Anne Boleyn Costume: Wearing History

 All done.  I estimate about 80 hours of work which includes the hours spent embroidering the neckline and cuffs of the chemise.  I tried to do as much hand work as I thought was necessary, but as time ran out the veil didn't get hemmed, but rather melted.  Yay nylon!  The hat got made twice and finally worked as a combination between coif and hood.  When put on over the fake hair it all stayed very firm and relatively comfortable for hours.

 It was really hard to keep the layers sitting perfectly with movement and I soon realized that the ladies sitting or standing for their portraits would have been perfectly arranged beforehand and then tried to move as little as possible.  I am fairly sure that everything was fitted properly, perhaps the straps on the kirtle could be moved more towards the shoulders.  I was concerned with covering the straps of the corset.  The chemise just moved all the time.  I did find it sat better when I had my daughter pull the chemise from inside the sleeves to minimize the bunching and that did help.

This brings me to the issue of dressing ones self in this era.  I am almost certain that at the elite level of society in which this dress was worn, no one was dressing themselves.  I met a friend for lunch in order to have the fore panel done up completely.  I used hooks and thread bars to hold it in place.  The real Anne would have been pinned into her fore panel. 

 I also figured out that no Tudor woman asked her husband, "Does this dress make my butt look big", unless she was looking for yes as an answer, because clearly that was the point.  There is so much fabric back there it is hard to really imagine without experiencing it.  That little section of skirt between  the side panels has about 4 1/2 metres of fabric in it.  I sewed it three times, once with extra strong nylon beading thread.  And because that just doesn't give enough volume, there's a bum roll under there for that little extra oomph.  All this creates weight.  Lots and lots of weight.  I woke up this morning with sore biceps from lifting the skirts and walking around, not to mention the constant holding up of the velvet sleeves.  Women of this period were no delicate flowers.  They were women of steel.  Look at the portrait of young Princess Elizabeth.  It appears that most of this gown is velvet She is so slight in this portrait.  Now consider that she is standing there in what probably amounts to 30lbs. of clothing.  You can actually see that the mass of the back of the dress is piled on something behind her.

 So this is a thread button, or my interpretation of it.

 Here you can see the picot edging on the chemise and the small part of this project which is papercrafting.  The B is a chipboard letter from my scrapbooking stash.  Not terribly accurate, but enough that a couple of British people I met along the way immediately recognized the costume as Anne.  The other thing I kept getting was Victorian.  Only 300 years off.

 I only put one row of pearls on the hood.  There should another row on the lower edge too.  The ruffled bit should be gold organza, but I used red.  I decided to use it attached to the coif rather than directly to the hood.  I think this was a good choice as it made for a really secure arrangement.

Here the chemise shows pulled through the false sleeve extensions.  I decided not to do false pull throughs, but rather I extended the chemise sleeve by about 3 inches which created just the right amount of extra to show through the slashes.

I have to give a few credits at this point. The Elizabethan Costuming Page was a great resource for the construction of the corset, farthingale and hood.  And speaking of a farthingale, brings me to Farthingales Corset Making Supplies without whom there would be no farthingale.  I have used them before and will continue to do so for my corset making supplies and hoop steel.  Finally, the Tudor Tailor by Ninya Mikhaila and Jane Malcolm-Davies was an invaluable resource.  This book provides basic patterns, historical background information and a great deal more for anyone looking to either recreate or simply to understand the clothing of the period.