1520s Venetian Ribbon Tied Front dress with Balzo

I made this a long time ago, for Pentathlon in March, and have been meaning to post it for a while, but have utterly failed.



Here's the dress and construction description from my Pentathlon documentation, so I won't have to re-type it:

A note on fabric and construction method: The gown and sleeves are made from emerald green silk suiting, and lined with a slightly darker green medium weight linen. The bodice is interlined with two layers of linen canvas. The “ribbon” ties are made of black silk charmeuse. The chemise is made of handkerchief weight white linen. The gown, and sleeves were sewn entirely by hand with silk thread. Internal seams were backstitched, for strength. The chemise was sewn by hand with polyester thread, as I had no white silk or linen thread on hand when I started, and no time to drive and get any. The sides were French seamed, and neckline was finished with a narrow rolled hem.

Chemise: The chemise is made from handkerchief weight white linen, using the rectangular construction method. The front, back, sides, and sleeves are large rectangles, with square gussets set into the sleeves where they join the body. The sleeve edges and bottom edge were hemmed. The neckline was finished in a rolled hem, then gathered. A narrow strip of linen was stitched around the neckline to hold the gathers in place. The sleeve edges are left open, as shown in several paintings of the period. I made the chemise very full, and out of very lightweight linen to try to achieve the tiny, dense gathers seen in portraits of the period.

Gown: The gown is made out of silk, and lined in linen. The bodice is constructed in three pieces: one in the center back, and two on each side/front. To my knowledge, there are no surviving examples of Italian gowns from early 1500s, so the bodice construction was based on a combination of portraits from the 1520s, and the construction of a surviving Italian gown several decades later, in the 1560s, worn by Elenora of Toledo. It’s constructed to have a gap of a couple of inches in the center front closure. The “ribbons” are finished strips of silk, which are stitched directly to the interlining.

There seems to be no evidence that bodices were boned this early in the 16th century, so I wanted to find a way to provide support without the use of boning or modern undergarments. I interlined the bodice with two layers of linen canvas, and curved the front closure. When the ribbons are tied tightly, this seems to provide adequate support. The waist is set slightly above the natural waist in this style of gown, which I feel helps with the support issue. The weight of the heavy skirt also helps pull out any wrinkles from the bodice.

The skirt is made of four panels, which were knife pleated and attached to the bodice.

Sleeves: The sleeves are made from the same silk and lined in the same linen as the bodice. The sleeve style is unclear in all four portraits of the ribbon-tie gown. In Vecchino’s Lady with a Lute, the lady depicted doesn’t seem to be wearing sleeves (or she’s slipped her arms out of them, and they’re hanging down the back of her gown) and is playing her lute in only her chemise sleeves. In Cariani’s Portrait of a Lady, I was unable to decide whether the things covering her arms were wide sleeves in a color different from the dress, or some sort of shawl. In the Portrait of a Lady by the unknown artist, we can’t see the wrist area, and don’t know whether the sleeves were open at the bottom or gathered into a cuff. We can see only that the upper portion of the arm is very full. In Vecchino’s Woman in Blue, one sleeved arm is visible – the upper portion is full and in the same color as the gown, a middle portion is also full and in a different color, at her wrist is a more fitted, shear cuff. I wasn’t sure quite how to interpret this into a construction method (these portraits can be found in a previous post.)

I eventually decided to copy the sleeves of other gowns from the same location and time period. A wide sleeve is gathered or pleated at the shoulder and wrist, and attached to a wide fitted cuff. As the decade continued, the fitted portion of the sleeve moved up the arm until the loose portion was only a poof or roll at the shoulder, but at this early in the decade, it was still fairly narrow.
The sleeves are finished separately and attached to the bodice only at the top with a few stitches. One portrait from the Venetian school (Portrait Of A Lady and a Lute Player) depicts a gown with a similar sleeves attached this way, with the chemise showing between the bodice and the sleeve. This was also done for practicality – it will be easy to remove the sleeves and wear the gown with only the chemise sleeves when the weather is warm.

More pictures. Thanks, Natalie, for the photoshoot when you came to visit me!





It's the most sumptuous feeling gown I've made so far; made of silk, and completely by hand. At pentathlon, I entered at the beginner level, and got bumped up to journeyman (!!!!!) and won second place. It's very heavy and hot. I haven't even worn it yet - maybe this fall.