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Fantasy Wardrobe: Fabrics

We often call clothes silk when they are satin, velvet where they are velveteen or we have no clue what we’re on about. So today let’s look at fabrics.

Laying down the law

Many renaissance/mediaeval societies governed over who could wear what. By adding these laws you had a layer of depth to your world.

Women and men could only be dressed n clothes benefiting their position

Female servants or their daughters could not wear veils costing more than twelve pence

Knightly families could not wear cloth of gold or sable fur or velvets

The wife or daughter of a labourer were not to wear clothes beyond a certain price or a girdle garnished with silver

Cloth of gold and purple silk only worn by the royal family. This goes for ermine.

The importation of silk and lace foreigners was prohibited when the kingdom produced those textiles.

Peasant Clothing (Beggars to Merchant classes)

Wool: This was the staple of much of the clothes owned by peasants. It was in supply and it wasn’t as costly as most fabrics when undyed. It was also warm.

Linen: Forget about softness. Peasant linen was made of coarser weaves and flax. It was heavier than noble linen.

Cotton: A lightweight fabric used in hotter climates. It was softer than the linen and airier.

Fustian: heavy cloth woven from cotton, for menswear.

Leather: Leather was used for boots and shoes rather than killer jackets.

Nobility & Royalty

Cloth of Gold: Cloth made from woven threads of gold (very expensive)

Cloth of silver: cloth made from woven silver strands (very expensive)

Samite: a rich silk fabric woven with gold and silver threads

Tulle: A netting sort of material

Brocade: rich silk fabric with raised patterns sewn on it.

Cambresine: fine, lightweight linen

Cambric: thin white cotton or linen

Cypress: gauze made of cotton or silk

Damask: like brocade but the patterns are flat

Delaine : light wool/mixed wool and cotton

Lawn: sheer plain-woven cotton or linen

Sarsenet: fine and soft silk

Sateen: glossy cotton or wool

Satin: closely woven silk, shiny

Taffeta: Thickly woven silk

Velvet : piled fabric of silk, cotton or synthetic material

Velvetine: cotton with silk pile

Saxony: fine, delicate woollen fabric

Alençon Lace: intricate floral lace with three-dimensional corded detail sewn onto a fine tulle backing

Chantilly Lace: lightest of lace

Charmeuse: smooth, flowing, silk, cotton,

Chiffon: sheer and lightweight fabric

Crepe de Chine: thicker, lightly textured silk

Dupioni: crisp lusturous silk

Organza: sheer and lightweight fabric of very fine weave silk

Georgette: sheer fabric of silk

Guipure Lace: heavier lace

Designs

Embroidery: Patterns sewn on the fabric by thread

Appliqué: decorative fabric, often lace or floral motifs, sewn onto the main material

Embellishment: details such as beads, crystals, sequins, pearls

Trim: a line of material or fur that finishes off a hem or cuff.

Piping: a cord lining the fabric creating a ribbed look.

Colours

Here are the colours that you will catch your people wearing. Keep in mind that dyes had to be sourced and could be very expensive.

Peasant: brown, red or gray.

Nobility: Gold, silver, crimson or scarlet, deep indigo blue, violet colors and even deep black and pure white colors

Royalty: Purple

Furs

Mink: Soft and lightweight, silkly and glossy furs

Fox: Long, lustrous, colourful and easy to dye.

Ermine: White fur streaked with black (ONLY FOR ROYALTY)

Sable: long, luxurious, dense but light.

Wolf: thick, tough, warm but has a bad smell

Vair: fur from a red squirrel really only used for trimming.

dancing-thru-clouds

You are-very wrong about some of this.

First. All linen is made of flax. That’s what it IS. Processed fibers from the stalks of flax. Linen is also incredibly soft, even at really heavy weights, because processing it into the fibers removes most of the stiffness, and spinning it takes care of the rest.

Second. Brocade is made by weaving a base weft for securing the cloth, then a supplemental warp to actually make the pattern. It’s usually not embroidered, because it’s already got an expensive pattern to it.

Third. Damask is a type of brocade, yes, but it’s double-sided brocade, whereas traditional brocade only has the pattern on one side. Still no real textural differences because, see above, the patterns are woven in.

Fourth. White fabric is SUPER GODDAMN COMMON when you have a lot of white wool. Peasants wear a lot of undyed wool, and are not nearly as unwashed as you think. Undyed linen is a nice pale tan though, I’ll give you that.

Fifth. Ermine is, actually, a specific animal. It’s the winter coat of a stoat, a little weasel. Very cute critters.

Sixth. As someone with several wolf pelts, mine actually have less of a smell than any of the sheepskins I’ve been around.

sca-nerd

ALSO.

