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| This mid 17th century gown is based (fairly loosely) on a style seen in several portraits of the mid to late 1640s. The gown consists of a boned bodice, and three separate skirts. The back lacing bodice is very heavily boned, with flexible steels. Although not clear from the photos taken of the dress on the dummy, when worn, this gives the front panel the slightly curved shape to the front, characteristic of all those paintings I mentioned above. Steel boning is also more durable than alternatives made from man-made materials, and is clearly far more humane than whalebone! The boning can be seen in the detail picture, below centre, appearing as ridges to the bottom right of the sleeve. The large sleeves of the bodice are just below the elbow in length, and are made in several layers - two of black silk, and the final top layer of green silk, which is slashed so that the black layer beneath it is visible. The lower part of the sleeve is held in shape by being gathered into a narrow band, which fastens with black ribbon ties. |
| The centre front panel of the bodice is embroidered in polychrome silks, and metallic copper thread. The embroidery is based on an earlier pattern, taken from a piece of blackwork at the Victoria and Albert Museum. See below for a detail, and the same pattern executed in blackwork, which shows the design much, much more clearly. |
| The first of the three skirts is the split fronted skirt in the above pictures - this gathers onto a waistband and fastens at the centre front by means of ribbon ties. The second skirt is in black, and unsplit (below left) - this too gathers onto a waistband - as does the third, which is in heavy turquoise satin and also unsplit (below right is a back view). Both of these skirts are made with over six metres of fabric, and both fasten with ties at the centre back (as seen below left). |
| As can be seen from the side view of the black skirt, above, all of the skirts are worn over a "bum-roll" (aka French farthingale). Also made to go with this gown was a chemise, based on a surviving linen example, and made in a very soft washed silk. |
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