Recognize this dress? What about this one?
Surely you recognize this one . . .
This dress seems to have imprinted itself on the Western world's cultural imagination.
It's in our fantasy media, it's in our art, even the silhouette made a comeback
in English Renaissance fashion. But is it all fantasy, or is there an actual
historical piece of clothing where it all started? Hello, I'm V, and here we make really old clothes!
Yes, this "medieval princess dress" comes from a real historical garment worn by people of all
genders, and it's called a bliaut. It appears to have been a Norman French fashion before
spreading throughout Europe, and existed in the 12th century, possibly as early as the late-11th
century. The evidence for that is a bit thinner despite what a very enthusiastic Past V might
have said in a video about getting dressed in the 11th century while Jewish . . . but
it does exist! Join my Patreon and you can have my entire bibliography! Either way . . . I want one.
Speaking of "historical accuracy" and sources . . . let's have a quick chat about project goals.
Our sources for bliauts are mostly art, illuminations and sculptures, which are
very short on construction details and have led to some intense debate about how these things
were actually put together. This picture doesn't exactly show you seam lines or armhole curves, so,
given I don't think we have any extant bliauts, we don't really know how they were put together.
They had big sleeves, that's the earliest thing that sets them apart from other gowns.
We know they often had fitted bodices— just look at the definition here! and we're pretty
sure they had side lacing to get those fitted bodices . Everything else? Who knows. Not us.
Also, I do not like the idea that there was some One True Way to pattern and cut out a dress in
the middle ages. Maybe that makes more sense today when things are being mass-produced and
information on "how to cut out a t-shirt" is available within seconds on the internet, but
things were not universal in medieval Europe. The spread of information worked verrrry differently.
Dressmakers would have their own methods, or local or regional practices, and different sizes
of people would need different cutting layouts and piecing and things to minimize fabric waste.
If you were a little short on yardage, you would get whatever you could out of it even
if it meant changing your pattern. So that already means we're can't have a perfectly
"historically accurate" bliaut . . . which is fine, because that's not what I'm going for
anyways! I want something historically plausible, yes. I want to make something that's recognizably
a bliaut for a late 11th- or 12th-century English Jew, but really what I want is to make that dress
out of this very-non-historically-woven pink wool crepe I found for $6 a yard, using a sewing
machine. There may come a day when I aim for the highest degree of accuracy known to costumer-kind,
but today is not that day. Today, I want a pretty pink dress to run through the forest in.
I'm making a pattern-slash-cutting diagram on graph paper, since this is still mostly a dress
made of geometric shapes. There will be two main body rectangles, each the width of my shoulders.
If I had a larger bust, I'd use that measurement instead, but with some negative ease.
These will be slit up to around the high hip and have triangular gores set in for the skirt.
I got clever with the math for the gores and used a Pythagorean Theorem calculator.
If I made them my high-hip-to-floor measurement from point straight down to hem,
the angled sides would be too long for the split. Instead I'll calculate
backwards from that measurement, and save myself some fabric and fuss.
Okay, I've finished my pattern. This is draft number three.
Let's talk about the whole thing, because I am extremely proud of this layout. I have a
three and a half yard piece of fabric, and I've managed to fit the pattern for this entire gown,
this entire gown, onto two and a half yards of fabric (roughly). So here's how we've done it.
Here are the body pieces. They're 15 and a half inches wide. I'm going to be sewing this on the
machine with quarter inch seam allowances so I don't really need very much available there.
So there's that. They are both going to be slit 34 inches up the center to sort of like, the
high hip area, and they're gonna have gores put in. The gores are over here. I've used sort of a
standard "take a big rectangle and divide it into three triangles", plus the two extra pieces on the
end which just get sewn together. So that's nice because it's fewer seams for me to sew. It also
means that it's always going to be a bias edge (so a diagonal edge) of the gore getting sewn
to a straight edge on one of the body pieces, so I won't have to worry about those seams stretching.
Now the sleeves, which are the part I am most proud of. Depending on the design, and it varied
a bit by region, sometimes you would see, like, sleeves that went straight from the shoulder and
were like this big triangular shape. Sometimes you would see sleeves that are sort of like,
tighter normal shaped to the elbow and then flared. Sometimes you'd see sleeves that really
only flared like, sort of most of the way towards the wrist and the cuffs were just very big.
And sometimes they were pieced and sometimes they might not have been,
although to not piece your sleeves would require such a degree of fabric waste
I would be really surprised if 11th and 12th century people, even the upper classes,
would have done that. So what I've done is divided my sleeve into an upper and a lower
sleeve. The lower sleeve is mostly a geometric flare, but it's got a little bit of a curvy
bit at the bottom and a very straight triangular shape up to about the elbow. The upper sleeve
actually has a shaped sleeve head. I had to draw myself a basic sleeve block because I've been
in straight rectangular construction land for the past couple months and I didn't have one.
These were, I think, some of the first garments in Northwestern Europe where we would really
expect to see that sort of shaped sleeve head, and not the square sleeve head and underarm gusset.
