Lady's Foundation Garments c. 1570

		Upper Left & Center: Complete set of foundation garments.  The brown lines of stitching for the bones catch the light in an unusual fashion in these photos, but they can be seen slightly better in the center bottom photograph.  The busk point (tie) can be seen at the center front waistline of the pair of bodies (corset). Upper Right: Clearer view of the pair of bodies, farthingale, and shift, without the partlet and ruff. Lower Left: Farthingale and shift alone.  The white silk points at the waistline are for tying the farthingale to the pair of bodies (seen in the center photograph). Lower Center: Close-up of the starched boxpleated linen ruff and blackworked partlet and smock.  The embroidery pattern is not clear in this photograph.

Shift

Stockings

Pair of Bodies

Partlet & Ruff

Farthingale

Shift

            Throughout the Middle Ages and Renaissance the linen shift served as a foundation garment for all classes.  The linen shift protected expensive and delicate fabrics from body oils and grime, and could be laundered.  In the late 16^th century, the cultural trend towards conspicuous display did not leave the shift unscathed.  Shifts could have a high neckline or low neckline depending on the decade and social class.  Both high and low neck shifts were frequently heavily embroidered. Since a separate partlet was to be worn with this shift, a low neck design was chosen for this project.  This shift has a square neck and a construction pattern similar to the common T-tunic.  Use of squares and triangles in the cutting of the shift yield the least waste.  Blackwork embroidery borders the entire neckline as well as extending out each sleeve.

            The shift in this display is constructed entirely by hand in white linen with four gores flaring out from the hip.  All of the seams are back stitch with 40/2 white linen thread (Bockens Linen), then finished with flat-felling.  Flat felling is seen on the interior seam of a 16^th century shirt from Manchester (Mikhaila, 17).  The blackwork embroidery worked at the neck is done in 100/3 black silk (Au Ver au Soie).  The pattern is a geometric cross border pattern from the Ein New Modelbuch, an embroidery pattern book published by Johan Schonsperger in 1526 (Salazar 94).  Although the original smock had stripes of embroidery running down the sleeves and embroidery entirely around the neckline, the sleeves and back neckline would not be visible once gown and partlet were in place and therefore I chose not to embroider those areas.

Pair of Bodies

            The evolving smooth silhouette of the late 15^th and early 16^th century required increasingly sophisticated methods of garment support for the bust.  By the end of this period, the first pair of bodies, or corset, had clearly come into existence. There are two extant pairs of bodies remaining today.  The first, detailed in Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion, is the pair of bodies of Pfalzgrafin Dorothea Sabina von Neuberg at her burial in 1598 (Arnold), depicted here.  This pair of bodies is constructed of silk, most likely with a linen lining & interlining that has now disintegrated.  Bones run at center front and center back.   The edges are bound in silk ribbon, with unboned tabs at the waist also bound in silk ribbon.  It is back closing, with eyelets worked over metal rings in a spiral laced fashion.  More pairs of eyelets are worked at the waist for attachment to a Spanish farthingale.  The second example of period corsetry is the Effigy Corset, dated to 1603.   This corset was recovered from the effigy of Queen Elizabeth in Westminster Abbey (shown on this page).  This pair of bodies is fully boned with wide set straps, and boned tabs.  It is a much more complicated design with multiple pattern pieces.  This garment is constructed of fustian with suede leather binding along the edges.

            A number of different practical considerations played into the construction of the corset for this project.  I had previously constructed a very basic back-laced corset with unboned tabs, which currently serves for day to day use.  The initial attempt had followed the boning pattern of the Pfalzgrafin’s corset, with boning kept underneath the breasts.  It quickly became clear that this boning strategy really was not appropriate for an A cup woman, as it was completely flattening in effect.  A revision continuing the boning up to the bust line, similar to the Effigy corset, was a definite improvement.  Therefore for this formal decorative pair of bodies, I chose to retain the general pattern of the Pfalzgrafin bodies but with the extended boning similar to the Effigy corset.

