Heraldic Dress

(April 2020)

Introduction

Something I have wanted to make for a while is a dress that buttons from top to bottom (This would be roughly a 13-14th century european dress). Why? So I can undo the bottom buttons to make it easier to ride! Split front skirts don't seem to exist in period that I have seen, but button down dresses most certainly do. In 2018, I made a button down dress, but it was this gorgeous wool silk blend. The warp was a black silk and the weft was a green wool. Silk and wool are not materials I really want to wear around a horse. They are not the most washable of fabrics. As such, I needed to make *another* button down dress (who doesn't love making dozens of tiny buttons and buttonholes, over and over again....). This time, in linen. I chose linen because it is a period fabric that washes well, and is cool to wear, both of which are important in dirty, sweaty situations. An overdress during this time period probably would have been wool, but a woman probably wouldn't be riding around on a normal saddle playing medieval games either... To further go on the theme here, since I am usually competing when I ride a horse in the SCA, I might as well advertise and cover it in my heraldry. I had previously made a linen blanket/barding for riding, in red and gold, so I wanted to make the dress match. Conveniently, my heraldry is red and gold.

Background

If you look online, you can find a handful of examples of ~14th century heraldic dresses fairly easily, though the provenance isn't always the best. For example, The hunting scene, The Bourbons Meeting in Clermont en Beauvais shown at right. It shows several individuals in heraldry on particolored dresses, but most of the "sources" are just on pinterest.

Then there is this french book from 1905 by Albin Michel called "La Mode par l’Image du XII^e au XVIII^e Siècle". In it, there are several drawings of woman wearing heraldic dresses, specifically plates IX and X. They were obviously drawn after the fact, so are not truly a period reference. That being said they do show heraldic dresses.

Design

I specifically designed my arms to be fairly easy to use. It's nothing super involved or intricate. It's a horse bow drawn, knocked with a threaded sewing needle. I thought it would be fun to try and make a stamp of my heraldry, and block print one half of a dress. Block printing is something I have never done before. So, learn new things!

I also wanted to try out a new kirtle pattern design I had seen. Waist up would be the same as what I usually make, but the skirt would be much friendlier on fabric use, and would just require more sewing. It would also make it so that the skirt didn't have any bias to bias seems, so it should help the skirt not stretch out of shape.

Stamping

So, a very important piece of block printing? I needed a stamp. I worked with a friend of mine, Peter the Red, who has a fancy carving machine. He carved out my heraldry on a piece of flooring, backed with some plywood. Unfortunately, the carving didn't go nearly deep enough. It did provide a good template for me though. I borrow some hand tools from a class on block carving that was conveniently being taught in my area, and carved out the linoleum much deeper so that it would actually be useful. Once it was made, I did a few test stamps, and liked the general outcome.

Once I had a functional stamp, it was time to start using it. I cut out all the pieces for the dress in red linen. All the pieces on the left side of the dress were block printed in an even pattern using Speedball screen printing ink. I essentially poured the ink into a flat tray with some felt in it, and used that as an ink pad. I had issues with getting ink on the edges of my stamp. I was able to get most of it off the fabric when I didn't notice.

Construction

I cut the front pieces of the dress where the button placards would be on the selvage, with a large allowance so that I could simply fold the front edges over to make a double linen layer to reinforce where the buttons would go. All the main seams were sewn on my sewing machine, but all seams including the hem were finished by hand. Everything is flat felled, then whipstitched. The hem, neckline, and sleeve openings are double folded before being whipstitched. Additionally, all 60 little buttons and buttonholes were fully made by hand. If you want to know how I make these, I have a handout on it in my documents section.

All this talk about the overdress... I also made an underdress in gold linen, not that you can see much of it. I used the same pattern as with the overdress, but closed the front down to mid-thigh, leaving the bottom open as a split skirt. I wanted a decorative element on the sleeves, so both sleeve have 10 buttons from the wrists up to the elbows. Like the overdress, it is fully hand finished, with no visible machine stitching.

Final Thoughts

I have to say, I love how this dress turned out. It's exactly what I wanted. Considering I made the overdress with THREE yards of linen, I am amazed at how full and drapey the skirt looks. Seriously. 3 Yards. That's it. The underdress was also made with 3 yards of linen, not that you can see it. Now I just need to get to the barn...

Update: I did in fact get to the barn! and the dress works really well on a horse. Isn't Royce the handsomest?