A discourse on bodice-shifting

[serinde]

So, the first period gown I had was a very lightweight linen cotehardie. You'll be shocked to learn that it stretched an ungodly amount after wearing it all through a summer's day. We took it in. It stretched more, again to the point where it wasn't providing ahem structural support. We took it in again, and then I started making better stuff so I relegated it to the back of the closet anyways.

Remembering this whole escapade, two years ago when I was ready to make another linen cotehardie (heavier weight, but still good ole stretchy linen), Beth and I talked about this some. We know linen was a reasonably common fabric used in period, and this must have been a recurring problem for women with large breastage. Did they really sit there and take in the dress every single time? How else might they have solved this? Beth suggested that one possible solution--and we have no period evidence for this, let me stress, but it makes some logical sense--would be a sort of "corselet" of heavier linen which would take up the strain of holding up the boobs, which you then fit the dress over. Her design was basically just the top half of a cotehardie, no sleeves, of heavy white linen (lined with itself, but with the grain going in the opposite direction for added strength), which extends down to about the top of my hips. And we fitted my RED!! cotehardie over top of it, and it seemed to work.

But.

After a while of wearing it, I had this uncomfortable feeling of riding up--that the corselet was squidging up my middle. This makes a certain amount of sense, hello hourglass figure and all, but that does not make it any less irritating. I found myself continually reaching inside to pull it back down so it lay flat. Obvious solution would be to attach weight, like a skirt, to it, but then you've just re-invented the underdress. :-P

Another interesting factor was that the next cotehardie I made, out of a lovely medium-weight wool, was fitted over the corselet but a lot tighter (so I can wear it without the underpinning if I choose)--and it neither stretched nor does it ride up. Hmmm, we said.

We let this ride for a bit, until Coronation a few weekends ago. I wore my fancy loud purple silk gamurra, which I'm deeply fond of, and put a wool underskirt underneath as I always have--not because it's particularly appropriate for 15c. Italian, but because the silk is so very light and floaty that it doesn't drape right without something with more weight underneath it. And this was fine, except the day got unseasonably hot, and I was sweltering, so I took off the underskirt.

*BAM* instant bodice ride-up.

WTF, thought I?

Since I was at the time sitting some six feet from Daria, that's Mistress Kamilla whose Laurel is in 15c. Italian clothing to you people, I asked her if she'd ever come across this problem. And behold, she had, with a gamurra she'd made out of very lightweight wool. She had two suggestions: one was to raise the bottom edge of the bodice some inch to inch and a half above what you think it should be, or else to just use heavier fabrics--she had only experienced this with very lightweight choices. Our best collective guess, her and the various 'prentices sitting around, was that the wool underskirt was providing sufficient catch on the slubs in the silk that it wasn't going anywhere (or possibly there's static involved?), and that's why I'd only run into it with this dress when I took the underskirt off.

So the question is, did they not use the very lightest fabrics for fitted dresses in period? Or did they not fit it as tightly as low on the torso as would seem right to us? Or did they just squirm around pulling down their bodices, and did they have to keep taking all their summer dresses in every week? I'm kind of thinking #1, that the lightest-weight things were reserved for chemises and the like, but I don't have enough data to reasonably defend this theory.

Which theory also makes the idea of light linen dresses for those hot Pennsic field days sort of wrong. Bah.

Comments

[porcinea.livejournal.com]

My theory is that it was fucking cold in period, and no one wore the lightest weights that we do now. We need them 'cause we live in sub- and semi-tropical areas (like Pennsic, woof!). England and France and Germany, etc., were all much chilly in the day than they are now, and than we are accustomed to over here. (I froze my tuchus solid the year I spent in Scotland, back in college.)

[syringavulgaris.livejournal.com]

There's something in what you say. I mean, even if you leave out the Little Ice Age, I always think of Europe as being warmer than the East Coast, when in fact what it is is more temperate. A very different affair.

And I'm remembering now that on a day when it was too warm to wear my jacket for walking around the streets of London, I was somewhat chilled inside Westminster Abbey. Oh those dank stone buildings.

[marnameow.livejournal.com]

Silk is a static-ish beast. It loves the static. Wool is also a static friend. So there may be some truth there.

Also, I'd be thinking about the linen, and where it was worn (climate and whatnot - wool probably being an easy beastie to find and tame and use for all manner of undergarments) and also about the way it's been woven and treated and whatnot; I find that linen has less give than almost anything else, when I'm spinning it, so it seems a little odd that it would stretch *so* much. But at the same time, wool has memory, so doesn't stretch like plant fibres, and would provide a better fitting thing that doesn't need taking in all the time, becaue it will take itself in.

I approach this entirely from a fibre-geek angle, of course, so I don't know all manner of period things.

[syringavulgaris.livejournal.com]

I think, I think, it's something to do with linen's reaction to heat & moisture. Because you're right, if you just take a hunk of linen fabric and yank on it, nothing particularly happens.

[lillilah]

I'm kind of thinking #1, that the lightest-weight things were reserved for chemises and the like, but I don't have enough data to reasonably defend this theory.

I remember people saying, at one point at least, that the weather was cooler in the middle ages (although I think I might have heard contradictory info later), so on that front your theory would make sense. Your average person would have probably been wearing less lightweight fabric just because they wouldn't have had access to fine fabrics, right? Also, could it be the weave of these fabrics that is the problem?
Okay, those are my random thoughts. I miss sewing with you guys. It was way more fun than doing similar things alone.

[syringavulgaris.livejournal.com]

I believe, though I'll have to double-check with Beth, that it's not so much the weight as the fineness, which are often but definitely not always correlated. But, there's also the fact that a lighter weight would probably not wear as well. Hmm.

Miss you too!

[auntiemisha.livejournal.com]

Squirm around pulling down their bodices -- well, you know, there's a modern day fashion equivalent, sort of. A rather well-known TV show had crew members pulling down on their shirt every time they have to stand up. :-) And many fashions are not known for their practicality.

Combine this theory with the "must have been chillier then" theory, and you've got: Ladies who wore fashionably lightweight fabrics even while it was chilly outside, had to pull it down frequently or take it in every week. More practical ladies would do something else.

[syringavulgaris.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of the way men hitch up their trousers when they sit down, and then spend the next half-hour wriggling the legs back down. :)

[jennyaxe.livejournal.com]

I'd make a guess that linen reinforced with canvas for stability, and/or whalebone stabilisers, would do the trick. As for how tightly they were fitting - what period exactly is it you're aiming for? I've got a fair number of books on the subject and would be happy to look stuff up if I've got anything that might be useful.

[syringavulgaris.livejournal.com]

Linen reinforced with canvas--that's not unlike padstitching, which as I understand it we have some evidence for in the later 15th c., but I don't think we have any evidence it was used in the 14th c.

Whalebone, and boning in general, is a post-medieval technology so far as I'm aware.

Cotehardies (http://humanities.uchicago.edu/images/heures/june.jpg) are the 14th century fashion. As you see from the image, they're practically skin-tight over the torso. They are also a form of garment that is marvelously flattering to just about any figure, but Goddamn are they a lot of work if you're endowed. The words "engineering project" are tossed around a lot in conjunction with mine.