Cranach Gown – overview

German Renaissance Cranach Gown costume

German Renaissance Cranach Gown

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Over the past few weeks I’ve showed off different parts of my Cranach Gown costume. The gollar and hat I made in advance, however the gown itself was made in less than a week before an event, so there are still some improvements I’ll make before the next time I wear it. Still, I’m really happy with how it turned out so far.

From the head down, this costume is comprised of:

• Teal split brim hat
• Gold silk Goldhaube
• Black velveteen gollar
• Cranach gown Bodice (see the trials in toile 1, bodice 1, toile 2) with sleeves
• Skirt (sewn to the bodice)
• Linen chemise
• Petticoat

In future I’ll need to make some upgrades and changes, as well as add in a suitable collar-style necklace.

I ended up not using the teal-on-teal gollar, though brought it, my blue tellerbaret, and my goldhaube toile for friends to wear at the event if they wanted to German-up their costumes for court.

Concept sketch

When I started off making this costume, I started with a sketch.. though I ended up making three and sort of putting my favourite parts together.

Concept sketches for my German Renaissance Cranach Gown costume.

I started off by looking at my stash of wool suiting – I had green (which was supported by my reference portrait paintings), black (also supported), and purple (not supported by the paintings I was using for reference).

I knew the contrast would be gold… I had a few different golden silk damask fabrics to work with. I looked at paintings for sleeves, necklines, skirt embellishment…..  I decided to go with the black wool, with a skirt like the black sketch (though I still haven’t put the contrast gold on it). I intended to do the sleeves like the purple sketch, but ended up with ones like the black or green but without the white drape. (I loved it, but only saw it in one portrait and suspect it’s allegorical instead of a true depiction of common style.)

Photo of me in my Cranach Gown taken by Dean at the event.

Photographs

One of the Twelfth Night guests takes great photos – these are directly linked from his Flickr feed, all rights are his.

 

	Standing up in court to announce the next Emerald Rose (A&S champion) of Montengarde (Calgary).
	Handing over my regalia to the Baron & Baroness as I stepped down as Emerald Rose.
	A group photo of nearly all of the people who donned German garb for the event in honour of our new Baron & Baroness. The Baron & Baroness are in the foreground, I’m at the very back.
	Standing behind the thrones…
	The back of my German Renaissance Cranach gown costume – I realize I hardly ever get these shots!
	… laughing behind the thrones!

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Click the “Cranach Gown” tag to see all of the posts related to this gown, or the German Late period category to see all posts about late period German garb.