COMMENTARY

thinking ahead The past day or two I’ve been thinking about what project I’ll get started on next, and as there are two Renaissance events coming up (GBACG is going to the Heart of the Forest Faire in Aug. and there’s going to be a Ren. event in Nov. as well) and my only costume from that era is my old faire costume (made back when I machine sewed everything and didn’t care if things weren’t perfect *shudder*), I thought I ought to consider making something new from that era.

My first thought was just to make some standard Elizabethan faire-type middle class outfit like I had thought about a while ago, but then realized — hey! I’m not WORKING faire, I can do something more interesting! So now I’m trying to decide and I need input.

Here are my factors: I don’t care enough about this period to mess with large amounts of embroidery, pacify seed pearls, or wrangle with farthingales. I am willing to make period stays (vanity calls!). Budget and time means that I’m going to need to make something “middle class” (think wife of a small-time merchant with 1-2 servants). I’d like to do something non-English. Language-wise, I could do a French or Italian persona. However, I also like the idea of exploring my Dutch or German heritage (and hey, I certainly have the looks for it!).

The annoying thing is that the class I’m interested in is somewhat undocumented by period sources, so I’m going to have to extrapolate down (less fancy materials, less extravagant cuts) a bit from some of the paintings etc. that I can find.

So here’s what I’m considering:

German 1560s
Dutch 1540s or 1550s
Florentine 1540s (along these lines but think WAY less fancy): young lady, de’ Medici daughter, girl with book, Florentine noblewoman
Venetian 1540s-50s or 1560s

What seems like ME?