14th Century Heraldic Gown
Completed Summer 2013:
One of my favorite pieces is a heraldic gown/cotehardie/gothic-fitted-dress/kirtle (depending on your preferred terminology) I created in to wear in support of the SCA fencing crew, The Handsome Boys. I decided to create a 14th century heraldic gown in their colors of black and gold and using both their official and unofficial symbols, a rapier and mirror crossed and a mustache.
Historical Inspiration:
There is some question if this type of heraldic gown is period, and rightly so. While a popular style amongst people in the SCA, most heraldic clothing we see in paintings are surcoats, not gowns. However, in one of the illuminated copies of Froissart's Chronicles we see numerous women dressed in heraldic gowns.
While I think the gowns here were designed more to show the connections of their wearers to the Queen rather than to be an accurate representation of clothing worn in period (and the piece was illustrated nearly a century later), this and several other similar works establish the concept of heraldic gowns enough for me to justify making one for a non-A&S piece. However, I did decide to make tippets to match the painting (though in linen, because Pennsic is hot, instead of the fur they would have most likely been in period).
Additionally, in period women's gowns divided in two colors (called mi-parti, or sometimes parti-colored) were made with sleeves, gores, and gown body all one color on the left and another on the right, not with the sleeves and torso alternately colored (usually only seen on entertainers, not noblewomen). As such, my gown is entirely gold on my right side and black on my left.
Construction:
The gown is a standard four-panel bust supportive gown with a curved front. The gown is made entirely out of linen (not really documentable for outer-wear, but Pennsic is HOT), with the torso lined to the hip with a second layer of linen. It laces up the front using spiral lacing as seen in period.
I was slightly worried that the linen would still stretch after wearing in the heat and humidity so I cut it just a smidge small, and after two wearings I have to say the fit came out perfect. It is surprisingly comfortable considering the tightness required under the bust to give that much support for my bust size.
The sleeves were patterned using Maistresse Mathilde Bourette's technique, which is an excellent guide to making sleeves in general, but especially designed for medieval gowns. As I knew it was going to be potentially very warm the day I wore this I drafted the sleeves to be a little loose. This had the added benefit of meaning I did not have to worry about buttons for the sleeves, which was lovely as I had started planning this a little too close to Pennsic.
All of the seams in the torso are flatfelled to encourage them to lay flat, and the hem, neckline, and sleeves are all hand-finished to avoid visible machine stitching. The eyelets are also all handsewn. The result of this was the handsewing alone to complete the main body of the dress took up quite a bit of my project time.
Decoration:
Once the gown was completed I began preparing for the second phase - the applique! Following the advice both of Lady Wodeford and wonderful advice from my fellow guild members in Athena's Thimble, along with some ideas I pieced together on my own, I came up with a plan for the applique.
First I printed out my two designs and cut them out of paper to create a stencil. I had decided to use Heat n' Bond to cut down on fraying as this was going to be linen on linen and linen loves to fray. I traced my stencils onto the HnB paper backing.
Then, I ironed the HnB onto my design fabric (linen scraps leftover from construction of the gown). Once the HnB was secured to the fabric, I cut out the design showing on the paper backing. This left me with small linen mustaches connected to a paper backing.
I then peeled off the paper and arranged the mustaches on the fabric. I only ironed on four at a time to try to avoid as much fraying as possible. This worked out quite well.
Once cool, I then took no. 5 perle cotton in matching colors (black for the mustaches, gold for the official symbol) and couched the cord along the outside of the mustache with matching thread. Couching cord around applique was a common finishing method in period, and I also liked the look of it on my test swatches more so than tightly packed blanket or whip stitch. The cord was plunged through at the beginning and end and sewn down on the back side of the fabric to avoid visible marks on the front.
Once the mustaches were done I repeated the process with the official symbol, a crossed rapier and mirror, on the other side. This was slightly trickier as the long, thin pieces of the sword and mirror handle wanted to move about a lot before they were ironed on. I would not try this technique without using some sort of glue or bonding agent before sewing down if using linen, but the Heat n' Bond worked wonderfully.
I lost count of the hours the applique took somewhere in the mid 30s but I think it ended up being around 40 hours and a bit total. While not at all horrible, it still was a little much to be doing a week and change before the dress was to be worn. When I finally finished my roomate kindly couch-modeled the dress for me as I was just too tired to go through the lacing process but wanted visual proof I was done.
My first go at lacing cord did not come out great, so I ended up learning how to make a basic lucet cord to make for the lace using instructions at RockNBead. It took a little bit to look nice and still ended up a bit bumpy in a few places, but overall I was quite happy with it.
The last piece to finish was the tippets. I simply measured out the rough length I wanted them to reach and played with a bit of math to work out the right size and shape, a T. Then I simply hemmed them the whole way around and flat-felled the seam to sit on my upper arm. Unfortunately, by this time I was actually at Pennsic and it was the day before I was to wear the gown, so this was a little rushed.
In the end the whole thing took far more hours than I care to count, but came out looking very nice and is incredibly enjoyable to wear. I am very happy with the fit and the lines, and I have gotten numerous compliments on the piece already. I love my fencing crew and I am so happy to be able to display my support in this way.
