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This is part of my entry to the Realm of Venus Italian Renaissance Costuming Challenge, found at 1480's Florentine Gown - Research and Progress Notes.
For headgear I decided to create a gold net reta in the style of one you see in Ghirlandio's Birth of Mary seen above. In Herald this type of head covering is described as "knotted nets of silk or gold threads, which often incorporated pearls and sometimes other gems" (177). Young women often wore their hair "curled in long tresses" underneath their reta (seen in the painting as well) (Tortora 159). As I am recreating an unmarried/recently married woman's clothing and the image is seen in Ghirlandio, despite my own age of 28 I feel this is an appropriate hairstyle to match the headgear and ensemble. A thorough explanation of the reta and what other reenactors have done on the subject can be found at Dawn's Dress Diary.
While I looked at numerous sources I could not find any description beyond "knotted" to explain how retas were made, and knotted could describe many different techniques. It is quite possible that the gold net was made through traditional netting techniques using a shuttle, but looking at some of the larger retas in paintings (see Giovanni Ambrogio de Predis' Portrait of a Woman and Portrait of an Unknown Woman) I'm not certain this technique was used, at least for the large, square grids. I felt that any method I chose would be based somewhat on guesswork, so I decided to focus primarily on recreating the look of the painting using exclusively hand work and period (or imitations of period) materials.
I was inspired by the descriptions in Herald and others of gold thread knotted by hand and I wanted to capture the glint of gold seen in my inspiration painting. As such, I used faux metallic gold embroidery thread and knotted it in 3/8th inch squares to create my net. I also bound the piece in hand made black velvet bias tape as that was my best guess as to the fabric used in the piece, then used stem stitch in metallic thread to add the gold outlines. While the technique is purely conjecture, the finished netting does look very similar to both the piece seen in the inspiration painting by Ghirlandio as well as the netted caps seen in several other paintings, including Bartolomeo Montagna's Saint Justina of Padua and Francesco Da Cotignola's Portrait of a Lady.
For my reta I used:
Faux metallic gold passing thread (lots, I lost count of how much)Black silk thread (only a few yards)1 yard of 1/2 inch wide strip black linen folded and whipstitched closed to 1/4 inch wide*Small amount of scraps of black cotton velvet, enough for 3 11-12 inch strips, 2 at 1.25 inches wide, 1 at 3/4 inch wide*3 yards 26 gauge brass wire1 sheet white paper for form1 yard white thread for basting* Note - I was trying to keep my costs down by using leftovers from other projects where I could. The base linen ribbon and velvet ribbon were made from leftovers of other projects, but pre-made ribbon would also work for both. First I used paper and tape to create a 2-piece head form to match my head shape, inspired by the method shown at Dawn's Dress Diary. I went a different route though and after forming it to my head I then used the paper as a base to attach my other materials to directly, instead of creating a flat pattern. This allowed me to add several additional creases on the top edge to better fit the pattern to the curve of my head. I created my own black linen ribbon for my base structure by whip stitching the edges of strips left over from my 14th Century Heraldic Gown with my black silk thread. Then I basted this to the paper form in the pattern I wanted my cap to take.
For the gold net first I used a ruler and marked out a 3/8 inch grid on each of the two pieces. Looking at the painting I estimated the 3/8 inch size by blowing up the magnification on the detail from Birth of Mary until the head in the painting matched the size of my own head and then used a ruler to measure the spacing of the gold netting, roughly 3/8-inch squares. Once I had sketched out my pattern for the threads to follow I used two strands of gold passing thread and covered the first set of diagonal lines. I was very worried that during the knotting the threads would slide around too much, so for the second set of threads I twisted the ground threads so that they would have a little more hold on each other. I occasionally poked pins through the paper to hold the threads in position over some of the more rounded sections on the top side.
First set of ground lines Second set of ground lines, a twist between each set of threads.
After both sets of ground threads were laid I switched to a single strand of passing thread and wrapped it around the base grid, knotting it at every cross of the grid, first in one direction and then back in the other so that the net was secure in both directions. This made up the majority of the time spent on this accessory due to both the difficulty in keeping the threads in place while they were being knotted and also the nearly 500 knots which had to be tied as I went.
knotting the net first on one axis knotting it on the second axis
Once I had finished the netting I then braided three strands of 26 gauge brass wire and couched it down onto the form at the top and bottom lines to provide structure to the finished piece and to keep it rounded to fit my head. This was not originally part of my plan, but after I cut away the paper form the cap did not want to follow the curve of my head enough so I added the wire for stability and shaping. Braiding the thinner wire meant that I got a little more structural support and also that the wire was easy to couch due to the spaces in the braid.
Next I took scraps of leftover velvet from my 14th/15th Century Velvet Surcoat and used them to cover the linen support. I first made the velvet ribbon for the center band by measuring the length of the center line (11 inches) and then hemming an 11 inch long 3/4 inch wide strip down to 3/8 inch wide. I then pinned this to the center line and whip stitched both sides down to the existing black linen support. Then I used the 1.25 inch wide strips to create velvet double fold bias tape (for instructions and pictures about creating bias tape see Make Your Own Bias Tape steps 9-11) and used it to bind the top and bottom edges, completely covering the base linen.
Finally, to recreate the look of the gold outlines against the black seen in the painting I took two strands of the gold passing thread and did a stem stitch along all of the borders. This was surprisingly challenging as the gold wrapped thread kept catching on the velvet, so keeping the two strands even was a struggle, but I love the completed look.
I am incredibly happy with the finished piece. It sits beautifully on my
head, follows the shape perfectly, and is very comfortable. The wire provides structure and the velvet has a good deal of friction against my hair, so it actually stays on by itself. Once I do my hair properly I will also be able to use straight pins to hold it down more securely for going to events. After finishing the piece I realized I probably could have saved some time by doing a larger grid instead of 3/8 inch squares without a hugely noticable difference in the finished product, but I really liked trying to stay as true to the inspiration piece as possible and using the smaller grid size helped. The finished piece looks incredibly similar to the inspiration in my opinion, which makes me very happy with how it turned out.
Works Cited/Consulted:
Birbari, Elizabeth. Dress In Italian Painting 1460-1500. London: John Murray Ltd., 1975.
Crowfoot, Elizabeth, Frances Pritchard, and Kay Staniland. Textiles and Clothing 1150-1450.
London: Boydell Press, 2001.
Frick, Carole Collier. Dressing Renaissance Florence. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2002.
Herald, Jaqueline. Renaissance Dress in Italy 1400-1500. London: Bell & Hyman, 1981.
Tortora, Phyllis, Keith Eubank. Survey of Historic Costume. 4th ed. New York: Fairchild Publications, Inc., 2005.
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