over which the lacing sits. The stomacher in these bodies is fully boned, and I canât be sure, but there does appear to be a busk made from a thicker piece of whalebone or wood in the centre of the stomacher as well. The shoulder straps fasten the same way as the Effigy Bodies at the front, but these straps sit more on the edge of the shoulders keeping in fashion with the off-the-shoulder fashions of the late 1620s onward. There are six tabs at the bottom of the bodies that spread over the hips, and between the first and second tab on either side of the front, a gore made from silk and linen has been added.
The Materials
These bodies are made from a crimson silk satin with a linen twill lining, and are bound with a pale blue silk ribbon. The bodies are stitched all over in blue silk thread, stiffened with whalebone and are trimmed with a metal thread braid.[3]
For my reconstruction, I decided to use a linen for the lining and yellow gold silk taffeta for the outside. Queen Henrietta Mariaâs wardrobe accounts from the same period contain entries for both silk taffeta and silk satin bodies, and one of the bodies in these entries was yellow. Many portraits of the Queen from the period also depict her in yellow silks, so I tried to find a shade of yellow similar to those gowns she was depicted in.
Anthony Van Dyck, Henrietta Maria ca. 1632 â 1635. National Portrait Gallery, London.
The widths of the whalebone channels in this style are incredibly tiny and much smaller than the both the effigy bodies and another bodie that is contemporary to this. For both my effigy reconstruction and this one, I chose to use a modern synthetic whalebone, which mimics baleenâs properties. Unfortunately, there is no way that I would be able to cut these down to the same width as the original, so each boning channel will be 6mm wide to accommodate this 5mm boning. These are the same channel widths as found on the 1603 effigy bodies, so although not completely accurate for this particular reconstruction they are accurate for the period.
The original bodies are decorated with a metal braid trim, and I was lucky enough to find this very similar metallic gold and silver braid at my local sewing supplies store.
References
[1] In the museum catalogue these are called âstaysâ, however, I prefer to use the term bodies as this is what they were called at the time they were made and worn. The term stays does not come into being until the late seventeenth century.
[2] Luca Costigliolo, âFrom Straight bodies to Staysâ, Seventeenth Century Womenâs Dress Patterns: Book Two, Susan North and Jenny Tiramani, eds. (London, V&A Publishing, 2012), p. 10.
After blogging about the process of reconstructing the earliest pair of surviving English bodies that were found on the 1603 effigy of Queen Elizabeth I at Westminster Abbey, one of the most frequent questions that I received was: do you think these bodies actually belong to the Queen?
My answer: no⊠and yes, maybe.
Funerary records from the time list that an effigy ârepresenting her late Majestie with a paire of straight bodiesâŠâ was ordered from a man called John Colte, and these âstraight bodiesâ were probably made by the Queenâs tailor William Jones. Although the Queen never wore these bodies, considering their hasty construction between Elizabethâs death and her funerary procession, it is probable that their design and construction was based on styles of bodies (and thus measurements) that Jones had previously made for the Queen.[1] Yet, as some people have pointed out, they could also have been made purely for the effigy – as the two were ordered together. To me though, it would seem easier to make a garment from pre-existing measurements and patterns, and simply construct the effigy to fit the garments, rather than the other way around. Certainly, an effigy would probably be much faster to construct than the garments that sat over it.
Surprisingly, the process of trying my reconstruction of these bodies on a model seemed to confirm contemporary accounts about Elizabeth Iâs appearance, which leads me to believe that they were made according to previous patterns that her tailor had made, and possibly previous measurements.
The average height of women during the Tudor era was approximately 158cm and my model was an AU size 6 (UK 6 / US 2) and 156cm (5â2â) tall, so just a tad shorter than the average height during this period.[2] When my model was laced into the bodies they nearly fit her around the torso, with only an inch gap between the centre front openings. However, the underarms cut into her, the shoulder straps were far too big and the back jutted up past shoulder height. This indicates that I need a taller model with a longer torso to accurately fit these bodies.
Shoulder straps come up way past the shoulderline
Gaping at the back due to straps being too big
Pulling the shoulder straps down at the front to fit model
In 1557 the Venetian ambassador, Giovanni Michiel, described Elizabeth who was then 23 years old as “tall and well formed.”[3] Later Francis Bacon stated that she was âtall of statureâ and John Hayward described that she “was slender and straight⊔[4] The findings from my experiment of placing the bodies on a slender but petite model seems then to confirm that these bodies were tailored for a woman who was not only slender but also tall and long in the torso, just as Elizabeth is described as being.
