Gah... allegories

I have come to the realization, that I like lower class garments.  Very utilitarean, very down to earth. Easy to get messy and get cleaned up again. Wearing the pretty, pretty clothes requires me to be less than "mobile".  Which brings me back to the painting of the "Festival of the Archers".

The problem with allegories, is there is usually some grain of truth to them. Which makes figuring out why and what fore challenging. Lots of theories and possibilities.  This may be why they are interesting to me. It's a puzzle. A mind game. Finding the right plausible reasons, makes it less like work.  And when you are looking for other paintings of the "master of Frankfurt" and run into yet more allegories you have to wonder what was this guy doing.  At the very least, he does very lovely work.

Much conversation has taken place and I have been left to ponder different bits of this and that. 

• It is a dress on a servant girl.  Most of the costumes in the picture are showing the late 1400's styled upper class gowns.    She appears to
• be one of the only servants in the portrait. It possible that it is a hand me down.  She is also one of the only gowns with this "lace" up front. 
• If you look at the neckline, I really think this is 2 layers. The blue from the placard goes up all the way to the shoulder.
• If the dress is a hand me down from an earlier time, it might also  explain why there is a gap.  Possible that the gown had to be "let out"/altered.  Also the posibility that this may betwo different dresses.
• There is also the posibility that it could be livery.
• And there is always the idea that the painter could be remembering things he has seen and just gone with it.

So I am going to guess, based upon a hypothosis and say, it's 2 different colors, with a dress underneath. I am also willing to say, it's an allagory and be ok with that. At the very least, it is just fabric and it can be repurposed.