16th century dress process

Inspiration: Anna Archduchess of Austria: Dress inspiration

A work in process

Detail of Archduchess Anna of Austria, by Jakob Seisengger

1. Dress style: combination of German, Spanish, Italian and English influences

Inspecting my inspiration portrait of Anna I see a great combination of styles cumulated from the western European area. The dress style it self as a base style is commonly seen in Germany and Tudor England. The simple almost box style of bodice lends itself nicely to the decorative guarding. The guarding, or cutwork is very bold. As such I see lots of German, and Austrian portraits with these bold flashy decorative attributes. It can also be seen in a lot of Italian/Venetian dresses.

What caught my eye...

While I was wandering around the internet going down rabbit holes I found this painting. This is Archduchess Anna of Austria. She was born 11/2/1549 Anna van Habsburg, daughter of Maximilian of Austria and Maria of Spain.

After completely falling in love with her outfit I read a bit of her history, and she was apparently quite likable. Here is a little history...

Anna Married Philip II, King of Spain in May of 1570. She bore him 4 sons and 1 daughter.

"Her parents took over government over the Iberian kingdoms from 1548 to 1551; after that, the imperial family lived alternately in Vienna and Prague. Anna is considered the favorite child of Emperor Maximilian. The story goes that he liked to play gambling games with her and even once postponed a meeting of the States of Hungary because Anna was sick. "Liesbeth Geevers, 2014

Young Elizabeth 1. 1562 (England)

Though the cutwork sleeves are on the over gown, I still feel this is a good example of the decorative sleeves.

Portrait of Elena Gaddi Quaratesi, 1550-55 (Florentine)

Note the neckline- squared off, has the decorative guarding across the front.

Portrait of Lucrezia Panciatichi c. 1540 (Florentine)

Please note her squared off bodice (at the neckline and the waist).

Detail from Paolo Caliari 1561 (Italian)

Note the cutwork sleeves as well as the squared neckline.

2. Headdress: Flat brimmed hat and the beaded coif

Inspiration portrait detail: The hat is definitely a flat brimmed round. With metal findings or metal beads that tie together or are sewn into place.

The coif/ caul is decorated with embordered gold cording, peals and the shape contours to the head and what looks like a wulsthaube.

Note: the beaded caul/coif and the smaller hat. The hat is decorated with lovely findings. The caul itself is the primary focus of this inspiration portrait.

Note: the hats are similar, but the style has changed a bit by making it taller and puffy, however the flat brim and the second layer with decorative embellishments are a clear influence of the style.

Note: similarities in this portrait of The Queen of Poland(Elisabeth of Austria (Queen of Poland) 1526-1545 Daughter of Anna). Please note the beaded coif or the gold coif and flat brimmed hat.

Construction of the hat and the stecuchlein

Wulsthaube and steuchlein

The most common German head covering of the 1500-1550s is called "Wulsthaube mi scheirer". This consists of the under coif or "unterhaube" and a veil or "steuchlein".

During the beginning of the 1500s the Wulsthaulb ,a roll cap, a hood with a hood ( wulst (the roll part that creates the large bump/mushroom shape on the back side of the head) the wulst was quite large, and as the period progresses the become a bit smaller, with a lot of beading and gold corded embroidery.

Stecuchlein

The stecuchlein is the decorated caul, this gets pinned on top the the wulsthaube. This was made with nice lightweight white linen, silk that I cut and then attached to the linen in lines going from front to back ( see images in the photo carousal). Then I added the same silk binding along the front (face) edge. Then I beaded peals, coral into patterns similar to period patterns.

Top view of the front edge of the stecuchlein

Examples of Wulsthaube and stecuchlein decorated and embellished. This set came from Marleina's wardrobe.

Wulsthaube mit schleier: unterhaube & wulst

I wanted to reuse my base wulsthaube (a roll cap) which is the under piece. This will be crossed across the nape of my neck and tied on top of my head. I wear my hair in taped braids wrapped around the crown of my head to add stability. I end up pinning the unterhaube to my taped braids because I like to run around and I like to not have my headpiece coming off my head all day.

