Marianne 2.2
Jan. 24th, 2012 09:12 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
janestarzThis might be a long, rambling post, but please read and comment because I could use your help.
Cut for rambling costume bits.
One of the more lengthy projects I've made in the past few years was the entire dress diary for Marianne. As you might know, the character started out in pink & blue with a ridiculous hat-and-a-bonny-feather but she has evolved since then. You could call it Marianne 1.0.
The second dress Marianne wore is the purple one I am still wearing for her to this day, but it's undergone a few changes. Ork made a beautiful photoshoot and we can recall this picture as the original incarnation of Marianne 2.0. (10 kilo's heavier than I am now, and with corset).
As the dress grew older and I lost a bit of weight, the heavy wool skirts sagged. This didn't bother me at the time, but it's already visible in Ork's photoshoot at the final Lextalionis location. A lovely picture of Marianne 2.1 -- a second band was added to the hem, so we went up a sub-version -- and you can see that the hem is already touching the ground in this picture, where it was still ankle-length when I made it.
This was beginning to be a problem at the last Maerquin weekend in November and so last week I ripped off the bottom band at the hem. If you know the dress or look closely at the pictures, you can see that the hem had first a smaller band at the bottom, and then a larger band above it. The easiest way to shorten the dress was to just fold the fabric over at the larger band. This would take some 5 centimeters off the hem, which I could use well enough.
I also shortened the lining layer, whose skirt hangs loose as an underskirt, and sewed the thinner band of velvet back onto the dress. I also added a third band of velvet, of the same width, above that.
At the top of this picture is the hemline, with the wide band of velvet. The two others follow with very nearly 3 cm (or maybe an inch) in between.
This incarnation should probably be called Marianne 2.2 -- as I'm still wearing the same purple dress it's not upgrading her to a new version, but adding another sub-version (subversion!) to the character. Haha. My geek humour is teh 1337.
As we now have a full-length mirror at our disposal, I took a picture in the late afternoon. Please excuse the apalling quality, I really have no excuse.
Socks visible again, and now with three bands at the hem. There is an IC reason for this, and the third one is long overdue.
Now for my dilemma!
Maerquin plays in April and November, at which time the evenings are chilly or downright cold. Currently I have a very big, full-circle cloak. It's made of wool and dyed damask, and it's bloody heavy is what it is. It makes me slouch, and it will harbour three people if they're cold. In short: I need something else.
I've let myself be wooed by this amazing Fitted English Gown from the Tudor Tailor, one of my favorite books on Tudor costumes (with patterns to scale!) that also produced the partlet I always wear with this dress. Here's some thoughts.
The dress Marianne wears is close to historical. If I had made it in another colour it would probably be accepted as historical, even. It's reminiscent of a Florentine gown (thank you, Jen, for inspiring me!). However, I've always hated the Florentine sleeves, so I just donated those to Steelweaver last weekend.
I would want a historical 'coat' to go over this dress for the evenings, in stead of the cloak. The problem is not so much that I'd combine an Italian dress (don't start on the use of 'Italian' before it was Italy, please) with an English gown, because if I want to be really historically correct, I'd tape my hair to be Florentine or wear an English kirtle to be a good Englishwoman. We don't do historical at larps, so I can mix and match what I want to wear as much as I can.
The fitted English gown (examples here and here are really quite fitted.)
We come down to the conundrums. These are just thinking aloud, but comments are welcome!
1) Should I, to create a more fitting silhouette, especially in the gown that should be wearable as a separate garment, make myself a boned bodice or bodys? That way, if I fit the gown, I will get the fit of the actual Tudor silhouette, gaining a far more historical correct shape.
The original bodys I wore with version 1.0 are fitting rather badly and press down on hipbones awkwardly. Also, the Epic Boobage is embarrassing and dinner items can get lost in it (forks, breadcrumbs, spareribs...). The first bodys took me 6 months to make. Is it really worth it? Is it?
2) Will the gown even fit over this version of the dress? The skirts of the dress consists of a large rectangle gathered to the bodice, so it's pretty wide at the waist already. Even if I make a version of the gown that has a pleated back, I wonder if there will be enough room at the hipline for the entire skirt underneath it.
However, the most likely thing that will happen is that the front of the gown will open to allow for the skirts. This is only bad if there's a portion of skirt escaping out into the wild.