            The pair of bodies is constructed of claret colored silk taffeta with two layers of medium weight linen interlining, and brown linen lining.  The seams are sewn with Gutermann silk thread to match the silk taffeta. Lines of decorative handsewn back stitches pass through the silk and all layers of linen to form casing for the bones.  The thread for the casings is 40/2 linen in a contrasting brown color (Londonderry Linen), reinforced by passing the thread through beeswax prior to use.  In extant examples, bundles of bents (stiff hollow grass) were used to stiffen the bodies especially prior to the widespread introduction of whalebone.  The warrants of Queen Elizabeth describe “bodies lyned with sackecloth and buckeram…with bentes coverid in fustian.” (Arnold 147)  I chose to stiffen my pair of bodies is boned with ¼” half flat reeds.  In the future I would like to attempt the use of bundles of fine reeds to more accurately simulate bundles of bents.

In the original Pfalzgrafin pair of bodies, a silk ribbon enclosed the raw edges of the neckline, armholes, the front waist from the center front to the start of the tabs, and the tabs themselves.  Along the side waist and back waist, the tabs are inserted between the linen interlining and linen lining with stab stitching in brown linen thread holding them in place. The edges for this pair of bodies are bound in the same manner but with ivory kidskin leather as in the Effigy corset.  Running stitch in 40/2 white linen thread secures the binding in place.

The pair of bodies is fastened by a long lace threaded through multiple eyelets.  The eyelets are handsewn using the 40/2 waxed brown linen thread over metal reinforcing rings, as in the Pfalzgrafin bodies.  Because brass rings in the appropriate size (1/4” diameter) were not readily available, commercial jewelery jump rings were used.  The eyelets are laid out in a spiral lacing pattern.  Spiral lacing was the predominant form of lacing in this period and requires only a single lace to secure the garment.  Although the Pfalzgrafin pair of bodies featured parallel lacing holes that lead to staggered edges at waist and neck, I chose to place my eyelets in a modified pattern with half-spacing at the top and bottom that eliminates the unevenness.  This pattern is most clearly shown in the gown of Eleanora of Toledo, and is described here.  The lace itself is a fingerloop braid of 40/2 linen in the ‘broad lace of V bowes’ pattern from the Harvey 2320 manuscript, a 15^th century book of fingerloop braiding patterns (Benns and Barrett).  When worked in two colors, the pattern of the lace is clearly evident (see below).  Additional eyelets were worked at the waist for attachment to the farthingale.

Partlet & Ruff

“The devil, as he in the fulnes of his malice, first invented these great ruffes, so hath hee now found out also two great stayes to beare up and maintaine that his kingdome of great ruffs : the one arch or piller wherby his kingdome of great ruffes is underpropped, is a certaine kinde of liquide matter which they call Starch, wherin the devill hath willed them to wash and dive his ruffes wel, which when they be dry, wil then stand stiffe and inflexible about their necks.”   -Philip Stubbes, Anatomie of Abuses 1583 (Leed)

            The partlet is a curious item of 16^th century fashion, evolving to a highly decorated and jeweled form in the late decades of the century and then quickly passing into oblivion.  Early partlets worn during the Tudor era in England were made of black fabric or fabric matching the gown (often velvet in upper class dress), worn on the outside of the gown.  They covered the upper chest, rising to a standing flared collar, and tied under the arms (example shown here).  As Tudor fashion evolved into the beginnings of Elizabethan fashion in the 1550s, the partlet changed from black to white and moved underneath the gown to tie over the pair of bodies.  Most importantly, the partlet now served as a foundation garment for that quintessential late period accoutrement, the ruff, which could either be an integral piece of the partlet or a separate item attached to the partlet collar (Arnold, QEWU, 150). 

            Although the popular perception of the partlet is of an elaborately embroidered and jeweled masterpiece, the intent of this work was to create la version suitable to a less ostentatious garment.  The shape of the partlet is based on a portrait of an unknown lady found in Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlocked.  This portrait, dated to the 1540s or 1550s, shows a close fitting ungathered partlet with 3 vertical bands of embroidery as well as embroidery around the collar.  The partlet is closed with 3 hooks and eyes visible at the neck, and has a small box pleated ruff at the neck edge.  One issue that may be raised is the question of whether the garment is a partlet with matching sleeves or a fully embroidered smock, such as that shown in the portrait ‘Queen Elizabeth and the Three Goddesses’, dated from 1569.   It is often impossible to distinguish between these two possibilities, but there are numerous examples of partlets with matching embroidered sleeves in the records of the Office of Robes for Queen Elizabeth (Arnold 150).  I chose to create a linen partlet, but increased the size of the ruff to be consistent with my preferred time period of the 1570s.

