Baby*: The Tudor Gown

   

Making a wish?
Photo by Melissa Bagley

This is my first Renaissance gown I have made, and the most complex. I made a few basic outfits ages ago, to wear at Renaissance Fair. One was a peasant type outfit made following Elizabethan Costuming Page. I love this website, it is so helpful! It was all twill and very simple, no trims or anything. I still have it. In fact, the bodice is now my hobbit bodice. The other was a fantasy Italian poly brocade number. I also still have that one. It has a very pretty, but ridiculously long sleeved, poly chiffon camica. Never again. Static central.

Anyways, I decided that I really wanted a Tudor gown, a fancy Tudor gown, and I knew it would take a long time, and money, so I started the project in February and finished it in July. I could work on it gradually, and not have to go broke buying all the fabric in one go. I started with the petticoat, then kirtle, gown, smock, sleeves, hood, sash and jewelry. I cheated and wore an 18th century pocket under my kirtle to stash my stuff.  I really enjoyed making the smaller parts of the project because after dealing with 10 yards of fabric, something that could fit on a TV dinner table was liberating! I also made a Spanish Farthingale, but didn't end up using it. I have reed for the hoops but I need a kiddie pool.

The pattern is Tudor Tailor's Henrician Gown. I also have the book, The Tudor Tailor: Reconstruction 16th Century Dress.

Their patterns produce beautiful garments, but they are for the more advanced costumer. I don't consider myself an advanced costumer, but I survived! The pattern contains very few step-by-step pictures, and all the instructions are in short paragraph form. If I use their patterns again I will break down the paragraphs into steps. Having multiple steps in one block is too confusing for me.

The gown is made of:

Black silk/rayon velvet from Thai Silks.
Grey silk taffeta for the turn backs on the sleeve from Renaissance Fabrics.
Black silk taffeta for the front of the gown, hidden by the placard, also from Renaissance Fabrics.
A scrap of navy silk taffeta from a grab bag I got from Thai Silks for the placard lining. ( I love their grab bags, btw)

It is interlined with linen (hopefully. It was from the local fabric discount store) and lined with black cotton. The sleeves are lined with black silk taffeta.

Velvet ribbon for the edges, linen tape for the sleeve ties and laces, and boning for the placard and bodice front edges, left over hymo for the placard too, I think...

Construction notes.

The sleeves, bodice, and placard went together just fine. I don't think I made any adjustments to the pattern. Yay! The gown is quite heavy so it slid off of my shoulders just a tad. I cheated and added hook and eyes to keep it attached to the kirtle. The skirt panels went to together just fine as well. I faced the front skirt panels in velvet just in case a REALLY HEAVY WIND blew the velvet skirt and exposed the inside. This didn't happen but you never know!

I was basting for days because velvet. I machine stitched most of this gown, but did lots of hand finishing on the edges. I did all the eyelets by hand, twice cause of a stupid mistake of not following directions properly. They are very strong and will be there forever!

I didn't have the edges bound when I wore it at Costume College because of costume triage. It all had to be done mid-July because I also went to SDCC so everything had to be done! I finally bound the skirt edges for the photoshoot, almost four months later. It isn't the best velvet ribbon, so I might do it again with better ribbon. I used a wide Joann's velvet ribbon which is pretty stiff. It looks nice at least.

I made a new smock using their pattern in the Tudor Tailor book, because my old one didn't fit the neckline. Stupidly I made it a v-neck back to match the back of the kirtle (this was my idea, not the books), so it shifts around quite a lot. Shifty shift!!! I will probably add a triangle of fabric to the back and make it a square neck. No one can see it with the hood covering the back, anyways. I did try doing a rolled hem for the neckline, which I won't do ever again. I've decided I prefer a crisp, faced neckline.

Details 

Tudor Vampire 
Photo by Melissa Bagley in the Chapel of the Chimes, Oakland

Accessories always make an outfit, no matter how much time and money you spent on the major parts of it. I made a silk taffeta sash with tassels, necklace and earrings. I also made a French Hood, but that has it's own post.

The sash was simple, just a tube of silk. So simple, I miscalculated the length so I had to join two pieces together. I made sure the join was where the knot would be so nobody would see it. I couldn't find any tassels that matched so I made some out of embroidery thread. I wanted to cap the tassel with something gold, and after much searching, I found a necklace on the clearance rack at Target which had beads that was almost exactly what I was looking for. I wanted something that looked like the gold ouches on the Anne Boylen painting and they were close enough.

                                              

The necklace was made out of left over pearls and spacers and a large brooch I bought from Truly Hats.

All the ouches on the kirtle and the hood are from Truly Hats as well. They are totally worth it. 

Issues, there are always issues.

The main problem I had was with the skirt and getting it to fit the bodice. I'm not sure what happened, but I ended up with quite a lot of extra fabric in the front panel of the skirt. I double checked my pattern against my skirt to make sure I didn't cut the wrong size. I didn't, so who knows.  I was also confused about the deep pleats in the back. I couldn't picture what I was supposed to do the giant pleats on the inside of the dress. Thankfully Tudor Tailor is very helpful and responded quickly to my questions via Facebook. They suggested to take a bigger pleat in the front to make that panel fit, which worked perfectly. To address my back pleating problem, they sent pictures of the inside of the pleat situation of a gown they made which helped a lot! Below is my version.

                                             

Photoshoot

After investing so much into the gown I knew I wanted to document it well, and I knew I wanted Melissa Bagley to do the shoot because her portrait style and aesthetic is fit this project perfectly! She also gives great direction and comes to every shoot with a vision. We found a beautiful location in Oakland called Chapel of the Chimes . The architecture is beautiful! We also had a wonderful assistant, fellow dancer and costumer, Sarah. 

~Sarah and the Vampire~

Conclusion

I love this look, I love the Renaissance. I can't wait to re-visit this time period. I know I will be more confident and will probably be able to make this much faster than I did, because half the time I was stressing over fabrics, how to be as HA as possible, wondering if I was attaching sleeves wrong, being scared of velvet, etc.

Next time I make this or another Tudor Tailor pattern, or really any complicated project, I will rewrite the directions in list form. Another thing I would like to do is try to keep it as light weight as possible. Surprisingly the velvet wasn't really the heavy part, it was the dubious linen and skirt lining. I know lining with a less expensive kind of silk was a thing, so maybe I will try that. I might also line the sleeve turn backs with something stiffer, because they didn't keep their shape so well when we did the photo shoot. Or maybe I should pin them up? I hate fussing with things like that.

I am thankful that there is an extensive online costuming community for help, because if their wasn't, this would be a sad gown. The Elizabethan Facebook Group was extremely helpful responding to questions, at all hours, and as a place to research the old posts, as well as Margo Anderson's blog and Prior Attire's blog and the Elizabethan Costume Page.

Flashing the fangs.
Photo by Melissa Bagley in the Chapel of the Chimes, Oakland

                       

*Baby is named after Dean and Sam Winchester's car. I pretty much binged most of Supernatural while making this whole Tudor ensemble.