Need help with medieval clothing

[Just Jocko]

Stinkerbelle (3rd grader) is doing a Medieval unit at school right now, culminating in a Faire next week during which they present their projects and have a grand Feast (seriously fun for parents, teachers and kids). So, for her project, Stinkerbelle decided to go off the grid and look at Medieval clothing, since she's thinking she wants to be a fashion designer when she grows up. I am thrilled that she took the initiative like this and has found something that ties in with her future interests. Plus, if I had to look at another castle blueprint I think I'd go crazy. We went to the library and she got two age-appropriate books about Medieval clothing and Medieval life and she's busy reading them and taking notes.

She's decided to separate the clothing into that worn by nobles and peasants, men and women (so, basically, four different areas). She's planning on having text, pictures and fabric samples (we raided my Gram's sewing supplies and got some things, may need to buy more).

This is where you Snopesters come in. She would also like to know if you know of any websites that would be helpful, especially if they mention specific fabrics and/or have pictures that she could print out to include on her board. Also, if any of you that are involved in costuming would be willing to have your brains picked, she might have some specific questions as she finalizes everything (my guess is that she might need some help with finding modern equivalents and or editing (she has a tendency to want to include everything she sees)). Obviously, she doesn't need to go into a great deal of detail, but I think that the more she sees how much research is involved the better for her as she decides if this is really what she wants to do in the future.

Thank you all so much in advance for your help. I promise to post pictures of the day (including me in my stunning dress -- I was class mom last year for DS#2's class, so I had to go in costume for the Feast and I'm helping this year and also need to be in costume).

[snapdragonfly]

The Costumer's Manifesto has scads of great links on pretty much every era of clothing. (as well as hundreds of other great stuff - what a resource)

Here's the link to their Medieval clothing page. This should be a good start.

http://www.costumes.org/history/100p...dievalinks.htm

As far as answering questions on fabrics and finding modern day equilvalents, this is an area I actually know about, for once. And am up on it as I've been costuming for the past couple yeas and have had these same issues. I would be delighted to give suggestions and answer questions the best I can. It's my passion and I'm pretty resourceful, too.

pm me any time.

[ToadMagnet]

Paging FrogFeathers ....

ETA: Just Jocko, do you want us to send you small swatches of brocades or something?

[ULTRAGOTHA]

Medieval is a large time period. Clothing differed over the years and from country to country. Does she want to focus on one country? One time period? A few? Or the whole lot?

I know scads about Vikings (~800 - 1000 Northern Europe and Britain--and Russia and France and....) and early Saxons in southern England (500 - 650ish).

Things that are fairly universal throughout the Medieval time period in Europe. Other areas of the world differed (though even here these are generalizations)--

* Clothing was generally of linen/hemp/nettle under garments with wool over garments. Cotton was rare to nonexistent, depending on time and place. Silk was available in most time periods and countries but was almost always a luxury item.

* Generally clothing was dyed with madder (bricks, peaches, off reds), Woad (blue), weld (yellow), and a variety of plant based dyes for greens and browns. Orchil, which is a lichen, was used at times to make hot pinks (no, really!). Kermes was a bug that made deep reds and purples (similar to cochineal). And ... darn... there was a tiny shellfish in the Mediterranean that made a deep royal purple but I can't remember the name. Also Brazilwood (native to the old world and the new, the country was named after they dye) made reds.

* Medieval dyes were much brighter and more vibrant than people usually think. The idea of drab clothing is not really correct.

Here is a page full of medieval Arts and Sciences links.
http://moas.atlantia.sca.org/wsnlinks/

Cosutme and clothing category:
http://moas.atlantia.sca.org/wsnlink...aycat&catid=10

That last page has links for culture, century, children and infant's clothing, underclothing and accessories, etc.


An interesting statistic that we talk about when doing school demos (from memory, the times might not be precise. And mind you, I'm talking about warp weighted looms):

It takes ~3 hours of combing to keep a good spinner busy for an hour.
It takes ~3 hours of spinning to keep a good weaver busy for an hour.
It takes ~ an hour for a good weaver to weave one yard of cloth.
That's 13 hours of work for one yard of fabric (and does not include animal husbandry, shearing, cleaning, or dying, nor cutting out the clothes and sewing them together.