            The partlet is handsewn from white linen with a hook and eye closure at the neck.  Fingerloop braids of white 40/2 linen serve as ties beneath the arms. When worn, the partlet would be pinned to the pair of bodies or kirtle to prevent creeping at the neckline, and further pins would be placed to close the ruff at the neck.  Both sides of the neck opening are edged in commercially purchased cotton lace.  The purchased lace consists of pairs of twisted threads forming a pointed pattern, whereas in period four strand plaits would have predominated as construction elements.  Pointed patterns are depicted in two 16^th century bobbin lace manuals, Le Pompe from 1559 (Levey and Payne) and the New Modelbuch from the 1530s.   The lace chosen has a notable similarity to a 12 bobbin edging pattern from the New Modelbuch (Levey plate 76).

The embroidery on either side of the front opening was done in Spanish stitch in a pattern redacted by Salazar from Hans Holbein’s portrait of Anna Meyer (110).  All the embroidery on this partlet was done in DMC black tatting cotton thread, as cotton is easily laundered.  Unfortunately, the two front sides of the partlet were made with the linen oriented in perpendicular directions, leading to a mismatch in thread count and different repeat lengths on the left and right side.  The embroidery on the collar is composed of two other patterns diagrammed by Salazar, an acanthus border from a 16^th century Spanish sampler and an acorn pattern (92, 96).

Although early small ruffs were integral to the partlet or smock, larger ruffs are more easily laundered, starched, and set as separate pieces that are pinned or otherwise secured into the collar.  The ruff is a long strip of linen box pleated in stacks of six into a detachable collar. I have previously attempted a box pleated ruff using stacks of four, and found that at this size (2" deep) the edge more closely resembles undulations rather than figure of eights (as seen in the court gown on the index page).  Stacks of six box pleats substantially improved the appearance.  The free edge of the ruff is finished in a rolled hem and then edged with the same lace as the front opening.  Queen Elizabeth’s warrants mention that the silkwoman Alice Montague performed ‘hemmyng, overcasting & edging [of] ten yards of Ruffes for a partelett’ (Arnold QEWU, 224).  The ruff is then sewn into a thin collar of linen.  The ruff is set using heavy quantity of spray starch and a setting iron.  I use a professional quality ¾” diameter curling iron with the clamp removed to set the ruffs.  This style of curling iron lacks a plastic end tip allowing the heat to reach the base of the curl.  An excellent review of the process of starching a ruff using boxed starch is described by Schuessler.  After the ruff was set, it was very loosely basted into the inside lower edge of the partlet neckline.  This keeps it securely in place while allowing easy removal for laundering and resetting.

Spanish Farthingale

“No lady or gentlewoman should be admitted to any of the sights with a farthingale, which was to gain more room, and I hope may serve to make them quite left off in time.”  John Chamberlain, 1613 (Arnold, PoF, 12)

 

The farthingale was originally a Spanish fashion brought to the shores of England by Catherine of Aragon and her court at the turn of the 16^th century (farthingales in Spanish portraiture, c 1470).  The style did not become commonplace in England until the middle of the century, when the conical Spanish farthingale began its steady increase in size over the subsequent decades until achieving the legendary proportions of the wheel-shaped French farthingale of the turn of the century (Hardwick Portrait of Queen Elizabeth). While no period exemplar still exists, Juan de Alcega’s 1589 tailoring book Libro de geometria, practica y traça provides a pattern for a silk farthingale in the Spanish fashion (de Alcega 49).  De Alcega describes a pattern of four lengths of fabric, two lengths comprising the rectangular front and back.  The other two were cut on the diagonal to form side gores.  The cut is made slightly off the corners on one end to provide slightly wider fullness to the back gore.  The straight grains of the front gores are sewn to the center front, while the bias edges of the back gores are sewn to each side of the center back.  When the two resulting pieces are sewn together to construct the cone, no seam consists of two bias edges.  Alcega emphasizes the importance of this point, stating that ‘hence, there will be no bias edge on the sides of the farthingale, nor will it protrude on any side.’ (de Alcega 49)  A useful interpretation of this pattern is provided by Drea Leed (Leed, Farthingale Page).