Seventh. Cotton referred to a weave or surface of cloth, and not its fiber in early accounts. The cotton plant, itself, does not grow well in cooler climates and so wasn’t commonly use or available in Northern Europe until about the 17th century, at which time it was normally blended with linen when used in garment fabrics. Eighth. The idea that peasants were restricted to browns, reds, and grays as dye is incorrect. Muted colors were deemed more appropriate for peasants (to reflect the humbleness God had chosen for them and to avoid the mortal sin of pride), and included faded, pale shades of a number of colors if you could source it. Blue was actually a perfectly acceptable color for several classes because of its religious associations.

petermorwood

The search term for regulations like this is “Sumptuary Law” - a law or laws governing consumption of food, drink and goods.

It wasn’t just to keep people in their social place, but frequently to help local industry - wearing woollen clothes made here, not cotton clothes imported from there, drinking Scotch whisky not French brandy, and so on.

Hemp produced a fabric which was made in the same way as linen (retting etc. - look it up). I have a couple of hemp shirts by Patagonia; they’re coarser than the fine Irish damask linenware I inherited from my Mum, but are by no means crude peasant garments.

This is hemp.

So is this.

Linen can be made with a weave so tight that, once the fibres expand from their initial soaking, it will hold water (as proved with the fine Irish damask linenware mentioned above) while other weaves are so light they’re translucent.

Check out the way it’s represented in Ancient Egyptian art..

…or indeed a good-quality Irish linen handkerchief.

This is linen.

So is this.

That’s linen damask, like the tablecloths and pillowcases left me by Mum. Its 1950s laundry instructions are “boil wash, then hot iron while damp”. This was when “boil wash” meant just that, not merely the hottest setting on the machine. Linen is sturdy stuff, and so is hemp.

Once woven it was bleached in the sun and with enough good weather would end up white; this bleaching-green was near where I grew up, AFAIK still in use in the 1950s. There’s even more linen laid out off in the distance. @dduane says the strips could be mistaken for poly-tunnels.

Because the linen was laid out in the open for several days at a time, it needed a watchman to keep animals away and prevent theft, and a place for him to stay, rather like this:

“Linens” (plural) meant under-garments. Besides next-the-skin underwear as we know it now - drawers, braies, shifts, chemises - shirts and blouses also qualified as “linens”. Washing simply made and hard-wearing “linens” was easier than doing it to heavier, more elaborate outerwear which needed disassembled - sleeves, braid, lace, buttons and all - before washing could begin.

Blue was a common colour - it came from woad and had been used for thousands of years.

“The Complete Book of Herbs” by Lesley Bremness is a useful book from our reference shelves, and has a chart of 50 dye-herbs, their basic colours, and how those colours could vary, depending on what mordant was used to fix the colour in the fabric and even on what fabric was being dyed.

Just two examples show these changes: woollen cloth dyed with heather tips and alum came out yellow, but young heather branches, alum and a pinch of iron filings produced green. Onion skins and alum gave orange wool, onion skins and copper filings in white vinegar gave brassy yellow wool and tan silk.

Here’s an example of three dye-plants each used with three different mordants.

Alum is the most common mordant in the chart, and explains why the Medici control of newly-discovered alum deposits in Italy made them so rich. Before then Europe’s alum had to be bought, reluctantly and with much grinding of teeth, from the Ottoman Turks.

Here are a couple of samplers showing colours from natural dyes:

All these colours were more muted than modern chemical dyes, but not that much more, though they faded faster. Wealthy people who could afford stronger dyes and frequent re-dying would have been more intensely colourful than pastel-hued lower orders, not forgetting the sumptuary laws - remember them? - meant to keep them from looking like their betters. A peasant or yeoman who could get away with bright colours might have other bright ideas too…

However, while History might not have been as vivid as marginalia and full-page Book of Hours illuminations suggests (inks and paints aren’t out in the daylight)…

…it certainly wasn’t as monochromatically muddy as Hollywood would have you believe.

That trend started AFAIK with “Monty Python and the Holy Grail”, and was happily embraced because “everyone knows” historical people were dirty - also stupid, superstitious, deceitful and cruel.

You know, the way modern people aren’t.

das-coven

2012 Colo Ren Fair 0090-Edit.jpg by waite767 on Flickr.

trinitywings

Me: Creating a story in my head and trying to write it down.

moswla

BEHEMOTH!

tomgarnett

So, this is it, this is why I took up photography - in order to take this shot.

I didn’t know what it was going to be of, you understand - I just knew that when someone said “Live action roleplaying? Isn’t that a bit naff?” I wanted to be able to pull out a picture and say “When I’m at a game, this is what I’m seeing.” and to let the image to do the rest of the talking.

So sure, tell me that it’s not for you, tell me that you’d love to if only you had the time and money, or tell me that you haven’t found the right game yet… just don’t tell me it’s always naff.