My over dress has 5 yards of wool. My under dress has 5 yards of linen (growing the linen, harvesting it, retting, scutching, etc, etc, in addition to the 13 hours). My apron has 3 yards.

Your average medieval person did not have a multitude of outfits!

[Morgaine]

If you narrow it down a bit I can provide some help. I have some knowledge of around the 1500s. Off the top of my head:

-You could tell a womans social status by where her bodice was laced. In the front she was probably of a lower class because she had to do it herself. On the side she was possibly a merchant wife who had some daughters who could help her. In the back she was obviously higher class because she had someone to dress her.
-Ankles were a HUGE deal. You did not show men your ankles if you were female.
-Little girls were bodice-trained as young as 9-10YO.
-The only thing between you & your clothing was God. People did not typically wear underwear.
-Womens clothing was made to make the hips look full & good for birthing children. The look you wanted was a barrel sort of upper body with full hips.

I'll think some more & see what I come up with.

[Nick Theodorakis]

Originally Posted by ULTRAGOTHA

... And ... darn... there was a tiny shellfish in the Mediterranean that made a deep royal purple but I can't remember the name. ...

The dye was called Tyrian purple, but I don't know if the shellfish itself has a common name.

Nick

[Just Jocko]

Originally Posted by ToadMagnet

Paging FrogFeathers ....

ETA: Just Jocko, do you want us to send you small swatches of brocades or something?

Probably not time enough for sending swatches -- the project is due on Monday. Like I said, we got some good swatches from gram, including one brocade-like material. I think we're also going to go get some fake fur (she discovered in her reading that bearskin was used for shirts ). And probably some buttons/beads/whatever. I've got loads of ribbon, so that's good too.

AFA time periods, countries, etc. They're really not going into a whole lot of deatil as far as that kind of stuff -- this is just a general overview, as it's their first introduction to the period. If this were for high school or even middle school, she'd need to narrow it down to a period and/or a country, but for this she's good with some generalization.

Morgaine, the kind of tidbits you gave are perfect for her. And she's already assured me that they didn't wear just dark colors, but we also talked about how they didn't have very many things and no washing machines and the like.

Oh, and she got a little too ambitious and wanted to make a period dress for one of her Barbies. Until I pointed out that we had no idea of pattern nor did she know how to sew and, quite frankly, Mommy was too darn busy for that little project (sewing machine's not working, so it would all have to be teeny tiny stitches).

[Just Jocko]

Oh,a nd rather than buy a medieval costume (which would have also been her Halloween costume), which is in the manner of noble dress, she's elected to wear a blue and green heavy cotton dress that she already has, and she's getting a kick out of the fact that she's dressing like a peasant when most of the other kids are wearing the fancy dresses or knight costumes. We're busy looking for black dress boots for winter, so she's going to wear those with the dress as well. Daddy and I have already pre-emptively nixed the "no underwear," however.*


*The look on DH's face when she mentioned it was hysterical. You just know his inner 12yo was thinking "no underwear = funny!" while his inner Daddy to an 8yo girl was thinking "boys+no underwear = trouble!"

[Aud 1]

I have experience researching and making medieval european clothing from the 12th to 14th century. I'd love to answer specific questions she might have.

it would be cool if she emphasized headgear. There's so much more than the fairy tale princess hat.

me in 13th century

[Just Jocko]

Just wanted to bump this thread to thank everyone for their help. Stinkerbelle got an A+ on the project! I'll post pics soon, but here is the text part of her presentation (she didn't do her oral presentation until today because she was out all last week due to the H1N1):

Noble women and peasant women had different kinds of clothing. Noble women wore fancier, more complicated headdresses. They also wore sunhats in summer. Peasant women wore simple wraps and wimples. They didn’t have sunhats like noble women did. Noble women had fancy, puffy dresses that were harder to put on. They had a variety of dresses too. Peasant women had plain, simple tunics and flat dresses. They also had patches on their dresses and they had working clothes like aprons. They had recycled clothing and not many clothes. Noble women had laces, buckles and buttons on their shoes. They also had leather shoes. Peasant women had plain shoes and shoes that looked like slippers. I’m glad medieval clothing has passed and modern clothing has arrived.