Questions on a Lower Class Kirtle

[viennabelle]

I'll be the first to admit that I don't know a whole lot about the 16th century construction techniques!

Two weeks ago, I journeyed to Florida to spend the week with my mother. I had a lovely time, though my sister, who also was visiting, was ill. We spent the week laying low and I started--and made significant progress--on a Late 1500s/Renaissance Kirtle. Here's where it's at (click to embiggen):

I'm in a quandry about several finishing points. I've asked folks who came over last night for sewing--but our era is the 18th and 19th c. This kind of work lies outside of our expertise! So, for all my SCA/renish friends (or soon-to-be friends), I wonder if you could click below the jump and offer your advice on some things I am confused about.

1.  Bodice: Since apparently these common women gowns weren't worn with stays, I cut the bodice snuggly and allowed for boning in the back. Is it conceivable that a woman might add a busk in (not stitched) when worn (they did that in the 18th c)? But more immediately, a question for finishing--I see conflicting information about closures. Which is better--worked eyelets or sewn-in lacing loops? Also--did they ever use pins?

2. Skirt trim: All the period images I could find have fairly wide (2-3") bands decorating skirt bottoms. I have a stash of wool twill trim, but its 3/8" wide. It looks ok, but is it still too narrow?

Petticoat gathering: To guage or to pleat, that is the question! Online articles advocate flat pleats, while an article I have by Jill Hall (costume director, Plimoth Plantation) advocates guaging (aka, cartridge pleats). Any ideas which way to go? My plan is to mount whatever I have to a linen tape (folding over as needed for length)  and then to stitch that to the lining of the bodice (positioned depending on the pleating style). Also, I do plan to stitch four worked eyelets in dark brown linen to allow it to be secured closed without straining the bodice--is this ok? Finally--what about plackets? I don't have one--but I can see that it might be nice to have for modesty's sake. Is this totally farby?
Thanks for any advice--I want this to look good, so your suggestions are very welcome!

(cross posted to SCA-garb)

Comments

[virginiadear.livejournal.com]

I've been giving your questions some further thought since first reading this entry.

1. Pins might have been used, but if the bodice is very snug (and based on a more recent entry, today's in fact, your bodice is going to be *very* closely fitted, pins just aren't going to give you what is wanted, which is a bodice closed without gapping. Lacing *rings* might have been used, depending on how early in the 16thC this kirtle represents, but I think lacing eyelets is the surest way to go.
Regarding a busk: you're talking about a member of a non-noble order, and since you have said "poorer," that suggests perhaps not so much poor as a peasant, perhaps, but someone who needs freedom of movement in her clothing, which a busk will hinder. Besides, a busk is doable only if the bodice laces up the back. It was not at all unusual for a bodice to have been stiffened with buckram, or with a linen or hempen canvas. It should fit snuggly over the breasts, but while it ought to be close everywhere else, it shouldn't show *strain.*

2. 3/8" sounds narrow to me, but if you have enough of the trim, you can make multiple bands of it to give you an inches-wide/deep trimmed area at the bottom edge of the skirt. People at the time had to make the best of what was available to them.

3. Petticoat pleating: Ms Hall is right to advocate gauging---for Plimoth Plantation. That's an English settlement, and it's the 1600's. Cartridge pleating would have been used. People kept their clothes for a long, long time: as long as they could, usually. New clothing, even second-hand new clothing, was a necessity or a treat, depending, and something brand new would be very, very special.
The modern mindset of what to us is reasonable life expectancy of clothing would have been to the Elizabethan or Jacobean mind "disposable clothing"---which just didn't happen. Wasteful! Madness! Decadence! Sinfulness!
But in the Italian peninsula's various duchies, provinces, republics, city-states and kingdoms (Naples and...Sicily, I think) in the 16thC, *not* all skirts got cartridge pleated as a matter of course.
I'd pleat the skirt.
The method of attaching skirt to bodice which is familiar to me (and documentable) is stab stitching the skirt to the bodice, and then sewing a tape (usually linen), flat, over the seam to protect it.

I'm assuming the dark brown linen is a waistband to the inside? And you are planning on lacing it closed?
It's okay.
Hooks and eyes---quite large by our standards of clothing---were known and used by then, including for front-closing "bodyes," meaning in this reference another bodice (rather than a supportive undergarment), with or without a skirt: probably intended for support and/or warmth. But even peasants had access to hooks and eyes; one of Durer's drawings of a peasant shows a hook and eye at the collar of his jacket/jerkin.
Placket. You mention modesty. If we're still talking about the skirt, I shouldn't worry much about a modesty piece under the placket if the skirt's at all full. If you arrange the pleats cleverly, they'll cover the placket pretty well. If the skirt opening is off-set to the bodice opening, you get what's called a dog-leg, which we think was one method of concealing the opening in the skirt.
On the other hand, if you're at all uneasy about an under-petticoat being glimpsed, then by all means have one. As far as I know, no one in period would have worried about it (possibly not even about the chemise showing through the opening, but personally I'm not in favor of displaying my underwear where it's not meant to be seen in ways it's not meant to be seen) So, the answer is, there's no evidence for them, but that may fall under the umbrella of "...can't prove it was never done."

Hope this has been more helpful than when last I wrote on this particular set of questions. ;->