(This photo was taken at event 15 of the Empire campaign, run by Profound Decisions, in the UK; but the point is, it could have been at any one of hundreds of games, all around the world.) When we’re playing, this is what we’re seeing - it’s just taken me a while to be able to get that down in a picture…

theartofanimation

Bastien Lecouffe Deharme - https://www.etsy.com/shop/DeharmeOriginals - https://www.instagram.com/deharme - https://www.inprnt.com/gallery/deharme - http://deharme.tumblr.com - https://www.artstation.com/artist/deharme - https://twitter.com/roman_noir - https://es-es.facebook.com/B.MechanicalArt - http://deharme.deviantart.com - http://www.roman-noir.com/printshop - https://www.behance.net/deharme - http://drawcrowd.com/deharme - https://plus.google.com/+BastienLecouffeDeharme

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Given that I don’t have any post on it yet, nor do I have much experience with the genre, here’s a masterlist of links that will hopefully help you when it comes to writing steampunk:

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Yesterday, a friend of mine that I’ve known for roughly fifteen years passed away from complications with a long term heart condition. He isn’t the first friend I’ve lost, but his death hit me particularly hard for reasons that I couldn’t pin down until my wife and I were laying in bed last night. We had both just settled into the quiet stage after our usual pillow talk when she rolls over and…

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cthulhu-jewellery

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the-mothafuckin-pigeon-empress

cthulhu-jewellery

My tentacled agate and labradorite necklaces http://www.cthulhujewellery.com

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I NEED THIS SO BAD

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nyarlathotwink

mydnd

Disclaimer: These are just the ideas i gathered based on a dream, previous thoughts of mine, and stuff i might have seen in other media.

Earth: After War

In the year ____, earth made contact with an alien race aboard a giant space ship/station. They appeared to be friendly and willing to share their technology with us.

In truth, the giant ship/station served the alien race as their home until they found a suitable planet to colonize (preferably inhabited with species that could serve for labor and war and who’s technology would not pose a significant thread).

I don’t know yet why the alien race is doing this, but an idea i had was that they knew their home planet would eventually be destroyed by ____, which caused them to develop technology for space travel and terraforming. Along with other stuff meant specially for war (which i will mention below)

The alien race showed them very little of their technology, but what was given was enough for some countries of the earth to secretly start doing experiments for their on benefit, or in a worst case scenario, to use against the alien race.

Some of the experiments made allowed us to merge some aspects of our DNA with those of other creatures, thus giving us new abilities like increased speed, augmented strength, acute senses, fast healing, and so on. But this was nothing compared to what the alien race was capable of doing.

Upon their arrival, the alien colony currently stationed near earth lost contact with the other ships, - who were searching for other planets in different parts of the universe - which made them panic as they feared that perhaps, their colony was the last of them.

As the alien race waited for a response from the other colonies, they spent the next year or so, researching our planet, our governments, and our behavior. After they felt confident, they began a full scale war against us.

The alien race landed on ____ and began terraforming that region and from there, they launched their attacks.

Besides their weapons. These aliens developed an ooze like organism that could move on its own, search for other living organisms (other than the alien race) and merge with them, causing horrible mutations that they could use mainly for war.Insects of all kind, animals, and plants were twisted and mutated to be unleashed upon mankind.

When the living oozes became in contact with a dead organism such as a dead human. The ooze would merge with it and reanimate the body. Depending on the level of decomposition, the mutated corpse would act as a mindless, shambling creature searching for things to devour and pass some of the essence of the ooze into other creatures or retain some of its intelligence and pose a real threat to the living.

Despite the technological advances we made during the year of the arrival of the alien race, we were still no match for them until country ____ revealed their new experiment. It involved humans with a high mental capacity, samples of a living ooze, and samples from the alien race. The result was the birth of psionics.

Cybernetics and the transfer of vital organs to an android was part of the technology developed during and after the war in order to valuable humans in the event that some or all of their body was compromised by the living ooze or injuries said person could have sustained. This technology was eventually available to anyone with enough money to pay for such operation.

We eventually won the war against the alien race. We destroyed their giant ship/station, remains which could still be seen in the sky.

After 20 to 50 years after the war, we are left with an earth that has been 40% terraformed, mutated creatures, and small pockets of alien residents who from time to time try to cause trouble.

As far as politics go. Some countries still remain somewhat functional, but there are organizations that believe that what remains of our civilization should unite under one banner and have one person as the president of the world… idea that not everyone agrees with.

mydnd

reblogging for the night shift.

mydnd

Reblogging this since I found it through the archives while searching for a post about a Star Wars campaign where Starkiller killed Darth Vader and Obi-Wan and Luke turned to the Dark side (as per Force Unleashed dark side ending).