German court wear

[alysten]

mmcnealy posted a link to a wonderful manuscript. Which got me thinking I just might do a German court dress. I am fascinated by the stripes and the dresses that are not the same ole same ole upper class German.  This would be a court dress, because that is a lot of dress to wear to normal events.

Stripey dress #1 has a V neck back.  I think I can pair it up with V neck front from this dress.  The front shows a closed front dress, which does not reveal the under dress.  Many of the underskirts from the other pictures are pretty elaborate (or at least the dust trim is).

Stripey dress #2 has a scoop back, which I think I can pair up with the front of this dress.  It looks like this dress is split revealing the lining and quite possibly the under dress. You can clearly see the under dress peaking out from the dress link #2 when she lifts her skirts.

Question time:

1. Can I mix and match dresses if the necklines are similar (unfortunately I've fallen in love with the backs of the dresses)?
2. What fabrics are we talking about?  Are they still using wool or would these been made out of silk or taffeta?
3. Both dresses have belts and show a lot of fabric.  But is not obviously pleated as these dresses.  Are we looking at long pieces that are tapered/flared for volume? Or are they pieced at the waist with a gentle gather of additional fabric?
4. And I kinda even like the hat from this dress.  Are hats interchangeable?

Ok.. back to my little UI corner now.

Comments

[jillwheezul.livejournal.com]

The hat you like is on "Hilda of Flanders". It's important to keep in mind what we are seeing. This apparently is a genealogical book commissioned by the Saxon Duke to record his relatives. The pictures towards the end are either drawn from life or from portraits that Cranach had already made. He couldn't have known the people he depicted that had already passed away. He quite possibly worked from the Duke's collection of portraits then extant. Unless we match anything that still exists, we don't really know if he made stuff up or not. Given what I'm seeing, I think he worked from either another book or images he was given access to. That the woman from Flanders wears a Burgundian type hat lends credence to the theory that he had something original to work from. I note other nods to nationality in outfits as well.

If you wanted to do some fine-tuning on the documentation, I would suggest investigating the identity of the model and the possible time range of the original outfit, and then do the compare/contrast with the fronts and backs to see if you are on the correct path. My initial impression is that they are all around the same 50 year period. At any rate they would make lovely gowns, and are certainly not the only instance of a parti-color gown :)

[alysten.livejournal.com]

All of this seems reasonable. Thanks!

Scampers away to start yet more research.