Ditchley Portrait by Marcus Gheeraerts the Younger, oil on canvas, circa 1592
Okay, so the bodies were designed to fit a taller woman (or effigy), but what about the size of the bodies. Surely, they are far too small for someone (besides a child) to have actually worn them?? As I mentioned previously, the bodies did fit my model around her torso, with only a small gap at the front (when laced very tightly). However, as the portrait of the Countess of Southampton indicates, they were probably designed to be worn with the centre front pieces touching side by side, which means my model was just a tad too big for them.
Elizabeth Vernon, Countess of Southampton, 1595-1600. Unknown Artist. Boughton House
Although Elizabeth was described as being tall for the time, the tiny size of her waist was not unique, rather, it seems she was quite average. My reconstruction of the effigy bodies measures 53.4cm (21â) in the waist and 73.6cm (29â) in the bust, placing the wearer as an AU size 4 (UK 4 / US 0) or smaller. Some commentators (and my supervisor) have commented that maybe this was because the Queen was quite sick in the last few months of her life. Whilst this is true, Janet Arnold records that another pair of bodies dated earlier to 1598 from Germany, known as the von Neuburg bodies, had an even smaller waist measurement of 50.8cm (20â) and bust of 71.1cm (28â).[5] A much later bodice, which would have been worn to court, from the 1660s at the Museum of London has an even smaller 48cm (19â) waist measurement![6] Numerous other seventeenth-century bodies and bodices in other collections all show similar measurements, which means that the size of the effigy bodies is not an anomaly. It is possible that maybe a couple of inches was taken off the centre front panels of the pattern to fit the effigy better. Unfortunately, this effigy was redressed in the eighteenth century so we do not have the original outer garments that over the top of these to compare for size. Presumably those garments would have been chosen from the vast wardrobe that Elizabeth owned.
So did these bodies belong to Elizabeth I?
No they didnât, as we have certain proof that were commissioned after she died for her effigy. However, I am inclined to believe that they were made from previous patterns for the style of bodies that would have been worn by the Queen and the measurements were possibly taken from previous garments made for the Queen⊠although we will never know for sure.
* If you’d like to see a much more thorough and detailed use of historical reconstruction to learn about past historical figures, dress historian Hilary Davidson has written an excellent piece ‘Reconstructing Jane Austen’s Silk Pelisse, 1812-1814‘ in the Journal of Costume.
REFERENCES
[1] Janet Arnold, ‘The âpair of straight bodiesâ and âa pair of drawersâ dating from 1603 which Clothe the Effigy of Queen Elizabeth I in Westminster Abbey’, Costume, Vol. 41 (2007), p. 1.
[2] Ninya Mikaila and Jane Malcolm-Davies, The Tudor tailor: Reconstructing 16th-century Dress (London: Batsford, 2006), p. 9.
[3] ‘Venice: May 1557, 11-15’, in Calendar of State Papers Relating To English Affairs in the Archives of Venice, Volume 6, 1555-1558, ed. Rawdon Brown (London, 1877), pp. 1041-1095. British History Online http://www.british-history.ac.uk/cal-state-papers/venice/vol6/pp1041-1095 [accessed 10 July 2016].
[4] Francis Bacon, The felicity of Queen Elizabeth: and her times, with other things; by the Right Honorable Francis Ld Bacon Viscount St Alban. (LONDON: Printed by T. Newcomb, for George Latham at the Bishops Head in St. Pauls Church-yard, 1651), p. 18; John Hayward, Annals of the First Four Years of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, Volume 7, John Bruce, ed. (London: Camden Society, 1840), p. 7.
[5] Janet Arnold, Patterns of Fashion 3: The Cut and Construction of Clothes for Men and Women, c. 1560-1620 (London: MacMillan, 1985), p. 127.
The first reconstruction that I will be making is the effigy bodies of Queen Elizabeth I that are now on display in Westminster Abbey in London. These bodies were specially constructed, probably by the Queenâs tailor William Jones, upon the death of Elizabeth in 1603, for the effigy that would accompany her body to its resting place in Westminster Abbey. As Janet Arnold notes, it is therefore unlikely that the Queen ever wore these bodies, however, their size and construction was probably based on the bodies that Jones had previously made for the Queen.[1] Regardless of whether the Queen really did wear them or not, they are the second oldest pair of bodies in Europe that are known to have survived (the earliest surviving bodies were found on the corpse of PfalzgrĂ€fin Dorothea Sabina von Neuburg, who was buried in what is now Germany in 1598), and the certainly oldest English pair that we know of.
