Research, a do over.

[same post as a few days ago, just reposting as it got completely jacked up in the feeds]

So, research on historical costumes. From "One World of Fashion," a book far too large for my flatbed scanner and I didn't feel like piecing together images, so the digital camera and balancing precariously on a stool over a high table wins again. For my own record keeping. Blah blah, yadda yadda yadda.

 

A plate of Demotte's "La Tapisserie Gothique" taken from "One World of Fashion," p. 95.

Late Gothic/Early Renaissance Italian costume. I want the dress smack dab in the middle with the black skirt and the bell sleeves. Also, the. Is that a turban? Bah, I need more source images!

The text from the opposite descriptive page (94) reads as follows:

The Elegants of the 15th Century

Contemporaneous records of the earlier centuries of the costume history in Europe are scanty -- rare illuminated manuscripts; stained glass; the royal seals and the carven facades of cathedrals, and fragments of fabrics in the treasure rooms of religious institutions. But, the finest of all records are the early Gothic tapestries of Flanders and France. The material for this plate was taken from Demotte's "La Tapisserie Gothique," one of the most carefully prepared of art histories from the early Renaissance.

This plate deals with the great 15th Century. By that time, the Italian cities of Genoa, Florence and Venice had not only developed a trade with the Near East, but had organized their own industries of fashion and had acquired, to some degree, the arts and skills of Asia Minor and Syria. Wealth had increased in Europe, and the influence of the Crusades had reached its zenith. The courts of Flanders, France, and even of England, were centers of trade and luxury, wealth, and elegance.

"La Tapisserie Gothique" is one of the great treasure houses of design, both for fabric and for costume, including millinery. It is a wise designer who turns, from time to time, back to original sources.

 

This is one of the few pages from this book that *wasn't* ripe with going on and on about noble savages and primatives and The Orient. It's a great book for plates of different periods and world cultures, but I have to keep reminding myself it was first published in 1946 and by a dead white guy with all the stereotyping that description entails. It was a lot of skim the words and just look at the pretty pictures.

 

 

p. 93 from "One World of Fashion." More silouettes that struck my fancy. Mainly the ones on the upper right and the upper center. Drapery turns my crank, what can I say?

 

Fashion Sketches in Brass, 13th to 16th Century

One of the most accurate records of the costmes in England between the 13th and 16th Centuries is to be found among the life-size brass etchings which were places above the tombs of the nobility during these centuries. Here we find the draped costume of the 13th Century, and the knight in link armor, the beginning of plate armor in the early 15th Century, the influence that this had on both men's and women's costumes and the time of Queen Elizabeth, when trade with the Orient was beginning to affect the styles of England.

These are actual contemporaneous fashion drawings of these interesting centuries. Few of the original costumes remain, and, if it were not for the four thousand such etchings, scattered all over England, we would have no clear understanding of what the costumes had been in these periods.

These early brasses were once called "cullen plate" because the brass was imported from Cologne on the Rhine. In the latter part of the 16th Century brass foundries were set up in England to supply this demand.

 

 

Once again my love of drapery acts up, as does my love of the sculpture at Chartres. Really, I'm kinda in love with Chartres as a whole, if it's possible to love a building, but that's neither here nor there. I really liked how this book pulled off several comparison pieces similiar to this one. (91)

 

Chartres Cathedral Inspires Costume Design

Chartres Cathedral, finished in the year 1260, is not only one of the world's greatest achievements in architecture but its richly sculptured ornament is still an inspiration to the costume designer.

Chartres was completed in the century of Marco Polo, the traveler, and Genghis Khan, the great Mongol ruler, who protected the caravan routes of central Asia from China to the Mediterranean, and brought the products of China and India and of the Mongols in abundance to Europe.

China and India, in their statues of Buddha, illustrate the gracious arts of draping. But, the Mongol horsement contributed a suggestion of tailoring, and also the use of quilted fabrics in which silk floss was used for padding. The combination of these arts is reflected in the carving on Chartres.

Modern designers still find inspiration in this material.

 

 

unknown page of "One World of Fashion," because I lost my notes on this. Photographed mainly for the woman in the lower left corner. I'm not terribly fond of most french silouettes, but that one grabbed me.

 

 

I'm not transcribing this one, as I wasn't really using it for research as I'm not really into this period or area but included in my my photo taking for the sake of totality. You can read up on it should you choose, though. And other shots of the book are up on my flickr account.

 

 

Now! This whole post really was for that first image. The 15th century Italian lady in the middle of that fashion plate? With the Turban? Yes, her. I want her dress. And headwear. With a very real and visceral longing. Were I to see this lady walking down the street, I would beat her down, snatch her bald and naked and flee into the night with my ill-gotten treasure.

I guess it's good for my as-of-yet non-existent criminal record that I can make one for myself instead.

 

Now, I need to see if I can find primary source of Demotte's "La Tapisserie Gothique." and of some of the other pieces mentioned in other photos, but mainly Demotte's stuff. I need more source images to figure out construction and fit and fabric issues. Also, the corset vs. no corset debate of this period of Italian fashion that goes back and forth and round and round. For my figure? Corset. Definitely corset. Unless that undergown is ridiculously self-supporting, which it might be. Thus, more research is needed. Such a hardship.