Reading Assignment - ‘And her black satin gown must be

Reading Assignment

‘And her black satin gown must be

new-bodied’: The Twenty-First-Century

Body in Pursuit of the Holbein Look’

Understanding the construction of an early sixteenth-century women’s dress presents many challenges. This following study used contemporary archeological, pictorial and documentary evidence to inform alternative experimental approaches to constructing the garments worn on a woman’s torso in the 1540s. The challenge lay in the disparity between contemporary portrayals of ladies in formal French gowns and the effect obtained by putting a modern woman into clothes which embodied current understanding of this style of dress. While the dangers of relying solely on portraiture as a source for costume reproduction are well known, the drawings and paintings of English sitters which were produced by Hans Holbein the Younger in the late 1530s and early 1540s do merit special consideration. First the survival of a considerable number of his works has ensured that his view of the ladies and gentlemen of the Tudor court has become representative of the age. Second Holbein was sufficiently aware of clothing to do a number of costume studies and was in his own time commended for capturing his subjects with such realism that it seemed as though the sites themselves were present. Whatever their size and shape, the ladies who sat to Holbein and his contemporaries seem to have had their gowns sprayed on to them. At first, the repeated practical experiments in varying the cut and boning of the reproduction gowns met with very limited success. Over the same period of time, however, increasingly detailed study was required in order to inform the interpreters about the nature and significance of their clothes. An interpreter should be able to refer to, for example, her ‘kirtle’ (as opposed to her ‘underdress’ or other modern term) and should be able to explain which features define it as a kirtle and which features might vary from one kirtle to another, whether this kirtle represents daily or special wear for her, how many kirtles she might have, how she would have obtained them, how much they would have cost and how long they might be expected to last. Although the archaeological survivals and the documentary evidence leave many questions unanswered, it seemed possible that a lady at the Henrician court might be wearing as many as five layers on her torso. No stone was left unturned in the search for the Holbein look, experiments were made with locating the stiffening in each of these four layers in turn. Hypothesis One: Stiffening the Gown. Gowns with stiffened bodies certainly existed at other periods, and boning the gown has traditionally been the practice in the theatrical context. When fully boned, and responsible for shaping the torso, this bodice produced the infamous rampart and a very rigid look not in keeping with the hint of the curve of the bust which is visible in many of the portraits. Hypothesis Two: Stiffening a Pair of Bodies. The obvious choice for stiffening was the innermost garment of all. The existence of the term ‘a pair of bodies’ in contemporary documents seemed at first to settle the master – by the end of the century this term clearly denoted a type of corset. Hypothesis Three: Stiffening the Petticoat. The expedient, with the gown bodice lying directly over the boned petticoat, was more comfortable than the separate bodies, but showed only a little improvement in appearance over the practice of boning the gown. Hypothesis Four: Stiffening the Kirtle. It was the closer examination of certain portraits that made this last option so plausible. When the back closure and boning pattern of the Munich bodies were applied to the kirtle bodice, the result was a marked improvement in fit and appearance. The thickness of the gown bodice (forebodies and placard combined) matched pretty well with the thickness of the square standing out from the kirtle, so that in profile the line from shoulder to waist became very smooth. In further investigations, from 2002 the costumes representing ladies of 1540 were accordingly made or remade with stiffened kirtle. The gowns were boned only along the lacing edge of the forebodies, and the petticoats had minimal and unstiffened upperbodies. This practice provided both comfort and the right look for all the various sizes and shapes. Experiments with the period materials have proved that the best substitutes for these in reproduction bodies are plastic or thin strips o cane. These are suitable for all areas except the center front of pointed bodies where a more substantial busk of wood, bone or steel is necessary. A combination of study and practical experiment has led to the conclusion that the most effective way of reproducing the characteristic early Tudor look is to provide the kirtle with a back-lacing, partly-boned pair of bodies, and more recent investigations suggest the possible advantages of reducing the stiffening yet further.

BY Jessica De Moraes