This gown is based on the one worn by Ludovica Tournabuoni in Domenico Ghirlandaio's Birth of the Virgin from the 1480s (see detail to the left). I adore this period Florentine history and this fresco seems to evoke so much of the spirit of the Renaissance.

This is also a renovation project as I will be remaking an old gown

This dress diary will be arranged into sections as follows:

• Before - the old gowns and the problems therein
• Over gown
• Sleeves
• Camica
• Under gown

This is a very exciting project to be working on, and to be honest I can't drag myself away from it, despite having several other things I should be doing. I can remember waiting with bated breath to hear what would happen to Lorenzo and Giuliano de Medici in an assassination plot as my history teacher described it to us during high school. This is such an exciting period of history, and Florence is such a wonderful city - it really excites me to think that this is the sort of gown that the women of Florence would have worn in this period of Medici power.

One of the first gowns I ever made was a renaissance style gown from some lovely green and gold floral brocade. At that point I had very little sewing and no pattern drafting experience and so I used a commercial renaissance gown pattern. The result was alright, although there were some parts I was unhappy about. For the past twelve months or so I've been itching to pull it apart and make something more authentic from this lovely material. I've always loved Ludovica's gown in this fresco and thought it would be a perfect project to remake my old gown.

Strangely enough I seem to be doing this costume from the outside in, rather than the more logical inside out. Eventually I need to make a proper camica and an Under gown, but for the moment I'm focusing on the Over gown -illogical I know, but that's the way it is.

Started: September 8th 2005

Finished: November 5th 2005

Before

Let the renovations begin! To the left is a picture of the original made from the commercial pattern. There were several problems with this gown. Firstly, the bodice was too large and did not fit well. Secondly it had *shudder* darts! (he he, I've had my own encounters with garb snarks on this topic!) They did look awful though, and didn't really shape the bodice that well. The skirt was gathered onto the bodice which didn't really work very well - the gathers stuck out and pulled into a sort of U shaped ripples down the front. The old dress was worn over a cotton chemise, but the new one is made as an Over gown and will require a separate Under gown as well. Generally, as I'd come to understand more about the clothing of this period, I'd come to realise how significant the faults in the gown were.

After!

Over gown

I must say from the outset that Jen Thompson's 1480s Florentine Gown and Giornea diaries have been immeasurably useful to me in remaking this gown - not to mention her fantastic gallery of Florentine art! You can find her diary here.

The first issue with the gown was to decide how high to place the waist line. Most of the Florentine gowns from the late 13th century seem to have the bodice finish somewhat above the natural waist line, but lower than the under-bust style seen many centuries later in regency gowns. I tried to estimate the height of the waistline from the fresco by estimating proportions from Ludovica's arms. With my arms in a similar position, my elbow rests just above my hip bone. In the fresco, it seems that the distance between from under the arm to the crook of the elbow were fairly evenly divided by the waistline of the dress. And from looking at the distances on myself, it seems like this must be just under the bust. Whew - a long winded explanation for what is not a very difficult matter!

The other factor I had to take into consideration was the design of the old gown - basically what I wanted to do was remove the skirt, scrap the bodice and reattach the skirt to a new bodice. As it worked out it was a very useful process. I had a quick look at the old pattern pieces and had a think about what I wanted to do - a single back piece and the two front pieces, with the side seams pushed further toward the back than the original under-arm seams of the commercial pattern, and the front pieces angled into a V opening. After deciding this and taking a few measurements, I used the old bodice, detached from the skirt, picked open the dart seams and re-pinned it to get the effect I wanted. I had to use my imagination for the front, and nearly dislocated by arms trying to get in and out of it without unpinning the back seam - but who said life was supposed to be easy?

The final pattern looked something like this --> (Ooo, Laura hasn't photographed the pattern pieces yet, but promises to do so soon!)

To construct it I cut two layers, one of lining and one of the green-and-gold. I stitched the side seams in each layer separately, and then with both layers together stitched right around the front, neck and arm holes, omitting the bottom edge. After trimming, clipping, turning through and ironing I whip stitched the shoulder edges together - and voila!

The skirt was the skirt from the original, which was cut in three panels - two back and one front. To utilise it for the new gown I picked open the back seam to be the new front opening. This mean evening out the center a little, as that portion of the skirt had curved upward in the old gown. The back of the skirt is pleated into small box pleats - about 1.5 inches wide. The skirt was then sewn to the outer side of the bodice by machine and the lining sewn down by hand.

I realised when I tried it on last night that because of shortening the length of the bodice, the hem is far too high off the ground. Luckily I have about 3.5 inches folded up in the hem and have let this down. I was hoping to get away without having to re-hem this, but at the moment I'm just glad I have the extra length! The skirt has also turned out to be a couple of inches longer at the back than at the front, again, thanks to the cut of the old pattern. But again this has actually turned out for the best. In the photo to the right you can see that the back of the gown drops straight down instead of flairing out like Ludovica's. I found when I let down the hem that the extra length creates a small 'train' which causes the skirt to drape out in the appropriate matter. Hooray for serendipity!

Eeek - I went out shopping yesterday and as well as picking up some fabric for the camica, I've found this gorgeous clasp for the Over gown!

Sleeves

Ah, the trials and tribulations of sleeves! I will admit that this section of the gown has had me seriously worried at several stages, but everything has turned out for the best.

At present I've finished stitching the sleeves and one is now attached to the gown and waiting for it's mate to join it. I'm afraid I haven't written a description for the sleeve construction yet, but hopefully I'll have it up in a few days.

Monday 26th September:

Both sleeves are now attached and you can see them in the picture to the right. The shape of the sleeves doesn't really come through without seeing it on an arm, but hopefully once the camica is finished I can post pictures of me wearing it.

