WIP
Last weekend’s project was a personal favorite of mine. I’ve blogged before about Burgundian Gowns when I wrote about the DOTW French Court Barbie. They’re my favorite 15th Century style. It was nice to go back to history for a weekend, while we waited for some other fabrics to arrive. Though, TBH, this design has been in my mind for a long time as part of our LOTR Costume Project. It’s something I see the Princesses of Emyn Arnen wearing at some point in the Fourth Age. But this is my headcanon speaking and not actual Legendarium chronology by any means.
1 - Research
That’s easy. I’ve been researching and hoarding images of Burgundian Gowns since forever.
Above: Retour d'Isabelle de France en Angleterre. Grandes Chroniques de France, enluminées par Jean Fouquet, Tours, vers 1455-1460 Source: Paris, BnF, département des Manuscrits, Français 6465, fol. 338v. (Livre de Charles IV le Bel).
Above: Detail of The presentation of Christ in the Temple by Hans Holbein The Elder. Kunsthalle Hamburg. Source: Wikipedia
Above: Workshop of Rogier van der Weyden, Portrait of a young woman of the Burgundian gentry. National Gallery, London. Source: Wikipedia.
These are just some images out of my research. They teach us two things about Burgundian Gowns: The partlet usually comes in contrasting colors, and Burgundian Gown are always accompanied by a very specific headgear: the hennin. So, to complete my doll’s look, I made one too.
2 - Sewing Process and Results:
For my Burgundian outfit, I’ve chosen the conical hennin, more common around the 1430′s. I also love the truncated hennin, but I want a truncated hennin in darker colors, and since I’m going for light colors here, and for a “fairytale princess” look...
As far as color references are concerned, Burgundian Gowns’ paintings often show them in darker tones, jewel tones, or black. But I went out of what’s shown in sources and made a Burgundian out of the same taffeta I used for the last Sideless Gown mock up we’ve shown some weeks ago. The plastron was done in the same green silk as the Sideless Gown’s bust. But as you’ll notice in some pictures, I’ve forgotten to stiffen the silk properly by adding a buckram layer to the lining. Ugh. Things that lack of time do to my brains...
The hennin also didn’t get as good as I wanted. It ended up not covering the doll’s hair properly. It needed to be larger to accomodate the hair inside and still go down to where it should be on the doll’s head. A modern doll’s hairline is different than what was fashionable in the 15th Century - a more receded style, that you can see in the research pictures above. Think Faye Dunaway in “The Messenger” (1999).
In order to achieve that look I needed to have sewn a larger hennin, that would fit the doll’s hair inside and still come further down on her head, and I also needed to add lappets to it. But I forgot. The original pattern in “Patterns For Theatrical Costumes” lacks them. But I knew that “Patterns for Theatrical Cosumes” is not a source of historically accurate patterns and I knew I needed to design the lappets to build them into the hennin pattern provided by the book. And still I forgot to do it. I’m very sorry about that guys. I’ll do better next time around.
And here comes the tricky part: Most Burgundians I’ve ever seen have fur details at the neckline, wrists and/or hem. That is actually because these dreses were lined in fur. Sometimes in all these places, sometimes in two out of three. But fur (faux or real, though I’ll never use real fur for anything in my life) gets too brute and too big for the proper scale on a 12 inch doll if you’re not sewing something big like a cloak with a large shawl collar, or a hippie fur-vest. But there’s a trick that works pretty well in these moments: velvet. It’s “furry” enough and small enough to look in scale. And I had just the right caramel shade to go well with eggshell and green!
Here are the results! As always, this is a modern doll, so please forgive the smoky eye and blue eye shadow. It’s not period and it feels misplaced. I’m working on gettin more “period adequate” dolls for our photoshoots.