The Pattern
The pattern Iâm using for my reconstruction is one that the amazing Janet Arnold made of the bodies when she studied them in 1994, which was then published posthumously in the journal of Costume.
The effigy bodies consist of three separate parts: two front sections that lace together with twenty-nine eyelet holes and a back section. The lining consists of four parts (the back panel lining being divided into two sections).[2] There are a total of six tabs that spread over the hips, two on the back piece and two on each front section. From the pictures and the pattern provided Iâm unsure as to whether the shoulder straps are part of the back section, or are attached separately. Arnoldâs pattern has them as separate from the back piece, however, in the pictures and other sketches of the bodies they appear to cut into the back piece.
My intention is the make the bodies exactly the same size as the original pair in Westminster Abbey, which by my calculations means that Elizabeth I had a 21â waist (!!). A disclaimer at the start of the article states that âJanetâs full-scale pattern of the âpair of straight bodiesâ has been scaled down to fit the page size of Costume.â[3] I, however, am working off a .pdf document version of this article printed on A4 paper which may be bigger than the pages of Costume. Although technically if I copy it correctly onto a 1 inch scale it shouldnât really matter. To double check this though, Iâve also used the pattern provided in the Tudor Tailor.[4]
The Materials
Unlike the bodies mentioned in the wardrobe accounts of Elizabeth I, the effigy bodies are rather plain. They are made from two layers of twill weave fustian cloth that was originally white, are bound by green leather that had a suede finish and were stitched with linen thread.[5] The term âbodiesâ during this period could refer to a number of things – from the bodices of gowns, to the undergarment that is visible on Countess Elizabeth Vernon of Southampton in her portrait below, and of course to the effigy bodies.
Elizabeth Vernon, Countess of Southampton, 1595-1600. Unknown Artist. Boughton House
My archival research has confirmed that bodies that belonged to elites during this period were always made from materials such as silk satins and silk taffetas, sometimes even velvet, and usually lined with sarcenet, fustian, canvas or buckram. Contrary to popular opinion, bodies were not always stiffened with material such as whalebone or bents, and rarely so until the late sixteenth century.
When considering how then I would make my reconstruction, taking into account the effigy bodies, wardrobe warrants and visual evidence such as the portrait of Elizabeth Vernon, an entry in the warrants of Elizabeth I from 1590 caught my eye. It requested:
âItem for makinge of a paire of french bodies of carnacion Taffata Lyned with fustian stiched alouer with whales bone of our greate warderobe.â [6]
Here was a wardrobe account that not only matches the only visual image of elite bodies from the period, but was made within a close enough time period to the effigy pair that they could have been the same or a very similar style.
Therefore, for my reconstruction I will use a pale pink (âcarnacionâ) coloured silk taffeta for both the outer fabric and the lining. Although fustian and sarcenet were the fabrics most commonly used as lining in the wardrobe accounts, they are rarely used in modern clothing and so are incredibly hard and expensive to source. There are warrants from Elizabethâs wardrobe during the same period, such as this one: “Item for makinge of a pair of bodies… of black veluett… lined with Taffata…”, that shows that taffeta was also used as lining, although less frequently.[7] To bind the bodies I will use white faux leather which closely mimics the properties of leather and is easy to source.
Modern plastic ‘whalebone’, pink silk taffeta, linen thread
The 1603 effigy bodies are completely boned with whalebone and the average width of this boning is 6mm, except for two 12.7mm wide pieces on either side of the front opening.[8] As whalebone (âbaleenâ) is, for good reason, not available anymore I will have to use an somehing else. A period alternative would be small bundles of bents (a thin reed), like those used in Hilary Davidsonâs modern reconstruction of a sixteenth-century Spanish pair of bodies.[9] However, as the effigy bodies contained whalebone I will use a modern alternative that mimics baleenâs properties. I have chosen modern plastic dress making boning. It is similar in width to the original whalebone (5mm) and contains the same amount of flexibility as traditional whalebone. Although silk bodies probably would have been constructed with a mixture of silk and linen thread, as costs must be considered in my reconstruction, I will use only linen thread to hand construct the bodies and to work the eyelet holes so they donât fray (similar to the way that modern button holes are done).
References
[1]Janet Arnold, ‘The âpair of straight bodiesâ and âa pair of drawersâ dating from 1603 which Clothe the Effigy of Queen Elizabeth I in Westminster Abbey’, Costume, Vol. 41 (2007), p. 1.