3) I don't have loose sleeves with my dress. The Florentine sleeves are not my kind of shape and I never tried a more fitted pair. I'm afraid they'll pull the dress straps down. To accomodate for my huge camicia sleeves, the sleeves of the gown will have to be pretty wide. I've tried on my winter coat with my camicia and dress, and that size will do, so it's not really very huge, but still larger than what the ladies in above examples wore.
The puffed & paned sleeves are really lovely, but I noticed I am favouring these sleeve types lately, and Marianne is anything but a Snow White.
4) While we're on the subject of sleeves, the armscye probably needs to be low enough to be called "slip-on" because of the camicia. And now that I've decided to do semi-fitted sleeves, I might even cross-breed the Tudors with a Burgundian gown and do those very long, trumpet-shaped things that cover half your hand.
Or maybe I'll go all-out and do a full Tudor sleeve.
Argh! So many options, only one gown to make!
5) Embellishments! I love what they did in the book, with a band of velvet around the edges, but it's too much like what Marianne has on her dress. I once bought a purple lace that I might use, but it will make the gown so very specific and take it back out of the historical spectrum. The gown will be black wool with a black linen lining, so it needs something to spice it up...
And I haven't even considered the closures yet. Frogs are out, hooks and eyes never close anything up tight enough, and ties are so impractical. Perhaps I should just use a metal button and be done with it!
In any case, many things tumbling through my head for this gown, and nothing is definite yet. I think I might just try and make this as historical as I can because I might be sorry if I don't.
I'd really love to hear your thoughts on this... if you came this far in reading my ramblings, you must have an opinion on the subject!
Cut for rambling costume bits.
One of the more lengthy projects I've made in the past few years was the entire dress diary for Marianne. As you might know, the character started out in pink & blue with a ridiculous hat-and-a-bonny-feather but she has evolved since then. You could call it Marianne 1.0.
The second dress Marianne wore is the purple one I am still wearing for her to this day, but it's undergone a few changes. Ork made a beautiful photoshoot and we can recall this picture as the original incarnation of Marianne 2.0. (10 kilo's heavier than I am now, and with corset).
As the dress grew older and I lost a bit of weight, the heavy wool skirts sagged. This didn't bother me at the time, but it's already visible in Ork's photoshoot at the final Lextalionis location. A lovely picture of Marianne 2.1 -- a second band was added to the hem, so we went up a sub-version -- and you can see that the hem is already touching the ground in this picture, where it was still ankle-length when I made it.
This was beginning to be a problem at the last Maerquin weekend in November and so last week I ripped off the bottom band at the hem. If you know the dress or look closely at the pictures, you can see that the hem had first a smaller band at the bottom, and then a larger band above it. The easiest way to shorten the dress was to just fold the fabric over at the larger band. This would take some 5 centimeters off the hem, which I could use well enough.
I also shortened the lining layer, whose skirt hangs loose as an underskirt, and sewed the thinner band of velvet back onto the dress. I also added a third band of velvet, of the same width, above that.
 |
| From 24-01-12 |
At the top of this picture is the hemline, with the wide band of velvet. The two others follow with very nearly 3 cm (or maybe an inch) in between.
This incarnation should probably be called Marianne 2.2 -- as I'm still wearing the same purple dress it's not upgrading her to a new version, but adding another sub-version (subversion!) to the character. Haha. My geek humour is teh 1337.
As we now have a full-length mirror at our disposal, I took a picture in the late afternoon. Please excuse the apalling quality, I really have no excuse.
Socks visible again, and now with three bands at the hem. There is an IC reason for this, and the third one is long overdue.
Now for my dilemma!
Maerquin plays in April and November, at which time the evenings are chilly or downright cold. Currently I have a very big, full-circle cloak. It's made of wool and dyed damask, and it's bloody heavy is what it is. It makes me slouch, and it will harbour three people if they're cold. In short: I need something else.
I've let myself be wooed by this amazing Fitted English Gown from the Tudor Tailor, one of my favorite books on Tudor costumes (with patterns to scale!) that also produced the partlet I always wear with this dress. Here's some thoughts.
The dress Marianne wears is close to historical. If I had made it in another colour it would probably be accepted as historical, even. It's reminiscent of a Florentine gown (thank you, Jen, for inspiring me!). However, I've always hated the Florentine sleeves, so I just donated those to Steelweaver last weekend.
I would want a historical 'coat' to go over this dress for the evenings, in stead of the cloak. The problem is not so much that I'd combine an Italian dress (don't start on the use of 'Italian' before it was Italy, please) with an English gown, because if I want to be really historically correct, I'd tape my hair to be Florentine or wear an English kirtle to be a good Englishwoman. We don't do historical at larps, so I can mix and match what I want to wear as much as I can.
