the flemish dress begins

Having had a pretty much sewing-free week following our weekend of playing at being Venetian courtesans, I think I'm ready for the next thing. Julie and I have decided that sewing in tandem is entertaining, so we've agreed on a Flemish peasant-y kind of thing for next. She's documenting this in a new diary....I'm just continuing on in this one. The final page of each outfit will be listed in the links to the right. I'm just not remotely a web programmer, so this'll have to suffice.

So the next thing, then, is something relatively cool and comfortable, with not-so-excessive skirts and not-so-stiff bodices. Drea Leed and Jen Thompson have done beautiful write-ups on their research on the Flemish working-woman, and I'll be leaning heavily on their interpretations.

I've been tinkering around a bit with a corded bodice to get that "can't be wearing a stiff corset while I'm weeding these vegetables now can I?" curvy lower class sort of look. I couldn't tell you whether the class of woman I'm trying to be would have worn one, but I'm darn well going to have a support system of some sort. Being as I don't do anything original if not necessary (hey, I'm a scientist...I go look at the literature ...always ), I first tried the basic shape of Jen Thompson's bodice. Well, except for being back-lacing and from a different pattern. But basically, rather straight. Hers ended up being curvy and supportive-looking. Mine ended up being kind of awful. To get enough support, I was lacing it tightly enough to make "pancake boobies." And since the lines on it were pretty straight, as much flesh went down as up, resulting in "pancake boobies near my waist" which was not a pretty thing. Loosening it up a bit alleviated that problem, but left me feeling as though things might...um....plummet or something. It also left weird bulges here and there. I mean, I know I'm bulgy, but not in this way. These shots are the loosened up version, since the tight version was so very very bad. Whereas this version is merely "very bad."


 

I'm obviously not going to wear something that makes me feel so ugly (the horned hairdo of the Venetian outfit notwithstanding), so I've been looking around at other ideas. Melissa of Sempstress did a trial of a front-closing corset with a slight curve in front, here. It's mighty pretty. I don't know what she boned it with, but something reasonably stiff, given the resulting line. I was thinking that if I used cording instead to soften the curve a bit and also made the under-bosom cut in a little more pronounced, I could perhaps approach the buxom silhouettes of the portraits. Or that of the St. Pauli girl. Which would be no bad thing. But I digress. I don't have pictures of the new version yet as I'm working on binding and eyelets, but the dress engineer's response was "hey, you actually look like a girl in that one" so I'll take that as positive. I'll try to take some pictures of the bodice and pattern this weekend to post.