Black and Gold Houppelande, circa 1420
The goal for this gown was to make something fun and dramatic for Atlantia's Kingdom 12th Night (2007).
Jeun de Meun, Le Testament,
BNF 12595 fol 52
Paris, 1400-1402
This gown is not based on any specific illumination; elements are taken from several roughly contemporaneous images but I can't say for sure they would have been combined this way. The collar is from BNF 12595 fol. 52, but can also be worn folded down to appear more like the collar in the Hours of Catherine of Cleves, which the sleeves are modeled from. The first manuscript is dated 1400, the second manuscript dates from approximately 1440 but there are many works from intermediate dates that show similar fashions.
Hours of Catherine of Cleves,
Pierpont Morgan library,
M917, p 65
The garment fabric is a black-and-gold patterned wool, the lining is a red wool gabardine. Fur linings are more common, but fabric linings (including red fabric) are mentioned in contemporary inventories.1
Click on any image on this page to be taken to a larger version.
Assembly
The first problem was figuring out the neckline/collar.
Draping the Interlining, Front and Back.
I had never made a gown with this type of standing collar before. After consulting several better seamstresses than I, I knew it would need some support from the bodice area.. So, I started by draping an interlining out of some scrap linen on my dress dummy. The front is shaped so that support extends as far as possible down the front opening of the gown, but ends higher on the sides so that the pleats created by the belt can extend as high as possible.
Collar pinned to the interlining.
Next, I used some scrap fabric to establish a shape for the collar, and pinned that to the interlining to test. The collar is a slightly curved rectangle. It can be worn in the "up" position as shown, or folded down to create the "Peter Pan" collar look that is more common in illuminations of the time. When folded down, the neckline can be pinned at the throat, otherwise it opens to mid-sternum level.
Assembled and padstitched.
The collar and interlining were duplicated in 2 layers of wool flannel (more scraps from a previous gown) and assembled. A lining and collar were cut from red wool twill, and the interlining was padstitched (by machine) to the lining. The padstitching consists of closely spaced rows of machine stitching - it is barely visible when the dress is worn, as the thread closely matches the color of the lining. The lining and collar were copied in the fashion fabric - a rather loosely woven black-and-gold wool.
Sleeve patterning.
The gown was machine sewn, and seams were ironed open. (Since it's fully lined, no further seam finishing was needed.) After the lining and body fabric were assembled, $1/yd fabric was used to establish a pattern for the sleeves. This pattern was used to cut sleeves from both lining and body fabric. The sleeves were sewn together along three edges, turned and the shoulders finished, then mounted in the armholes. Hemming was done using the blind-hem stitch of the sewing machine - lining and outer fabric were hemmed as one layer so they would move together. (I miscalculated the length of the gown slightly when determining the cutting layout. Though I'm only 5'3", 58" fabric wasn't quite long enough to allow the body panels to be cut width-wise along the fabric and still have the hem "puddle" on the ground. Scrap fabric was used to extend the length of the skirt in back, unfortunately there wasn't quite enough to do the same in front so it's slightly shorter than my ideal.)
Final Gown
Full-Length 1.
Full-Length 2.
Closeup.
Since I wore this to Atlantia's 12th Night, I was lucky enough to have Baron Bardulf Rauen take several pictures of me wearing it. More of his work can be found here.