Tag Eleanor of Toledo

How many tries?

Jennifer Kanter

Started drafting a custom pattern for 16th century pair of bodies, using the bara method.

My tip to anybody doing this: Read the instructions. Then read them again. Making the tapes isn’t hard. No math whatsoever. Just wrap a ribbon around the body, mark it, and fold the ribbon to add more marks per the instructions. It IS however, a very precise process, and it’s easy to make the fold wrong. Ask me how I know…

My first set of bara tapes. Notice these are all hot pink.

The bara method was fairly straightforward once I got the hang of it. Make a starting point on blank paper. Measure out from that point with the specified tape and mark that point. Connect as directed. Repeat. Draft 1 came out like this. I’m a little skeptical because it’s not shaped precisely like the drawing. I suspect alterations will be needed bc of my fluffy fun-sized stature.

Draft 1: Very wide. Very skinny. Very Demure.

After sleeping on it I decided to check my tapes and draft. And then got a message from Mistress Sibilla, expert at this method, noting where it was shaped wrong. So I checked the draft (tapes used correctly) and then checked the tapes themselves. Oops. 2 out of 4 tapes redrawn and on to draft 2.

Draft 2: Much better now that I have my tapes done right

With draft 2 looking more promising, I made a muslin. Meh?

That’s a lot of extra fabric…
After some pinning (thanks, Brian!), it was better, but still not right

I’m going to redraw it from scratch and try again tomorrow. Maybe after making a new chest tape with the girls on lockdown in a good sports bra. Third time is the charm?

Maybe for Ex Opus?

Jennifer Kanter

Two things on deck at the moment…

  1. The construction of a embroidery slate
  2. Drafting a bodies pattern using the Bara method

The Slate

Eleonora’s 16th century gowns often included decorative goldwork embroidery. While making enough for the entire dress sounds dauntingly time-consuming and $$$$ expensive $$$$, making a sample to show I understand the process seems reasonable. To this end, the project that begets more projects has birthed a woodworking exercise: the creation of a period-appropriate embroidery frame.

Images of the embroidery from Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion 3

After reading up a little on the history of embroidery frames and looking at medieval book and manuscript images as well as modernly available slates, I decided to make one. (Again, a cost-saving measure for an item that seems relatively straightforward to construct.)

So $15 a the hardware store later, I’ve begun making the frame to go with my goldwork project.

Rounding corners & marking for cuts and holes

The Bodies Pattern

The dress project that begets more projects also seemed like it needed some foundation garments. Ladies of the era would have needed a chemise and either pair of bodies or pair of stays underneath. Eleonora herself was found to have many bodies (padded/stiffened bodices) in her inventories, but few stays (bodies reinforced with long slim stiff materials like baleen, reeds, or metal rods). Janet Arnold documented the front-close velvet bodies found under Eleonora’s burial gown in Patterns of Fashion 3.

Guess I need underwear :sigh:

So step one in making the gown is to make the bodies, so the gown can be correctly fitted over the correct foundation garment. Tonight I began that process by flipping back to good old Master Jose and the bara method he details in Modern Maker 2: Pattern Manual 1580-1640. (Yes that’s slightly later than Eleonora’s dress, but it’s a reasonable stretch given that this is based on some of the earliest extant European tailoring manuals and the women’s dress styles are not drastically different in their base construction.)

Tapes being made to begin patterning the bodies using the bara method for the first time

So pattern drafting has begun. Hopefully, I’ll get far enough on one of these to enter it in the Ex Opus regional artsci faire at Market Day. Wish me luck!

In case you weren’t sure how sketchy my attention span can be…

Jennifer Kanter

!! SQUIRREL !!

