Medievalists
usually begin with a t-shaped tunic, but, being me, I became
obsessed with the idea of a 15th century doublet, especially
as Jarno thought it would look cool. The doublet was worn
with a pair of hose, which by 15th century had developed
into long joined hose which looks like tightly fitting pants
or leggins. The combination of doublet and joined hose was
the foundation of a well-dressed man's outfit, and elaborate
outer garments were worn over them.
My main source for designing the doublet was Thursfield's
"The medieval tailor's assistant", though I also used some
internet sources, mainly this.
The doublet is dated to mid 15th century. The bodice, which
would be mostly hidden beneath outer garments is simple with
a basic front lacing closure while the sleeves are more
elaborate. The padded shoulders create the fashionable
silhouette while the lower sleeves open at the back seam to
reveal the shirt sleeves.
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For the material I chose dark green wool flannel, which I
thought would go with many different coloured garments. I
wanted the same material on both the doublet and hose, but
on afterthought it would have been wiser to pick a suitable
material for each separately. While the wool flannel works
well for the stiff doublet the hose needs a more loosely
wowen (preferablt twill) material for more elasticity.
I based my pattern on Thursfield's and made some mock ups to
perfect it. If one is to believe period pictures, you can
achieve a corseted looking silhouette with a tightly fitted
doublet, but I aimed for a snug but comfortabe fit. While
fitting the back I ended up with a back seam so curved that
it began to form horizontal wrinkles between the shoulder
blades. The obvious, though not an orthodox solution was to
throw in a dart. As it seemed to work, I did it. As I was in
a hurry to get into the hand sewing stage so that I could
work on road trips on my summer holiday I decided to cut the
bodice and think about the sleeves later.
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When planning the construction the biggest problem
was to find a compromise between a period look and all the
layers it demands and the poor wearer's comfort in modern
buildings with central heating, especially as Jarno was also
performing with a dancing group. Any padding save for the
sleeve was thus out of the question.
I used stiff jute canvas interlining for the shoulders,
front edges and the collar, and also for the whole of skirt
pieces as the hose lacings would bring strain on them. I
also reinforced any seams likely to stretch with cotton
tape, and the waist- and shoulder seams with a wider linen
tape. For the lining I used cotton-linen mix, except for the
collar which I lined with the neater thin black linen.
I ironed the wool flannel to turn over the edges of the
interlining and attached the seam allowances on the
interlining by hand. Then I pinned the lining on place and
hand-stitched through all layers. I also hand-stitches all
the seams to keep the lining firmly on it's place. The
effort paid off, and the outcome is a nice stiff bodice.
Then I worked the lacing eyelets on the front edges.
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With the bodice almost finished now I began to work on the
sleeves. At this point I chose to differ a bit from
Thursfield's teachings and go to the direction the pattern
naturally evolved through mock up fittings. Thursfield seems
to add almost no ease at all on sleeveheads, which may well
be period, but at least on a garment like doublet with
notably puffed sleeves I didn't see anything wrong in adding
some on the puff lining too. Thursfield also simply cuts her
basic sleeve pattern in two for the puff lining and the
lower sleeve, but I found out that my pattern worked so much
better when I cut the lower sleeve quite tight all the way
up to the joining seam and flared the puff lining at the
sleeve head to get some more moving allowance for the
shoulder, especially as the sleeves are set quite high
compared to modern sleeves. On the lower sleeve the
challenge was to get tight fit while still having the elbow
move freely. I drafted the back seam quite long and thus
curved and also raised the joining seam a bit at the back.
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When I was happy with the basic sleeve I moved on to the
puff. Here I think is really some sort of mistake in
Thursfield's pattern, as it makes you put ridiculous amount
of extra fullness at one point of the front of the sleeve.
The whole puff scaled by her instructions is also quite
large compared to the quite modest puff on the picture.
Anyway, I took off the extra fullness on the front and
scaled the puff a bit smaller all around, and at last it
seemed to work well enough.
