So every good SCAer needs German Puff and Slash…right? Odette and I impulsively decided to go to Gulf Wars for 2010 and I decided that the event clearly needed new garb. I also had a small amount of gold cotton velvet laying around which demanded to be made into this gown!
Every year in school, I show my students the film Luther. It is the only movie I show them all year and it does a wonderful job describing the Protestant Reformation (If you haven’t seen it, see it now…it iw really good!) Anyway, Luther marries the former nun Katerina von Bora and in the movie she has the most beautiful dresses (all the costumes in the movie are based on actual portraits of the real life figures and the actors were all chosen because they look like the historical person; well, except for Joseph Fiennes. Martin Luther was not that good looking. Did I mention that I think this movie is great??) In particular she wears this one high-necked puff-and-slash that I’ve always wanted to make. So it inspired me to make this. Here is my Cranach Gown.
My gown is an amalgamation of these two paintings. My belt is taken from this one as is some of the sleeve inspiration.
My hat and the rest of the sleeves are taken from this picture.
Here is a back view. I look kind of stooped. Guess I need to work on the posture
I’m wearing my caul that seems to go with every outfit I own and I made this hat out of an old sunhat with the cap cut off and a flat folded square for a new top. The feathers are a feather duster from Target that I cut up and sewed around the brim. I wanted ostrich plumes, but they are way too expensive, so turkey feathers for me!
I made the bodice and sleeves and then put all of the remaining fabric into the skirt. It is a complete rectangle cartridge pleated onto the bodice. Since it is a rectangle, I just ripped the fabric down the grain to add the stripes in and keep them even.
Here you can see the closing of the dress, the whole front is a placard which fastens with hooks and eyes on the right. (if you blow up the picture you can see it better). After looking at a ton of Cranach portraits I decided to make the front a placard instead of letting the chemise show through. The portraits look like they have more support and I felt like the placard would give more support to the skirt.
The skirt also opens up on the front side where the placard comes together.
Here is the dress in action at Gulf Wars.
I used the Period Patterns pattern for this, but it totally had to be re-cut to make it even close and I made up different sleeves, so I just used the sleeve pattern to make the top the right shape to fit into the arm hole. The collar also turned out weird looking, it wants to pull back over my shoulders. In this picture I’m wearing it turned down, which makes it look the best on in my opinion.
I’ve heard the Reconstructing History patterns are wonderful for this look, but I don’t have those.
At Gulf Wars with HRH Elisenda. I helped her make her dress using the Margo Anderson patterns.