1580s Italian Working Class dress

I actually finished this project in late January, but haven't posted about it yet.

I entered this dress in the Caid Pentathlon, and won first place in Costume Construction at the beginner level (!!!!!). Here it is displayed at Pentathlon:



Rather than re-typing a dress description, I'm going to use the description from my Pentathlon documentation.

The dress consists of a chemise (or camica in Italian), a bodice with attached skirt, detachable sleeves, an apron, and a partlet.

Camica or Chemise: The camica is made of a remnant of cotton I found in a thrift store. The neckline is gathered into a ruffle, and a narrow band of the same fabric is stitched around the neckline to hold the ruffle in place. The sleeves of the camica were gathered into a ruffle with a short slit running up the back of the arm. Two eyelets were sewn into sides of the wrist, so they could be laced together with a ribbon. When the ribbon is removed, and the sleeves can be rolled up above the elbows.

Dress: The bodice and skirt are made of light green linen. No commercial pattern was used. The general shape is taken from burial dress of Elenor of Toledo, as described by Janet Arnold in Patterns of Fashion 3. Though Elenor of Toledo’s dress is a higher class, I felt safe to assume the basic shape would stay the same. The bodice is made of three layers. An interlining consists of two layers of linen sewn into ¼ inch channels and “boned” with a mixture of jute and hemp cord. The lining is yellow linen, and the outer layer consists of light green linen. It laces spirally up the center front by means of a ribbon sewn to either side of the center front opening, and tacked down at intervals, which acts as substitute lacing rings.



The skirt is made of three A-shaped panels of light green linen, and is cartridge-pleated and sewn to the bodice. A small gap if left in the center front of the skirt below the center opening of the bodice to allow the wearer to get in and out of the dress. The gap is generally covered by the apron. The bodice and skirt are trimmed with a narrow band of black wool. Four hand bound eyelets are sewn into each shoulder to provide lacing points for attaching the sleeves. Or, when it’s too hot for sleeves, ribbons in a contrasting color can be tied through the lacing points and allowed to dangle over the camica sleeves.

Sleeves: The sleeves are made of a medium-weight bright yellow linen. My original intention was to choose a yellow in a slightly more muted tone. However, this color was a result of ordering fabric online, and once it arrived, I found I liked it. The sleeves are fairly narrow and simple in shape, and are often depicted in a color other than that of the rest of the dress. Mine have four hand-bound eyelets to match the four on the shoulders of the bodice, and are laced in with short pieces of narrow black ribbon.

Partlet and Ruff: The partlet and attached ruff are made of hankercheif-weight white linen. The ruff is made of a 2 inch wide finished strip of linen, and is set in double stacked box pleats. The partlet is finished with a narrow hem and stitched to the ruff.
Apron: The apron is made of medium weight blue linen. Many of the aprons depicted have some sort of trim. As such, I wanted to liven up my plain blue apron, so I decided to make my apron in three finished pieces, then join them in white crochet threat using a twisted insertion stitch.

Accessories: I sometimes wear this dress with a straw hat when outdoors, as two Vecellio engravings depict lower class women in northern Italy wearing straw hats. When indoors, I generally wear my hair in a high bun, and leave my head uncovered. On my legs, I wear linen stockings and purchased leather shoes. The only other accessory is a mock coral necklace, as illustrated by this well-to-do peasant woman from another Campi painting.

I love how this gown turned out. The colors are so bright and happy. However, I did have some trouble with the bodice. The jute and hemp cord seemed to hold up well and provide sufficient support when I initially tried it on. However, after wearing it for a two hour car ride, it seemed to loose its supportive abilities. Or perhaps the linen stretched. But by 11 in the morning or so, the first day I wore it, it had developed a deep crease under the bust line. Sadly, I didn't realize it was so bad before this picture was taken, and it turned out to be the only picture I got that day.



I need to fix this. I'm thinking about partially deconstructing the bodice and placing 6 or 8 rigid bones strategically across the front of the bodice. I would like to try hemp boning again, with thicker hemp cord. This bodice was boned with mostly jute cord, which is much less stiff than hemp. A quadrupled length of thin, jewelry weight hemp was used in the front of the bodice, but I believe thicker cord would work better.