Making the 16th Century Flemish Working Class Woman’s Gown Part 2: The Construction

It’s been a month since I’ve posted anything about  my 16th century Flemish costume. Where did I leave off? Ah, the dress. On to the construction.

This is a continuation of a series of posts I’m writing on my construction of a 16th century outfit, which would have been worn by a working class woman of Flanders. I wrote about my analysis of the gown in the last post in this series: https://maniacalmedievalist.wordpress.com/2012/10/17/making-the-16th-century-flemish-working-class-womans-gown-part-1-the-documentation/

Most of my construction was based off of Kass McGann’s ideas posted in Reconstructing History: http://www.reconstructinghistory.com/blog/the-netherlandish-working-womans-outfit-part-1.html

When it comes to 16th century Dutch dress, there are two main theorists. Kass is one. The other is Drea Leed: http://www.elizabethancostume.net/lowerclass/makeflem.html . It’s not that I disagree with Drea. I felt that Kass’s ideas would result more in the look I wanted to achieve than Drea’s.  The look I want comes mainly from the paintings by Joachim Beuckelaer and Pieter Aertsen, two 16th centruy painters who mainly worked out of Antwerp.

If you go to Kass’s part two in her Netherlandish Working Woman’s Outfit ( http://www.reconstructinghistory.com/blog/the-netherlandish-working-womans-outfit-part-2.html ), she gives fairly straight forward instructions on creating the bodice part of the gown.

I started out with two squares of my linen. I sewed them together to give the bodice extra strength when lacing.

Using my modern awl, I made the holes for the eyelets. I really do need to get a more period awl.

I laced the square of fabric around the mid-section of my dress dummy.

To prepare for making an armhole, I made a slit from the top of square, where it hit my shoulders, down to about armpit level.

I squared off the hole in order to get to the shoulder seams.

The square I used was way too long. I ended up wasting a good bit of fabric at the top. If I make something like this again, I’ll figure out how to use measurements to get a more accurate piece of fabric.

I sewed up the shoulder seam a bit at a time until it fit fairly snug.

detail from Christ in the House of Martha and Mary
Joachim Beuckelaer

The pieces of the skirt are pretty geometric.

At this point, I had not had as much experience making pleats, so I first tried box pleats.

Flight into Egypt, detail
Joachim Beuckelaer

The rear ends of the women in these paintings are awfully large, but I couldn’t justify using a bum-roll. Why would a working class woman wear a bum-roll? My guess is that the look was achieved with pleatings. Box pleats, however, did not work.

So I tried cartridge pleats. I’m not unhappy with the pleats, but I still need to go back an re-attach them. My method of attaching them to the bodice part flattened them out a good bit more than I wanted.

Overall, I’m happy with it. I achieved the look I wanted, minus a few minor errors. I did, however, learn quite a bit.