Grey Linen Suit

This is one of my favorite suits to wear, even though it’s not very flashy. Here’s what I had to say about it back in 2006 when I made it:

For myself, I wanted to start out with something serviceable and not too flashy. I had acquired some heavy grey linen that looked like it would fit the bill. I decided to make a simple doublet and unpaned trunk hose, and this proved to be my first stumbling block. Unpaned trunk hose are very hard to find in portraiture of the time. There is an example in Patterns of Fashion, but it is a) slashed and b) from the early 17th century. My decades of choice are 1540-1560 or thereabouts, when the style is fairly well established but not yet decadent and crazy. I went back to my favorite painter of that time, Giovanni Battista Moroni, and was rewarded with this image. Once I saw it I recalled examining the original painting at the MFA in Boston. Smack dab in the middle of the time I wanted and Italian, what more could I ask for? For the decorative elements I went to this portrait, which shows a grey doublet (or jerkin) with black edges and black cord trim, which was my plan. If it is a doublet, then it also shows another example of unmatched doublet and trunk hose, in case I want to mix-and-match later.

To soften the lines of the doublet, I interlined the body with a layer of terrycloth towel, except for the buttonhole edge where I used a strip of fulled wool. I could have used thin cotton quilt batting, but old towels are easier to come by. I built the body, collar, and skirt separately and whip stitched them together. The collar and skirt were interlined with two pad stitched layers of the heavy wool blend I’ve used for interlining giorneas and cioppas in the past. Everything was lined with a thin olive cotton and edged with a crisp, faintly striped black material of unclear fiber content. The collar and cuffs were trimmed with a doublet strip of the black material snipped into small tabs.

I originally patterned the straight sleeves with an integral gusset at the sleeve head, but it turned out that I had overestimated the size of my armscye. I ended up trimming the gusset off to fit rather than widening the armscye, which has always led to nothing but tears in the past. There was no interlining in the sleeves.

The thread wrapped buttons were worked in black pearl cotton over dark brown stained wooden beads, and the buttonholes were done by machine in black thread (I plan to go back over them by hand) [and I did!]. A doubled strip of white cotton was sewn inside the waist and worked with many pairs of lacing holes to accomodate various configurations of points.

The trunk hose, as usual, were the source of much frustration. This time I used the pattern from The Tudor Tailor. For the most part, it worked well, except for two issues. First, the foundation is cut very narrow. It is meant to be cut on the bias, which I did, but it must expect a fabric with a large amount of stretch across the bias, as I was hardly able to bend over when I mocked it up. I ended up adding a large triangular gore on each side seam and pleating the extra width into the waistband at the back. The other issue I had with the pattern in the book was the lack of a pattern or instructions for the codpiece pictured in the finished garment. Fortunately, I had my old friend Patterns of Fashion to work through that part.

For the foundation I used a heavy brushed cotton that I had a couple yards of in the scrap bin. The outside layer of the upper hose (grey linen interlined with the heavy wool blend) was knife pleated to the foundation at the bottom and cartridge pleated to the waistband at the top. The pocket bags were made from the striped black material that was used for the edge bindings. I opted for no openings at the bottom of the canions. I ended up simply folding the waistband over and stitching it down rather than lining it an binding the edge, as I only needed enough width to work the eyelets in. The lining was the same olive cotton used for the doublet. The center front opening was closed with five pairs of hooks and eyes. The codpiece is simple, whip stitched into the bottom of the front opening and secured with a pair of points at the top.

The biggest issue I have with this suit (aside from it not fitting quite as well in the middle as it used to) is that it’s cut too low in the crotch, and tends to bind up if I spread my legs too far apart. The upper parts of the trunk hose are also a bit too long and baggy, but it’s not really much of a problem.