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I
began making uo the sleeves at the lower parts. I reinforced
the back seam slit edges with linen tape, lined them with
the same black linen as the collar and worked the eyelets at
the slit edges. By the way, I'm aware that my choise of
lining is a bit non-period too, since obviously deep black
linen was not around in the Middle Ages due to the dye
technology of the time. On the other hand, Thursfield does
mention black linen. Anyway, i used it because I wanted a
neat lining to a dark colored garment, and it doesn't show
much anyway.
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I made the puff lining of linen-cotton mix, and sewed rolls
of thick wool on it to support the puff. Thursfields tells
you to put two rolls per sleeve, but it looked a bit skimpy
so I decided to add two more to fill out the puff. Jarno has
such masculine shoulders that he needs bigger shoulder puffs
too!
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I lined the wool flannel of the puff with the linen-cotton
mix to prevent the outlines of the rolls from showing
through. I sewed the lower sleev between the outer puff and
the puff lining, and then gathered the puff and sewed it on
the shoulder. The lining followed close to the puff seam.
It's always a great moment to have the sleeves successfully
set in. Now the doublet was almost finished, all that
remained was to work the lacing eyelets on the skirts. So,
it was time to begin on the hose. |
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Sewing a pair of hose is quite simple compared to the more
elaborate doublet, but unfortunately cutting them is not.
The combination of ultra tight fit (without the modern aid
of lycra) and the fact that they are laced to the doublet is
quite challenging when the wearer is also supposed to bed to
perform an italian Riverenza, that is bowing one knee
touching ground and springing up the next second. The period
version of lycra is a bias-cut, which gives some stretch of
course, but the material I had chosen still did not have
enough elasticity. Making a lot of compromises about the
smooth fit I finally came up with a pattern which worked so
and so. The seat is very baggy, though fortunately it will
be mostly covered by
other garments.
Like Thursfield tells us, extra length in the legs is the
most important thing, as it gives moving allowance for the
knee. The problem was that after a moment's wear the
material gives in a bit and causes all this extra length to
fall on the ankle. Happily I later got around making
garters, which helped a bit.
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As I mentioned, the construction of the hose was in itself
quite simple. I sewed the seams with a narrow zig zag to
maintain the elasticity. I reinforced the waist with a
doubled linen tape to support the eyelets. The codpiece is
lined with cotton-linen mix and attached at the bottom edge.
In the pictures the back laces are laced tight, but in real
life they have to be worn much looser to allow sitting
comfortably, which has the side-effect of the shirt
billowing out between the doublet and the hose.
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The doublet and hose have quite a number of lacings between
them. I had already had a foretaste of this fact while
making all the eyelets (actually some of the last ones were
finished only after the first wear), and near the deadline,
our first medieval faire I realized that I needed to make
the laces too. My first attempt on them was to plait woollen
knitting thread, which produced attractive but highly
impractical laces and the ends were so fluffy and hard to
get through the small eyelets. I had planned to finish the
ends with metal aiglets but of course small enough ones were
nowhere to be found at the time. Happily Jarno only had to
suffer the hardships of difficult lacing once, for at the
faire I was randomly inspired to buy a lucet fork, and when
trying it out realised that I had stumbled accross the
perfect tool to make smooth, durable cord with neat ends.
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Although the hose have some problems, they are my first
attempt after all, and I'm really happy with the doublet.
Especially the sleeves turned out very nice. It used to fit
even better than it does in the pictures, though, since
Jarno has gained some weight since I finished it.
Unfortunately the doublet is rather warm to wear, and even
though I got the improved version of the lacing cords the
laced hose are still impractical in wear for someone used to
the ease of modern clothing and lacking well-trained
servants. My next medieval sewing project for Jarno were to
be more relaxed wear, but he likes this one too when
temperature is low enough. And of course one must preen in
fashionable finery once in a while!
Many thanks for the photoshoot location: Finlands National
board of Antiquities /
Häme Castle
The shoes are made by Lauri Niskanen. Many thanks for
completing the outfit!
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