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ElegantlyEccentric — Florentine Red Wool Gown
Published: 2009-04-06 18:19:16 +0000 UTC; Views: 12909; Favourites: 200; Downloads: 277
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Description
This is my favorite, most beloved costume.It's made from a dark red wool, based on dresses in Florence at about 1490.
The rings on the front (as can be seen in Leonardo da Vinci's portrait of Ginevra Benci [link] ... I wasn't about to put grommets through the wool) were courtesy of toggles made for jewelry use. I still have a big bag of the little stick parts that will eventually find their way into something or another. So far, they've held up pretty well, though I was happy to find small solid brass rings in the upholstery department at a G Street Fabrics, which I now use on my bodices and such.
The sleeves are a horrible pun, for which I apologize. They can be found, in more detail here [link] or [link] .
I have a few more pairs of tie-on sleeves, all of which can be interchanged from costume to costume, but the sage green pair are my favorite with the red gown.
The chemise (the poofy white thing under it all) can be found here on its own [link] .
2004
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Comments: 55
Love the ring idea instead of grommets! Beautiful work.
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Oh, this is gorgeous! I love Florentine gowns - and this one is just beautiful. I can see why it's your favorite!
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Lovely! My university has a Medieval Renaissance Club, and I'm planning on making a Florentine gown out of wool, too (based off of Period Patterns 41), although I think I'll have mine lace up the sides. Did you use a pattern, or just wing it?
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Thank you! I made my own basic bodice pattern using instructions I found online almost ten years ago, which I have used as the base for most of my subsequent patterns, copying and altering it as needed.
Drafting the original wasn't the easiest thing in the world, but it's been worth having the customized fit, and I've done a lot of different things with it.
The website can still be found here- [link] .
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Hi! This costume has been featured in my medieval fashion news: [link]
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Simply beautiful! This is one of my favorite dresses I've seen on deviantArt
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Simple and lovely. Can't even imagine completing a project like this!
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Thanks! I used to make a new gown each year before the Maryland Renaissance Festival, back before I moved out on my own and got a job. It's mostly just having the time to work on it.
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Every year, that's impressive.
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I had much, much more time on my hands back then.
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awsome dress! i love the color and the shape. I really need to learn how to sew... it must be really fun!!
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Thank you!
It's really not as hard as you'd think.
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Love it - beautiful work! The colour of the red wool is so deep and luxurious - I wanna put it on lol
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Thank you! It's one of my favorite colors for clothing.
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Beautiful work! I like your appropriating the toggle loops for the front of the bodice, and the bar part makes for interesting strung necklaces.
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Thanks! Finding solid metal rings that aren't either really, really tiny or way too big (1" diameter +) can be hard, and the toggle loops seem to work well enough. I did try making a necklace with them, but I never finished it as it looked pretty weird.
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Those bars are an odd shape to work with.
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2 in response- thank you!
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I just adore this gown. It looks like you just pulled it right out of a painting. 
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Thank you! I did, to a degree, and have Domenico Ghirlandaio to thank for serious design inpsiration.
To be honest, I don't exactly have enough of a figure in that regard to really need anything beyond the fabric itself for support, to stay within the proper shape for the place and period. It is lined with a remnant of medium-heavy brocade that I had hanging around at the time.
And, you know, I don't know about that, either... and "The History of Underclothes" seems to have failed me on this one. Hmm... I'm curious now, so I'll let you know if I ever find any information on it.
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Absolutely great!
The idea with interchangeable sleeves is very good *g*
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Thank you! They make a good project for when you want to sew, but don't have the time or patience to start anything big, and they make it so you can change the way your dress looks really quickly.
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You are right
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I've had some come out well, and others not so well. Plus, for the really complicated ones, you need a chemise with extra long sleeves that are also at least the circumference of my torso, or you won't get the pretty poofs.
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Wow... I think I'll make first sleeves with some cuts at the ellbows and maybe two more at the outsinde of the arms. I hope my chemise fits then too, if not I have to make another one (maybe I find some fabrics today too).
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There are great instructions for a chemise like that on the Festive Attyre site. Mine is pretty absurd (I kept getting the sleeves and the main gown part confused when I was sewing it), but it works really well for the over-the-top sleeves.
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Thank you, and thanks for adding it to your favorites!
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Oh wow, this is delicious! Looks really well-made. Is it comfortable?
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Thank you!
It is really comfy, which is one big perk in choosing an Italian renaissance style from this time frame. They tended to stick to a softly curved shape (this dress has no boning or anything), and the waistlines tended to stay at the natural waistline or higher, both of which seriously add to the comfort factor, especially when compared to the somewhat later Spanish and English styles.
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This really is a charming dress.
On an almost completing unrelated side note: I got to see Leonardo da Vinci's Ginevra Benci a few weeks ago. It really is a beautiful painting.
Great job! I wish I had the patience to make something like this.
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Thank you!
I 
Anyway, if you have the patience to make patchwork clothing, you could definitely do this.
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You're welcome
So do I, I only got to go there once and the visit was rather quick but I loved it there.
Well let me rephrase. I don't have the patience to cut out one of those paper patterns for it, and I'd probably mess something up really bad without it.
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I need to hurry up and get a few more tutorials up here...
This sort of thing is much simpler than it seems, and I really prefer to make my own patterns, which is also not a hard to do as you'd think.
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Tutorials are nice.
Yeah I figure it probably isn't as hard as I like to make it sound, the problem is that I would need guidance. I make my own patterns for somethings but for dresses I usually need a pattern for the bodice at least because that's where I would be lost; at least for now.
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It's really not. I chicken out at the idea of patchwork, to be fair.
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I can understand entirely.
There's a reason I don't do quilts.
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Yeah same here. A dress was torture enough i don't know what a whole blanket would do to me.
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