Housebook Durer Dress
(July-August 2020)
Introduction
I recently switched to doing a lot of German garb. In my research, I found a painting by Durer that I fell in love with, and knew I would have to make a version of the dress in the painting. It is a dress that is 15th century, from the Nurnberg Germany area, known as a housebook dress. Many examples of this style of dress can be found in the book Livelier than Life: The Master of the Amsterdam Cabinet or the Housebook Master (all of the black and white photos in this entry are pictures from that book). The dress has heavy pleats in the center front and back that almost seem to provide a supportive structure, and is usually portrayed with an armscye that is deeply cut into the shoulder blade. This style of dress is depicted in several woodcuts and paintings, and has a few variations. The neckline and sleeves can be found in several different styles. It is also often shown over a heavily pleated underdress, with large amounts of embroidery and decoration. As such, it is likely a dress of a wealthier woman. The underdress will be a whole other project that I am excited about...
Materials and Design
Even though this is the dress of a wealthier woman, I decided to go with wool. Not everything needs to be silk, brocade, or velvet. I am often cold, and I thought the thicker fabric of the wool would help to fill out the thick pleats on the front and back of the dress. The wool is of a fine quality, possibly a twill gaberdine, and more of a summer weight. It is a saturated indigo color. I ended up using around 4 yards of fabric total.
The design of this project is unlike anything I have ever made before. The armcye was by far the largest challenge. I started out using the basic german bodice pattern that I have (and used for the striped dress, cranach gown, and rogue dress). I mostly just cut a chunk out of the back of the armscye, and then added that material to the sleeve. It took quite a few toiles to get something that was both comfortable and looked correct. The final product is a rather odd looking pattern that can be seen below. The white piece is one half of the back, the purple is one half of the front, and the green is the top half of a sleeve. I don't want to admit how long it actually took me to make this pattern... Apathy and pain were strong in July quarantine.
From the pictures, it is not clear if this dress should have a waist seam or not. In several paintings it looks like it does. Others, it seems like it doesn't. My general thought is this dress was made in a variety of ways, and I could choose. It seemed to be more fabric efficient to have a waist seam, and easier to construct overall, so that is what I chose to do. I also chose to assume that the bodice was solid, and did not have a piece cut out for the pleating, as this would provide more structure and support, and put less strain on the pleating. It would also mean I would be able to lace the bodice up, and hide the eyelets under the pleats! From there, I just needed to figure out the skirt.
While its still really not known if rolled pleats are period, I choose to think that they are. They just fit the look of so many paintings too perfectly. With this style of dress, the pleats at the front and back really do seem like they would be best represented with rolled pleats. They are often dense looking, and need to contain a large amount of fabric in fairly few pleats, so I really cannot think of a better way to do it.
Construction
I started with making the bodice. I decided to line the main parts of the body with linen, since I wasn't completely sure how this wool would react to being under constant tension. It would also provide reinforcement for the eyelets. I used a machine in hidden areas, but all the visible sewing is hand done with silk thread. The seams are all flat fellet for additional strengths, and hems are rolled. For the sleeves, I just left most of the back seam open so I could add (fingerloop) ties like several of the pictures shown. I hand sewed eyelets with a gray silk embroidery floss using a buttonhole stitch after opening the holes with an awl, per usual. The front lacing is lucet cord made of the same floss. After trying the bodice on, I thought it would be helpful to add a hook and eye to the top and bottom of the lacing area to keep things straight, so thats what I did. Luckily, I correctly assumed that the very tight underbust, and the tension from the shoulders and the rest of the bodice would be enough support for my bust. This might require a supportive garment like the lengberg bra for other body types though.
As mentioned earlier, having a separate bodice and skirt really made the construction for this easier. For the front and back pleated sections, I decided to use a half width of fabric, so about 30". The front piece would obviously need a split for the opening. I hemmed the top and split areas of both bits of fabric by hand. Then I first attached the pleated section to the back since that would be the easier section to work with due to not having an opening in the middle. I lined up the center of the panel with the back seam, and back stitched it down. I then decided how wide I wanted the pleating to be (about 4" total), and whip stitched down the side edges 2" from the center seam, with the raw edges tucked under. From there, I divided each half in half again and back stitched down the section to the bodice, and repeated again to get 8 equal sections. I rolled these sections tightly towards the middle and pinned them down, then whip-stitched each roll to the one next to it, and sewed the top edges to secure (At this stage I had an amusing little tailed coat and admit to wearing it around like that). Since I liked how this turned out, I repeated the process on the front. For the front opening, I placed the slit of the panel over the eyelets, but I only stitched the center pleats down in the areas between the eyelets, so that they could still be used. I lace my eyelets with a blunt needle anyway, so they are still quite accessible.
For the sides of the skirt, I originally planned to just add on trapezoidal sections to the pleated panels, then sew up the sides. I made these pieces by taking a 60" wide section of fabric that was long enough to o from my waist to the floor, and cut it in half to get two 30' wide pieces. I then drew a diagonal cut line from the top to the bottom, that was around 6" in from each outer edge (wide enough to attach to the bodice from the pleated area to the side seam). A picture of this layout is shown above. I then sewed the diagonals of two pieces together, and attached to the bodice, with the straight edges attaching to the pleated sections. Unfortuantely, this ended up looking wrong after I had everything done. It pulled over my hip a little, and the skirt didn't look full enough, even though it was around 150" at the hem. As such, I opened the side seam up again (after having already hand felled the entire thing), and inserted a triangular godet into both side seams. Both godets were about 25" wide, bringing the final hem circumference to about 200". The final result looks *much* better, and didn't pull over my hips. The skirt also looked much fuller.
The final parts of the dress were the decorative bits. The picture I was using for my primary reference had "buttons" on the top corners of the chest, with a lacing holding it together. I decided to use replica Tudor pewter buttons from the Tudor Tailor. Its the right time period, and close enough geographically to be completely plausible, and quite simply, I like them. The lacing is a fingerloop braid I made using the same gray thread as for the eyelets and lucet cord, using a period 5 loop pattern called "A broad lace of 5 loops" that you can find in Tak V Bowes Departed: A 15th Century Braiding Manual Examined. This same braid was used for the ties on the sleeves.
Final Thoughts
I am actually quite pleased with how this turned out in the end, even if it took longer than I would have liked. If i were to do this again in the future, I probably would make the skirt longer, since pictures seem to often portray lots of flowing material... however, it isn't always practical to have that much fabric dragging around you. I went with a practical length for this gown, so that it just hovers above the ground. However, the bigger your wardrobe is, the more you can afford to have impractical dresses you only wear infrequently ;-)
Hopefully I will get a chance to get proper pictures of this dress soon. Its too dark to take pictures of it in my apartment, and it really does need a proper chemise for the right look... so, more to come! Until then... completed pictures of the dress not on me. I really do like how it turned out.
Edit: Chemise made! Picture!
