This was another of my Pentathlon projects. It is, of course, based on this portrait of Eleonora of Toledo, from 1543.
In the course of researching for this dress, I did learn some interesting things about this portrait. It probably depicts Eleonora in the dress she wore to enter Florence as the bride of Cosimo di Medici in 1539. Apparently, one of Cosimo's chroniclers describes her as “A vision in crimson satin embroidered with beaten gold”, a description which would fit this dress well. Most sources, however, list the portrait as being painted in 1543. At that time, Eleonora would have been married for 4 years, and had already given Cosimo four children. Perhaps that was the date the portrait was finished, though it was begun earlier.
Eleonora of Toledo was really a remarkable woman. She had a total of 11 children, the ruled Florence in Cosimo's absences, managed her large household as well as the agricultural production on her lands outside of Florence, traveled with her husband despite frequent illnesses, and was a Florentine fashion icon. If you've never read much about her and are interested in this period, you should. It's fascinating stuff.
Here are the construction notes on the dress, as described in my Pentathlon documentation. Thanks again go to my best friend and original living dress form Natalie for taking all these pictures for me at Gulf War.
The fabric I chose for this gown is a red silk shantung. While the silk used in this time period was likely a finer weave than shantung, this fabric had the sheen, weight, and color I was looking for. And while shantung contains more slubs and imperfections than the silk used in period, it contains much fewer than duppioni, and I got it at a good price, so I felt that it was a good compromise.
Underpinnings consist of a chemise, and a steel boned 16th century stays, or a pair of bodies. While I know that it is unlikely that Italian women of the mid 16th century used boned corsets, I have chosen to use one anyway for this gown, as it is the only way I I found to consistently achieve the appropriate silhouette with my body type.
The pattern for this gown is based on the extant gown discovered on what was thought to be Eleonora of Toledo’s body when she was exhumed in the late 19th century, as described by Arnold and Landini and Niccoli. The bodice is cut in two pieces. It is stitched together at the shoulders, and laces up the side back through hand bound eyelets with silk ribbon.
The skirt consists of two large rectangles with four triangular gore pieces. I tried to copy the patterning of the skirt from the extant Eleonora dress as much as possible, while taking advantage of modern fabric widths. The skirt has a flat section in the very front, and is attached with cartridge pleats the rest of the way around. It is slightly fuller towards the back than the front. Here are the skirt pannels, folded in half.
And here is the extant Eleonora that I'm copying the pattern from. Katerinia at The Purple Files has a lovely image of this dress breaking down the seam placement. I tried to get as close to this as possible.
The gown was stitched mostly by hand using matching silk thread. A sewing machine was used on a few areas not visible to the exterior, including the long seams of the skirt and the shoulder seams of the bodice. Stitches used were the running stitch and the hem stitch, both of which can be traced back to this period. The eyelets were stitched with a red cotton embroidery thread, as I prefer to use a thicker embroidery thread for eyelets, and I didn’t have any silk embroidery thread accessible.
The bodice and sleeves are interlined with a thin, non-stretch plain weave cotton, and lined with matching red linen. I stitched it together by folding the seam allowance of the silk over the interlining and stitching it in place with a running stitch which passed only through the seem allowance and interlining, and is not visible from the front. The lining was folded to just below the edge of the silk and whip stitched in place. With this construction method, no seams and visible from the front . I chose not to line the skirt to keep the gown as cool as possible in the hot Caidian weather. Instead, the hem of the dress was stiffened with a strip of felt, as described in extant gowns. I used a wool/rayon blend felt, as I could not easily find a 100% wool felt. I covered the felt strip with a band of silk to keep the felt from catching on grass other things on the ground as I walk.
Here's the bodice with the silk stitched in place over the interlining. The next picture shows the lining pinned in place as it was being whip stitched in.
The extant Eleonora dress did not have sleeves, so the sleeve pattern was created from conjecture and comparison with other extant sleeve patterns The sleeves consist of four finished strips with are joined with a whip stitch at approximately two inch intervals, allowing the chemise to show through the gaps. The top of the sleeve is pinched and stitched in place to create a small shoulder poof. While I’m pretty sure the dress in the portrait had five panels, I chose to make mine from only four. The sleeves are detachable, and tie with red silk ribbons to lacing rings on the inside of the shoulder.
The first picture is of the interlining, and shows how I patterned the sleeves. The second picture is of the finished sleeve with the shoulder "poof".
The trim was applied by hand using a couching embroidery method. The couched cord is a polyester metallic thread over a cotton core, and was purchased in the fabric district in LA for $8 a spool. The thread holding the couched cord in place is a gold polyester metallic thread. I did look into getting real gold metallic cord, but found it cost prohibitive for the quantity necessary.
The trim pattern copies that in the portrait as much as possible. My dear friend Lizzy drew out the embroidery pattern for me. I then traced the pattern onto the fabric with a water-soluable pen, and couched the cord over the top on the line. The trim pattern for portions of the gown not visible in the portrait was arrived at through comparison with similar gowns from the same area and time period. I recreated the “V” pattern on the bodice, and the strips of embroidery down three of the sleeve panels on each arm. I chose not to embroider the bottom center sleeve panel, as it is not very visible, and I though the friction between the couched cord and the bodice would eventually damage the silk on the bodice. The hem is embroidered in the same pattern at a slightly larger scale. This was mostly to make the embroidery process go a little faster.
I still need to make a few accessories for this dress. The snood/caul thing I'm wearing in the pictures is a purchased crocheted one - I need to make a more historically accurate one. I also need to make a better partlet (this one was a rush job, and not quite up to standard), a girdle/belt, and an underskirt to make my skirt stand out a bit. I'll have more pictures taken once everything is done. But here's a taste!
