On December 5th, 2016 the creator of the Historical Sew Monthly announced the themes for the 2017 challenges. I’m feeling very inspired by this next set of challenges, and in this article will brainstorm some of my ideas.
January: Firsts & Lasts – Create either the first item in a new ensemble, or one last piece to put the final fillip on an outfit.
Direct link from Pinterest
Like my Byzantine costume, I don’t have a LOT of time for research, so I won’t be doing the same depth of research I’d do if I had more time and was doing a costume from a culture I was really committed to exploring long-term.
I started with Pinterest….
Direct link from Pinterest
Our (SCA) King and Queen have chosen to make each major event part of a “Royal Progress” as if they are travelling to place to place around medieval Europe as they travel from event to event within our SCA kingdom.
For June Crown (the tournament that will determine their heirs to the throne) they’ve chosen Istanbul. Oddly enough, for Spring Champions (which I blogged about earlier) they chose Constantinople. Now.. their personas are 11th Century (which works well for me, since my persona is 10th Century Iceland, so it’s not so far off) so for Spring Champions, I simply pulled out my 11th Century Byzantine costume- since Constantinople was the capital of the Byzantine empire in the 11th Century. Perfect!
However, I’m a bit stumped when it comes to June Crown, since Istanbul is the MODERN name for the same city (the name seems to have developed in the Ottoman era – 1453–1922 but was used alongside Constantinople and only officially became the name for the city in the late 1920s/early 30s)… So.. my options:
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.
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.