So it's got a very basically shaped sleeve head, and then I've managed to fit the upper sleeves
in these triangular offcuts created by the big lower sleeves. They just barely fit, but
this basically means that there's going to be hardly any fabric waste and what there is
is going to be quite small pieces. Whereas one of the previous layouts I had, there would have been
these massive sort of like, half-yard by half-yard chunks of cabbage. A.ll this excess is just gonna
come off in one big piece. So there we go! Gown notorious for fabric waste, cut with hardly any.
Now that I have my cutting layout, all I have to do is transfer it onto the fabric.
I don’t usually make pattern pieces for geometrically cut garments,
I just measure and draw out the shapes with a chalk pencil.
With pieces this big, sometimes it’s easier to cut as I go.
I started with the easy seams : sewing the halves of the two-piece gore down the center,
the upper sleeve seams, and the lower sleeve seams.
Then, the shoulder seams on the two body pieces, which are quite short and marked with pins.
As I go, I’m finishing the raw edges with machine-overcasting. I’ll hand-fell some visible
areas because I like the look, but this is quick, effective, and works with small seam allowances.
To attach the upper sleeve to the lower sleeve, I’ll insert the upper
sleeve into the lower one with right sides together, match up the center seams, and pin.
The sleeve is small enough at the elbow that this
is the only way to run it through the machine, so it takes some fussing.
The sleeves are set into the body in pretty much the same way : Insert sleeve into body
right sides together, match seams, pin, and sew. It’s a little weird because the side body seams
on this dress are left open, and also because I didn’t do a shaped armhole. I should have,
but drafting armscye curves scares me, so I didn’t. I mostly got away with it.
I’m making some marks for neckline and gore
placement . . . . . .
and then placing the side gores between the body panels.
They’ll be basted in just at the top, to check the placement.
It’s starting to look like an actual dress!
Now I know I’m happy with it, I can pin and then machine-stitch the side gores all the way in.
The front and back gores are tricker, since they’re set into a cut rather than a seam.
I’m using some of Opus Elenae’s method for inset gores : A few backstitches right at the top point,
then bringing the gore around and setting the top in by hand— or in my case,
hand-basting and machine-stitching over it.
As I put this dress together, I was thinking about what it would be like to wear such a
culturally significant, admired dress as a Jew. We usually don’t get to see ourselves in the
dreamy historical settings that inspire fantasy films. Walter Scott's 1820 novel "Ivanhoe”, some
serious 19th-century medieval historybounding, is set in 1194 when bliauts were in fashion.
Much of our romanticization of the Robin Hood myth comes from this book, and it features a Jewish
woman as a chivalric heroine worthy of honor and protection. This is a vast improvement from works
like Shakespeare's "Merchant of Venice" . . . but, as positively as "Ivanhoe" treats Rebecca
bat Isaac, her Judaism still stands between her and a happy ending. The book ends as she
and her father leave England in fear of further persecution. In the 12th century if she were real,
or in the fantasized 19th century illustrations of Scott's novel, Rebecca might have worn a gown
just like the one I'm making. When in my life had I seen myself represented in this setting,
the fantasy of chivalric romance, without separating myself from my Jewishness?
I don't think it's ever happened before.
To mark the hem, I have a fancy gadget that puffs a line of chalk onto the dress at an even height.
Then, I can cut away the excess, and cut out the neckline, while I’m at it.
I’ve seen other costumers use tablet-woven or embroidered trim at the necklines of their
bliauts, but I don’t have those skills yet, so I’m using some contrasting burgundy wool to make
a shaped neckline facing. I’ve never done one of these before, so this process is 100% improvised.
Strips of the same wool will be made into a headband, a girdle, and trim for the sleeves.
I also have to cut away excess fabric at the sides to shape the bodice.
This wool will stretch a ton on a curved edge, so I’m reinforcing it with a facing
strip cut on the straight grain. This is sewn on, then felled to the inside by hand.
Then I’ll add eyelets every 3/4 of an inch for the side-lacing. After separating the fibers
with an awl, the hole is held open using buttonhole stitches worked in wool yarn.
From here on out, it’s all hand-finishing. This isn’t really for “historical accuracy”—
I’m using modern cotton thread— but I do really love the clean,
invisible look of hand-finished hems and trim on wool garments.
I find hand-sewing very relaxing, so this works out for me, but you could just as easily
use the machine to sew on a brocaded ribbon trim and have a beautiful gown regardless.
When I first took an interest in "Jewish" historical clothing,
instead of just "historical clothing", I felt like I had to choose between representing my heritage,
or being able to simply enjoy frolicking in a pretty dress I'd made for myself.
Jews have been subjected to so much oppression, and when we look at history, that's almost all
we see. But I don't have to choose. We are more than our suffering, and Jewish clothing
is more than the garments of affliction. So I will wear this dress, this dress that inspired
hundreds of years of fantasy aesthetics, because it is the dress of my people too.
And I will wear it with joy.
If you have a favorite historical version of a fantasy outfit, tell me in the comments! And
while you're at it, leave a like, subscribe for more frolicking through dress history, and join
my Patreon for shiny bonus content like research notes and behind-the-scenes updates. Until next
time— we're all just here to play dress up. Let’s make sure everyone can get to the costume box.