Italian Project- Update 1

Volia! As promise, here's the design for the new Italian outfit. I'm currently trying to decide between two pairs of cotton/silk/wool stockings; a cream pair and a blue pair. I like the color of the blue ones and they are lighter for the summer since they are silk, but then the cotton/wool ones could be dyed to a color and don't feature the anachronistic clocking on the heel. Decisions, decisions.

The fabric for the gown will be mostly these three:-

The underskirt will be heavily pleated in the grass-green linen, with the simpler sleeve version in the same. The more intricate sleeve will be done in the striped gold and green taffeta with faux chemise puffs between the slashing. The overall fabric of the gown, though, will be the embroidered tan linen (which is why the portraits of the patterned gowns was so important to me). I also have some gold and green trims set aside, but we'll look at those later.

And shoes? Well, those are notoriously hard to research for the 16th century because we have only a few surviving examples (not much to go on in terms of variety), and they are rarely seen in portraits due to the length of the skirts. We all know about the Venetians and their chopines...

But I need something more stable. I've decided on a cross between the heel-less slippers, and the heeled shoes of the period.

So I found some shoes with the right sort of shape to the toe, heel, and vamp, and I shall simply add straps that connect to the vamp with little ties; and some decoration, of course. The shoes themselves are some sort of black woven fabric with gold threads shot through, so they seem passable.

So far on the gown I have found a pattern I used for a previous gown of similar style and begun altering it, and I have also pre-shrunk, ironed, and rolled the fabric for ease of use.

Next time:- The chemise, trimming the shoes.

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