Ambition, where art thou?

[femkes_follies]

At least I managed a little nap in the office on my lunch hour, 'cuz I was beat Now I should at least be safe to drive home.

Which means the neurons are coming back on-line, albeit slowly.

I now have it in my little head to do a bodies-and-petticoat set-up at some point. (Don't worry, the urge will fade - likely as soon as I stand up). I'm just trying to decide if I want to put it under an open-laced gown and see if that gives the correct silhouette for the Cheese Ladies. Or do a less-speculative version based on the Pfalzgrafin bodice to put under the van Hemessen portrait dress with the polka-dot cuffs. THERE it's certainly a rational way to go. The other, I'm not so sure.

Part of it is that I'm feeling like I'm just missing too many data points yet. I can make arguments for all sorts of things. And granted, I still believe that there is no "one, true way" - and that sometimes multiple methods might have been used by different ladies. However, I think there are likely some variants that I can't as yet split, since I don't know if they're class or geographically based.

Fer instance - the Cheese Ladies are wearing gowns decidedly more full and fancy than the average "Flemish" or Amsterdam/Antwerp lady in the market paintings. I still believe these ladies were wives of local burghers, and so of a higher social strata. They're also in their best gowns. So things like keeping the fullness of the skirt to the back, short lengths, and unimpeded movement were probably less of an issue. Does that mean the whole ensemble might be constructed differently - bodies and petticoat rather than kirtle?

Is it a time-period thing? The little figures from the maps by Braun and Hogenberg are pretty uniformly dressed in a skirt/doublet combination. Is this evolution of style? Are these ladies higher in social status yet? Or is the "fancy Flemish" gown unique to the province of Noord-Holland? Or is it an expectation that cities with more prominent trade with England tend to follow English fashion more closely?

I need more data - ladies from different social levels, at different time periods, with clearly demarcated cities of origin. *sigh* I can wish, can't I? *eep*

Anybody care to run a theory up the ol' flagpole?

Comments

[attack-laurel.livejournal.com]

Well, here's something, at least - in my intense perusals in the last week, I find that the German stuff is consistently different from the English stuff (far fewer pointy bodices, for one thing). The Flemish stuff falls somewhere in between.

The Flemish pictures I've been looking at with a magnifying glass have turned up at least three women whose skirts are clearly not attached to their bodies - you can see the top of the skirt under the bodies' lacing, up about two inches from the edge, where a petticoat bodies skirt would stop.

The German outfits seem to be more consistently attached - like they never really went the way of the split outfit.

[femkederoas.livejournal.com]

Thanks!! Those sorts of regional trends are what I'm sort of looking for. The sorting out of what caused differences in style is sort of a mystery to me at the moment. I have one of those little diagrams with the three circles you used to get in grade school math where they all intersect. Each has a category, and items in both categories go in the intersection. They're labeled by class, time, and location. It's making my head hurt.

I'm supposed to be getting some higher resolution images of the North Holland gowns this summer. I'm contemplating how to construct the underlayer. I'll take pictures as I get it put together.

In the meantime - can you give me a rough idea of WHEN you are seeing things you can confidently suspect of being separate bodies and petticoats in England?

I've also come to the conclusion that the yellow garment in the Aersten painting above is pretty likely a pinafore. Now I have to go try to shake down the Dutch term for it. And make myself some brass pins. *g* I bet a pinned-on bib with tie at the waist and straight apron would make a pretty useful cover for clothing when you're working.

Hmmmm.... now to work up a pattern for the Flemish coat and I'll be all set. ;-)

[ablackram.livejournal.com]

or your sis could make you some pins. Oh yea, that wouldn't be part of the Pentamere Pin Challenge then :)

I've been staring at screens too much this week to help