De Alcega's Farthingale Pattern, 1589

This farthingale is constructed of brown linen with claret silk casings for the stiffening materials.  This farthingale is cut from 17” pieces of fabric, which is slightly smaller than the ell described by Alcega (reported to be 22”).  This yields a somewhat narrower farthingale at the hem, which is appropriate for a wide variety of styles including very fashionable dresses from the 1560s and 1570s as well as less ostentatious styles of the lower nobility in subsequent decades.  This farthingale would not however be appropriate for very high-end fashions of end of the century that call for extremely wide conical silhouettes.  After assembly of the six body pieces, the six silk casings are whipstitched into place in 5” intervals with the opening at the center back.  Because they are created from the fabric used for the pair of bodies, there is a join in each casing at the front where it is pieced together to achieve the necessary length. Although Leed and Arnold both use six casings in their reproductions of the Alcega farthingale, Alcega’s original pattern does not comment at all on the number of nature of the casings for stiffening materials; indeed Arnold reconstructs Alcega’s farthingale with tucks instead of casings.  I have chosen to use casings for this version based on the c. 1470 Spanish portrait that clearly shows applied casings on the farthingale.  All three women in this portrait wear farthingales with six visible casings.

The stiffening agent used in this farthingale is modern hoopskirt wire covered in buckram.  Early farthingales were stiffened with ropes, and later farthingales were stiffened with whalebone, or bundles of grass reeds (Mikhaila and Malcolm-Davies 21; Arnold 124, 195).  Elizabeth’s warrants extensively discuss the use of whalebone for stiffening beginning in 1580, recording the purchase of ‘two hundred and thirteen yerdes of whale bone & bent’ in 1585 (Arnold PoF, 197) Although I attempted to use bundles of round reeds of rattan, I was unable to obtain an end result that was both stable and flexible enough to use.  As whalebone and willow osiers were unavailable to me, hoop skirt wire provided the best available alternative.  In the future I would like to experiment with finer reeds and thicker linen thread or tape to bind the bundles.

After the wire was placed in the casings, the casing openings were sewn shut.  The farthingale was pleated to a waistband and an opening with linen ties was created in the back to match the pair of bodies.  Alcega's pattern makes no comment as to the waistline treatment.  Arnold reconstructed hers with side openings, but I feel that a back opening makes more sense if you plan to wear a back-opening pair of bodies.  Eyelets are worked in the waistband for points that attach the two items together.  With both the pair of bodies and farthingale openings located at center back,  the wearer can expand in size  without altering the relative spacing of the points at the waistband.  If the farthingale opened at the sides, then any weight gain would shift the eyelets for the points at the side back and require reworking of additional eyelets in the farthingale.

Reference List

Arnold, J. Patterns of Fashion: the Cut and Construction of Clothes for Men and Women C1560-1620. London: Macmillian, 1985.

---. Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlock'd. Great Britain: W.S. Maney & Sons, 1998.

Benns, E and G Barrett. Tak V Bowes Departed. London: Soper Lane, 2005.

Crowfoot, E, F Pritchard, and K Staniland. Textiles and Clothing 1150-1450. London: Boydell Press, 1992.

d'Averoigne, I. New Carolingian Modelbook. Albequerque NM: Outlaw Press, 1995.

de Alcega, J. Tailor's Pattern Book 1589. Hong Kong: Costume & Fashion Press, 1999.

Leed, D. "Stubbes on Fashion:  Excerpts from Philip Stubbes' Anatomie of Abuses 1583." Feb. 29, 2008. 2008. http://www.elizabethancostume.net/stubbes.html.

---. "The Farthingale Page." Feb. 29, 2008. 2008.

Levey, S. Lace: A History. Wakefield, UK: W.S. Maney & Sons, 1983.

Levey, S and P Payne. Le Pompe 1559:  Patterns for Venetian Bobbin Lace. Cambridge: University Press, 1993.

Mikhaila, N and J Malcolm-Davies. The Tudor Tailor: Reconstructing 16th Century Dress. Hollywood: Costume & Fashion Press, 2006.

Salazar, K. New Carolingian Modelbook. Albequerque NM: Outlaw Press, 1995.

Schuessler, M. "How to Starch an Elizabethan Ruff." Feb. 10, 2008. 2008. http://www.faucet.net/costume/period/ruff.html.

Spies, N and U Bargmann. Anna Neuper's Modelbuch:  Early Sixteenth Century Patterns for Weaving Brocaded Bands. St Paul: Sexton Printing, 2003.

Zimmerman, H. "Sixteenth Century Hose and Their Manufacture." NESAT VII. Lodz: 2004.