Back of the stecuchlein

The Hat

While looking at my original inspiration piece I decided that the style was mixed. A coif (decorated coif) over braided/platted hair. This is the interesting part, it is clearly a combination of German and English style.

I laid out a mock up pattern, and since it is a simple design I looked in my craft room and found a couple metal rings, one was 12" which was to large for what I was hoping to achieve and the other was an 8". I held it up to my head, and decided that it was pretty darn close. So I stuffed it inside the muslin mock up, pinned it and tried it on... I loved the look and forgot to take photos of that. The next step was to cut out the fashion fabric as well as a small round of fine summer weight wool to close the caps bottom hole. The reason I did this was because the hat is not going to sit directly onto my head and I wanted a place I could pin that wasn't silk.

Some aspects are in progress still, because I am still deciding or trying to find the "perfect" beads. You can see my patterning notes on the fabric pieces. Originally I called the hat the bonnet which is a common term used as well. They are also commonly called a beret.

Construction of the Wulsthaube mit schleier unterhaube

Duke Albrecht V. of Bavaria and his wife Anna of Austria playing chess , 1552. I love that Anna is wearing a decorated caul and flat brimmed bonnet in this painting. Interesting is that both their dogs are in the for-ground and I am no expert in chess, but I think she is kicking his butt.

Examples of Wulsthaube and stecuchlein decorated and embellished. This set came from Marleina's wardrobe.

3. The Dress

I started out by deciding the dress should be green silk, which I bought from Silk Baron. It is a gorgeous deep dark forest green (Anemone), with the peaking color (under color) a Bronzed Aqua.

The sleeves:

I took time to pattern out my dress and sleeves to be the perfect fit before cutting the silk. Once I found the right pattern I laid it all out on the ironed fabrics. I made sure to follow bias rules to avoid to much stretch as I worked the sleeves.

Next, I ironed my fashion fabric (dark green) to some fusible adhesive- wonder under. I did this to help keep my fabric from shifting while doing the cut out work. I used 5.08 oz/yd² weight wonder under. Using some transfer paper I added the design to the paper of the wonder under. I cut out all of the designs in the dark green silk.

I removed the wonder under backing, then the tedious task of laying it out on the under fabric, lining it up perfectly. Pinning and adjusting a lot! I think the lining up of the pieces took longer than to cut out the design.

I heat-set the two fabrics together to create one piece of patterned sleeve. I used baking paper between the iron and the silk in case some of the wonder under adhesive was peaking out from the dark green fabric. I wanted to avoid getting the glue on my iron and on the silk.

The next step, I decided was to couch the edges with a hand dyed yarn to keep the cut green silk from fraying to much or coming off completely.

The bodice:

I had already cut out a pattern for the bodice, it was completely together, with lacing holes already handstitched in. I put it on and it just didn't look right, I decided that the bodice was not hard to redo, so I did. In the photo grouping below you can see progress pics of the steps I have been working on. Overall, the new bodice fits perfectly and lays in a better aesthetic following the silhouette of my original inspirations piece of Anna.

I cut all of my decorative guarding from the dark green silk, ironed it on to the lighter under color, then couched the edges down with the same hand colored, hand spin wool yarn that matches the green silk.

I am in the process of attaching all of the decorative pieces to the bodice, and couching the skirt decoration. It matches the original painting in design.

The underdress/ hemd I have not started yet, as I have not decided on the decorative embroidery that I want to put on the neckline of the hemd. I will follow a standard German style hemd. I like how Katafalk (follow the jump here) creates her hemds, so I follow her instructions pretty closely.

I am also creating a kirtle, its made of pale yellow linen, (bodice) inner layer is wool, and lined with linen. It is a simple supportive kirtle and I am following the Tudor Tailor version of the kirtle instructions.

Inspiration paintings.

Archduchess Anna of Austria, by Jakob Seisengger

Process photos of the sleeves and skirt details

Detail photos of progress on the bodice embellishments.