[2] Arnold, ‘The âpair of straight bodiesâ, p. 1; Luca Costigliolo, âFrom Straight bodies to Staysâ, Seventeenth Century Womenâs Dress Patterns: Book Two, Susan North and Jenny Tiramani, eds. (London, V&A Publishing, 2012), p. 10.
[3] Arnold, ‘The âpair of straight bodiesâ, p. 1
[4] Ninya Mikaila and Jane Malcolm-Davies, The Tudor tailor: Reconstructing 16th-century Dress (London: Batsford, 2006)
[5] Arnold, ‘The âpair of straight bodiesâ, pp. 1, 3; Luca Costigliolo, âFrom Straight bodies to Staysâ, p. 10.
[6] Elizabeth I Warrant for the Robes, 18 May 1590, ER 32 (PRO LC 5/36), fol. 133.
[7] Elizabeth I Warrant for the Robes, 28 September 1592, ER 34 (PRO LC 5/36), fol. 251.
[8] Arnold, ‘The âpair of straight bodiesâ, p. 3.
[9] Hilary Davidson and Anna Hodson, âJoining forces: the intersection of two replica Garmentsâ, Textiles And Text: Re-Establishing The Links Between Archival And Object-Based Research, [postprints], eds. M. Hayward and E.Kramer, (London: Archetype, 2007), pp. 206-108.
Elizabeth I effigy bodies, 1603. Westminster Abbey, London
Reconstruction has until recently not been seen as a concern of the serious academic, relegated to the domain of television, re-enactors or living history museums. Yet reconstruction has been used by archaeologists, curators and conservators for many years, standing in for objects that are too frail to be put on permanent display or adding a âphysical depth to present interpretations of now-absent objects.â[1]
Although reconstructing historic items of dress is subjective and is never preferable to historical evidence, through my experience with museum curators, through conversations with students of historical design at the Royal College of Art in London, as well as other scholars in the material studies academic field, I have learnt that reconstructions can help the historian to not only interpret evidence but to understand movement and bodily constraint in regards to past fashions. Ulinka Rublack from the University of Cambridge has incorporated reconstructions into her work on Renaissance fashion. Hilary Davidson has engaged in historical reconstruction for many years during her career as a curator at the Museum of London and in her scholarly work since, helpfully outlining its merits in her most recent article ‘Reconstructing Jane Austen’s Silk Pelise‘. Renown fashion historian and the figure to whom many of us now working in the field owe our gratitude, Janet Arnold, was a pioneer of fact-based faithful reconstructions of historical dress, and institutes such as the School of Historical Dress run by Jenny Tiramani, and publications by Tiramani and Susan North from the Victoria and Albert Museum lead the field in reconstruction in early modern material studies.
When I have given papers I have come across questions about movement and constraint, as audiences try to visualise the reality of these garments from the pictures and textual evidence I have provided. To some extent, these are questions which my extensive archival and historical sources cannot answer with certainty. We may never know exactly how a sixteenth, seventeenth, or eighteenth-century woman felt when she wore these items, nor am I suggesting that we can use reconstructions to accurately recapture bodily experiences from the past. However, I can recreate their materiality to help analyse the primary sources that I already have â such as commentary on their size, on movement and restriction, or the concealment of pregnancy for example.
I have been lucky enough to receive a grant from my university to reconstruct the items that my research examines – a spanish farthingale, a french farthingale, a wheel farthingale, late sixteenth-century bodie, early-mid seventeenth-century bodie, bum rolls and a late seventeenth century bodie.
Materials to be used are those that closest resemble the original materials which I have found in archival records. Baleen for example is not able to be used, but cane or modern dressmaking boning can be. Other fabrics such as linen and silk are readily available, albeit expensive. I am not making these items to learn about the tailoring field or the process of construction, although I will undoubtedly learn a lot about this in the process, I am reconstructing to learn about mobility, movement and space. Patterns used in these reconstructions will be taken from reliable sources such as Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion, Jenny Tiramani and Susan North’s previously mentioned book, and historical patterns. As there are no surviving examples and no surviving patterns for some of the garments, mainly those for French and Wheel Farthingales, some of my reconstructions will be based on descriptions of women wearing them, visual images and educated guesswork as well.
I’m hoping to keep track of my reconstructions on this blog, as sort of an online diary. Please feel free to comment and add any suggestions!