Brian wearing the doublet at Defender of the Queen’s Heart in February

Actually, BRIAN. But whatever

If you recall, back in January, I was telling you all about the process of making a doublet for Brian to wear on the field at Defender of the Queen’s Heart on the day of his elevation to the Order of Defense. Sure enough, I did get done (buttons added in the wee hours of the night before, as is SCA tradition). I’m proud to say that it a) successfully fits, b) held up to being worn during rapier combat, and c) was all handsewn except for the buttonholes. Sadly, after working a few buttonholes on some scrap for practice, I determined that my proficiency and speed were not nearly up for getting that many buttonholes done (and done well) before the event. So practical compromise it was, with the magic buttonhole machine to the rescue =)

My brain squirrels being what they are, however, the last few weeks of the process did not get documented or blogged in any way, and neither has any of the other bits and pieces I’ve worked on over the last several months.

Eleanor of Toledo’s funeral gown, shown in the Galleria del Costume of the Pitti Palace.
September 2016 by Kaho Mitsuki on Wikimedia Commons

I can say, however, that much of the artistic bits I’ve done during that time has been things that move my Eleonora di Toledo-inspired dress forward in some way. Including continued research on her burial dress and the similarly constructed Red Dress of Pisa.

PETTICOAT WITH SLEEVES, SILK VELVET WITH APPLIED ORNAMENTATION, C. 1560, Museo Nazionale di Palazzo Reale di Pisa

And then there were the side quests into related topics that feed into the construction of my dress inspired by them… like gold work embroidery, medieval embroidery frames, and the appropriate foundation garments. Which leads me to learning a shiny new skill…

Next up on Jen’s roller coaster of crafting mayhem:

Closeup of the goldwork embroidery embellishing the burial dress. From Janet Arnold’s archive images taken during conservation

But I hated my class on Renaissance Florence…

Jennifer Kanter

Of all the places, what’s my inspiration for a 16th Century dress? Florence! More specifically, the closet of Eleanor of Toledo. After a whole college semester complaining about how much I hated the Medicis and their convoluted intrigues, I’d never have dreamed I’d willingly go back to studying that period.

But it turns out that everything I disliked about the idea of wearing Elizabethan clothing with it’s stiff bodices, fussy farthingales, and starched collars gets set on its ear in Florence. It seems that when she married into the Medici clan in 1539, Eleanor brought her easier moda alla spagnola to court and maintained aspects of that style dress for decades.* And while the clothing in her portraits was by no means casual, the style doesn’t give me the impression I’ll feel confined, as so much of the fashion in portraits from the Elizabethan Court does. Most notably, the long pointed waistline on the Elizabethan bodice and the farthingdale didn’t catch on in the same way through Florence yet in that period. Yay!

And as a wonderful coincidence, not only are there extant tailor manuals from late 16th C & early 17th C in Spain**, the doublet that Brian loves was patterned by Duchess Sibilla Daine, whose Laurel was Master Jose de Madrid***, who literally wrote the book on working from those Spanish manuals. I intend to work from her pattern, drafted in 2021 for his Pelican elevation garments, to make the arming doublet he’s requested for his elevation to the Order of Defense. I feel reasonably assured that following Master Jose’s guidance to create Brian’s coat will help prepare me for the new tailoring skills I’ll need to build a fitted bodice for myself based from those Spanish manuals.

*COX-REARICK, JANET. “Power-Dressing at the Courts of Cosimo de’ Medici and François I: The ‘Moda Alla Spagnola’ of Spanish Consorts Eléonore d’Autriche and Eleonora Di Toledo.” Artibus et Historiae, vol. 30, no. 60, 2009, pp. 39–69. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/25702881. Accessed 23 Dec. 2023.

** Alderondo, Abner. “A Master Tailor’s Manual.” Folger Shakespeare Library, 10 Jan. 2023, www.folger.edu/blogs/collation/a-master-tailors-manual/. Accessed 23 Dec. 2023

** Master Jose de Madrid is better known as Mathew Gnagy, a fashion professional who publishes instructional materials as The Modern Maker (https://www.themodernmaker.co/)