Celebration – headwear

Complete “celebration” Italian outfit including the padded roll hat, teal figured velvet overdress, and green silk underdress with sleeves

To top off (ha ha) my new Italian Renaissance costume, I needed headwear. I looked at a few different options:

• I could use the Reta I already made – it fits well and is correct for the outfit I’m making.
• I can go without any headwear at all – many of the portraits show women without headwear.
• I could finish off the netted headdress I started, which is about half done, with the most challenging parts done.. but it’s rather unimpressive….
• I could try something new and totally different…. which would require drafting a new pattern and starting from scratch…

.. so of COURSE with 2 weeks to go before the event, and NONE of the garments completed yet, I opted to go for the fourth option.

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Celebration – Gamurra (sort of…)

Completed bodice and skirt in green silk for the Italian “celebration” outfit

For Caterina’s elevation, I originally was going to do a later-period Italian Renaissance gown, but the fabrics offered just didn’t seem to lend themselves nicely to the period and my figure. I felt that the figured velvet would just be too bulky for all of the gathering and fullness in the later period fashions, and so I ended up opting to go back to the earlier Renaissance period that I’ve explored before and found flattering.

Concept sketch for the matcha-green silk dress and the teal figured velvet over dress

With this…. I’ve started using the 1480s tag as well for these posts, and switched from 16th Century to 15th Century. I’ll still use the Caterina’s Elevation tag however if you want to follow this specific project.

Silk Road garb (Part 3 – Dalmatica)

 

11th Century Byzantine costume (without the cloak)

In my research (albeit limited) I was really surprised (and happy!) to see how much the Byzantine Dalmatica was similar to the Bliaut that I have been pondering and working on prior to starting this project (but am no where near done…). This definitely made the project draft up faster.

Silk Road garb (Part 2 – planning & breakdown)

Sketch of what I have in mind for my Byzantine costume

In my previous post I mentioned doing a Byzantine costume for 12th Night in January. I’ve only done a bit of research in this area, but I’m comfortable with where I’m at thus far, with the limited time (and frankly, limited interest right now in exploring this culture) and other resources.

In this post I’ll breakdown the items I want to make for this costume, discuss what I have in mind, and prioritize them.

Enchantment Under the Sea – Dress

Enchantment Under the Sea costume complete!

After reviewing some of the different dress designs that I had pinned on my Pinterest board I selected a general style that I thought a) would flatter me, b) would be easy enough to make c) would be reasonably “1950s” feeling, and d) would allow me some ways of inputting the “under the sea” theme into the costume as well. I sort of shifted my idea from an octopus wearing a prom dress, to something a bit more elegant and slightly less costume-y, while still being much more costume-y than I’m sure a lot of other guests will strive for.