The fitted English gown (examples here and here are really quite fitted.)
We come down to the conundrums. These are just thinking aloud, but comments are welcome!
1) Should I, to create a more fitting silhouette, especially in the gown that should be wearable as a separate garment, make myself a boned bodice or bodys? That way, if I fit the gown, I will get the fit of the actual Tudor silhouette, gaining a far more historical correct shape.
The original bodys I wore with version 1.0 are fitting rather badly and press down on hipbones awkwardly. Also, the Epic Boobage is embarrassing and dinner items can get lost in it (forks, breadcrumbs, spareribs...). The first bodys took me 6 months to make. Is it really worth it? Is it?
2) Will the gown even fit over this version of the dress? The skirts of the dress consists of a large rectangle gathered to the bodice, so it's pretty wide at the waist already. Even if I make a version of the gown that has a pleated back, I wonder if there will be enough room at the hipline for the entire skirt underneath it.
However, the most likely thing that will happen is that the front of the gown will open to allow for the skirts. This is only bad if there's a portion of skirt escaping out into the wild.
3) I don't have loose sleeves with my dress. The Florentine sleeves are not my kind of shape and I never tried a more fitted pair. I'm afraid they'll pull the dress straps down. To accomodate for my huge camicia sleeves, the sleeves of the gown will have to be pretty wide. I've tried on my winter coat with my camicia and dress, and that size will do, so it's not really very huge, but still larger than what the ladies in above examples wore.
The puffed & paned sleeves are really lovely, but I noticed I am favouring these sleeve types lately, and Marianne is anything but a Snow White.
4) While we're on the subject of sleeves, the armscye probably needs to be low enough to be called "slip-on" because of the camicia. And now that I've decided to do semi-fitted sleeves, I might even cross-breed the Tudors with a Burgundian gown and do those very long, trumpet-shaped things that cover half your hand.
Or maybe I'll go all-out and do a full Tudor sleeve.
Argh! So many options, only one gown to make!
5) Embellishments! I love what they did in the book, with a band of velvet around the edges, but it's too much like what Marianne has on her dress. I once bought a purple lace that I might use, but it will make the gown so very specific and take it back out of the historical spectrum. The gown will be black wool with a black linen lining, so it needs something to spice it up...
And I haven't even considered the closures yet. Frogs are out, hooks and eyes never close anything up tight enough, and ties are so impractical. Perhaps I should just use a metal button and be done with it!
In any case, many things tumbling through my head for this gown, and nothing is definite yet. I think I might just try and make this as historical as I can because I might be sorry if I don't.
I'd really love to hear your thoughts on this... if you came this far in reading my ramblings, you must have an opinion on the subject!
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
no subject
Date: 2012-01-25 08:50 am (UTC)Hmm - how do you like this one? It's not as fitted, but would fit the style. Mind that I am not a very good reference on Renaissance fashion, I found my little niche, and don't venture much further ;-)
http://www.wga.hu/art/b/bronzino/2/portlady.jpg
no subject
Date: 2012-01-25 08:57 am (UTC)The cuff is nice too, very Italian.
I'm a fan of fitted at the waist, since there's so much hip and so very little waist in my figure. Bulky gowns make me look as heavy as I weigh. Fitted gowns make me look like I've actually got a figure (which I do).
Your niche is lovely and it looks great on your figure. :-)
no subject
Date: 2012-01-25 11:32 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-26 05:38 am (UTC)For something a bit less fitted but still lush you might consider a Zimarra
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v31/operafantomet/renaissanceportraits/venezia2/spilimbergo1560.jpg
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v31/operafantomet/renaissanceportraits/venezia2/domenicoriccio1567palazzothiene.jpg
And as to what sleeve to go with your purple dress.. all of them!
no subject
Date: 2012-01-26 06:45 am (UTC)Your florentine is very lovely as well, I love that shade of green!
I'm not wearing bodies in any of the photos except the first one with the purple gown (Marianne 1.0). You can see the bodice is completely smooth, even over my chest. In the others, there's at least some bulge from the Epic Boobage.
I'll probably be doing a dress diary on this gown as soon as I start making it, so keep an eye on
no subject
Date: 2012-01-26 03:54 pm (UTC)I'll keep my eyes peeled on dressdiaries for your progress. =)