Throw Way Back: The Medieval Dress

For this instalment of Throw Way Back, I present this costume. I made it as the final project in a university costuming course 10 years ago. Taking it out of it’s storage (a 1960s vinyl travel case) to photograph it, it’s still something I’m proud of making, but I can also tell how much I’ve learned and developed as a seamstress since then.

 

The Underdress (chemise) is made from unbleached muslin with some hand stitched detailing at the cuffs and collar. Why I didn’t use a more neutral colour of thread for the main seams and topstitching is a mystery, especially when I clearly took much time and effort on other details.

 

Both the chemise and main dress are basic T-tunic patterns, with the latter having an exaggerated flared skirt section and enormous cuffed sleeves. It’s based on an illustration I found of a dress c.1290. I’m sure somewhere deep in the files I have the original sketch I did, but it was too buried to dig out for this post. If I ever come across it, I shall add a photo here.

The entire dress is put in over the head and uses side lacing to cinch to the figure. It flares out below the hip. Rope belt is separate.

 

The gorgeous peacock blue fabric was from a set of thrifted drapes. I still have the ruffled valence and somewhere the other large drape. For some reason, whoever made the set had used the ‘wrong’ side out, but it’s far nicer looking with the matte background, so I carefully ripped out all of the old seams and reversed it for the gown. Unfortunately it’s another one of those colours that is nearly impossible to capture truly in photographs. I did some manipulating but nothing came close to the deep turquoise/peacock blue of this fabric.

 

There was a lot of hand finishing on this dress. The sleeve and collar trims were all hand stitched on using embroidery thread and the gold braid tacked on with backstitches. I couldn’t find any flat band gold trim, so I painted a strip of muslin with diluted acrylic. Overall it’s quite theatrical in nature despite the pattern being pretty true to period. It reminds me of movies set in ‘Medieval’ eras that were made in the 1950s and 60s. There is an element of fantasy about them and they exist in a separate world than more historically accurate productions.

The skirt is a mess of piecing underneath, as the drape wasn’t quite long enough. From the front though, I think I did a pretty good job blending the seams on the front with a tiny prick stitch.

This summer I’ll be building some more period gowns for a themed wedding. I’ll be sure to update with posts!

~Heather