I've also finished off the details of the sleeve construction.

Sleeve construction:

Each sleeve was cut in a single piece. I cut two sleeves from the brocade and two from the lining (something cheap and synthetic I picked up in a remnants bin. Ugly to be using something synthetic, but I wanted something with a bit of slip to it as the sleeves are cut quite tight.) The two layers are then stitched together all the way around, except for a portion of the shoulder end. Clip, turn through and press. The sleeve then looks something like this:

The next step is to create the holes at the elbow for the camica to puff through. The shape and size of these is really a matter of trial and error. I made a mock up using a diamond shaped hole which worked fine when only one layer of cloth was involved, but I found that a elongated hexagonal hole worked better on the final sleeves.

Click here for step-by-steps of creating the elbow holes.

The sleeve is designed to be stitched together by hand down the remaining edge. I whip stitched the final seam and then whip stitched it to the shoulder of the gown. I'm sure there was probably an easier way of going about this (ie, involving less hand sewing), but this way has worked out very well for me and looks great. Most of the seams in the gown are machine sewn, but having a few hand sewn seams in prominent places gives the gown a softer and less 'costumey' look.

Camica

This gown requires the construction of a new camica (Italian chemise). I'll be using Jen Thompson's article on constructing a camica and making it from the cotton voile which I bought on Sunday, but nothing's happened yet!

Sunday 25th September

I hate sewing french seams! I mean, they're lovely, lovely, wonderfully neat things, but I hate sewing them! I invariably pin something on the wrong way round, stitch it, realise, curse, unpick it, stand around crossing my eyes and sticking my tongue out trying to work out which way it should go, re-stitch it, and then repeating this process on every single seam for the remainder of the project! Let them be done already! (in case you can't tell, I've started on the camica...)

Tuesday 1st November

After much faffing about I have finally finished the neckline on the camica. I'm really phenomenally bad at actually making myself do all the fiddly little finishing jobs and this was one I'd been putting off for ever!

Under gown

September 29th

For some reason this portion of the gown has grown large in my mind. I guess it might be because I've been thinking over so many options for it. My concerns were over fabric choice, the height of the waist line and the closure. In the end I opted for a front closure with lacing rings, a waist line lowered somewhat from the Over gown and some fabric I already had in my stash.
My favourite thing about this part of the gown is that it cost me...wait for it...$5.50 for the fabric. That's $5.50 Australian! (which sort of off-sets the $40 I had to shell out for the camica...but I don't talk about that) I found the fabric in the remnants bin, not a lot but a lovely design and very cheap. It's buttery cream coloured with a lattice design with small 'sprigs' in the center of each diamond. I had sort of planned to make the Under gown out of a plain cloth, since you don't see many portraits of Florentine women wearing heavily patterned gowns (although the Ghirlandaio that this gown is based on does have a combination of two very detailed patterns) But it was hard to find a match for the shade of green in the Over gown - don't know why, but it's an odd colour and I wasn't sure what to put with it. I dug this remnant out of my stash and it does look lovely (a little too coordinated perhaps, but we can't have everything!) with the green and the combination of patterns gives a look of opulence without spoiling the simplicity of the gown.

Ugh, what a long paragraph agonizing over fabric! (however, since those thoughts were on loop in my head...)

And onto construction:
After much agonizing akin to that above, I decided to lower the waist line of the Under gown to that seen in many Florentine portraits - just slightly above the natural waist line. I did this so that I can wear the gown without the Over gown for a more simple look. This means that the skirt doesn't puff out at the same height as the Over gown, but slightly lower down. (the bodice is about 3 inches longer than the Over gown bodice) The skirt is gathered to the bodice and the bodice has a slightly curved front opening. This was all sewn ridiculously late at night and with great swiftness, not for any good reason, but just because I was seized by a fit of swiftness.

Thursday 6th October:

I've spent today making and attacking lacing rings to the front closing of the Under gown I've also taken some pics so here is the first peak at the Under gown

I've had an awful time trying to find lacing rings and have eventually given up. I've heard that you can't use split rings because the stress on the rings causes them to pull open. However, I've decided to do a little investigation. I ended up making some out of jewelry wire I had from making earrings. It's not ideal, but I think it will work. The main problem is that the rings will be split, and I've heard that they pull open under stress. To counteract this I twisted mine so that they had two loops - a sort of badly proportioned figure eight. The wire crosses over in the middle and this allowed me to secure them more firmly. Only wear and strain on the dress will tell if they will hold out, but for the moment they appear to work perfectly!

Tuesday 1st November: So near and yet so far!

Well, I'm a step closer. I've been about four steps away from finished for a while now, but I've been rather remiss about getting them done! However, I've forbidden myself to work on anything else until this is finished. But it is now official, the Under gown is finished. Perfectum!

I sat down over the weekend and watched 'Vanity Fair' and fiddled with the Under gown I added two strips of rigiline plastic boning into the front edges of the bodice. (I had been hoping not to need it, but the front of the gown tended to wrinkle and I knew it would always bug me if I left it.) I sneakily added the rigiline - no easy feat at this stage of construction by whip-stitching it to the front edge between the outer fabric and the lining. Luckily the lacing rings were stitched down a little way from the front and I was able to hide a couple of little stitches under the rings. I also finished off the opening in the skirt by binding the raw edge with a small piece of ribbon.

Today I finished the lining at the waist and added a hook and eye closure to the front of the skirt opening.

Saturday 5th November: Finished!

Oh my goodness, it's finished! I've spent the morning taking pictures which can be seen in the Gallery. Hoorah!

(I think my favourite part of this whole gown are the pleats in the back - I love this photo!)

I've also made a cap similar to Ludovica's