Research suggestions for 16th-century English middle class clothing

[msmcknittington]

nuranar recently contacted me to ask me for research suggestions/inspiration for a friend of hers that is interested in starting to make historically accurate clothing for a middle class woman in Elizabethan England. I asked Ginger if she minded me asking my friends list, since so many of you do make 16th-century clothing for middle-class people in

Comments

[nuranar]

Thanks so much - this is a great post! *adds to memories*

[marymont]

Winter* & Savoy isn't as bad as people say. There isn't much in the way of direct reference, but the longer I study the real deal, the more in that book comes out to be accurate.

However, it isn't meant to be scholarly. It was meant to show Renaissance Faire participants how to get the look.

*note: Janet Winter does not spell her name with an S. She was one of the first Laurels in the SCA, Mistress Janet of Breakstone. Great Lady, always happy to share her knowledge and a good joke.

[msmcknittington]

No, Winter & Savoy is really bad. They suggest using zippers and elastic, among other things. It's not for use for accurate costuming, though many people do. There's just no way it can be used as a reference book for accurate Elizabethan costuming.

[kass_rants]

Winter and Savoy is as bad as people say. The more I research the 16th century, the more I mourn that W&S was so popular for so long. The true statements they make are few and far-between and there's no effective way to guide a newbie.

[butterbobbin]

I'm the friend nuranar is info-fishing for. :-) This is all really helpful and I'm going to have a lot of fun digging through all the links/books you've recommended here.

I'll probably have some more specific questions as well, but I'll wait until I've looked through this info first because I may have more to add to the list after that.

Thanks!

[msmcknittington]

Yay! Please feel free to ask, and I'll do what I can to find an answer for you. :D

ETA: Also, you should check out museum collections. The Victoria & Albert Museum has lots of 16th-century items in their collection, and a lot of it is online.

[butterbobbin]

OK, will do that too!

All right, here are a couple questions. What did babies wear? I have a 6-month old (who will be 9 months when our faire happens) and am curious what I could make for her. I saw on one video where the lady had her baby in a fabric sling-type thing, but couldn't really see what the baby was wearing.

Also curious what social standing a seamstress/tailor would have had (since that is what I do). I had assumed that such a person would be "middle class", hence my original interest in that realm of clothing, and I'm not sure whether she would fall in the upper or lower realm of that. Perhaps it depends on who her clientele was?

...I have no idea how to Elizabethan-ise my husband's job. He's a web developer... hehe! But I expect he would wear the clothing appropriate to whatever my own social standing would be.

[tedeisenstein]

....and I happen to know of a small, struggling Internet bookstore with a couple of those books now available!

[sarahbellem]

The Tudor Tailor IS good as a beginner's resource. What irks me is people slavishly copying the costumes in it and using it as their main source of documentation when they really ought to be moving into their own areas of research. *Deleted: Bitchy SCA commentary about people not doing original research*

But that's a general gripe of mine about most costuming books, even Patterns of Fashion. And I'm bitchy about things like original research, which, I've learned, is not always what people care about. ;)

I'm also totally flattered you put my website on that list. Yay! Someone finds it useful! :)

[msmcknittington]

Yay, Sarah! <3 I do find your website inspiring and useful! It is, way back in the crusty ages of the internet, what made me want to learn about this stuff. And it continues awesome. :D

I have heard people say that TT isn't a good resource, because you can do all the same things with PoF and some brains. I . . . disagree. Pretty strongly. I think TT is a lot broader in scope and talks about things in the text intro that PoF doesn't. But I totally hear you about not doing original research and copying things. That can be difficult and frustrating, especially if you are doing original research and not copying.

[sarahbellem]

TT can be summed up as "really really really good theatrical how-to with an excellent bibliography", as far as I'm concerned. There's too much in the book that is actually 100% made up by Ninya, and while it's based on her research, it's all really her conjecture at the end of the day*. I took a class on 16th c. headwear and at one point I had the uncomfortable task of asking where the teacher got her info from on one particular style of headgear that I happen to know A LOT about (guess which one), and hadn't run across anything in my research that looked remotely like what she had made. And her response was "Oh, I got it out of the Tudor Tailor." I somehow managed not to *facepalm* right there

[msmcknittington]

I do agree that TT as far as the pattern drafts go could be a lot better, which is why I recommend using the pattern drafts to get a shape with known, standardized measurements and then adding seam lines/goes/whatever using tailor's manuals and PoF for period layouts. What really gets me about the pattern section is all the cotton muslin/calico that's used. Oof. As you say, its real value lays in the stuff that's not in a diagram. And the pictures in the front. I, uh, look at the pictures a lot.

As for French hoods -- :( That class would be one of the bad ways to use TT. It shouldn't be a bible. PoF shouldn't be a bible, either.

And copying your clothes is creepy. Even your clothes are really awesome. (I might be jealous of your white silk jacket with black trim. Maybe sad that I didn't think of making one before you did.)