Vicenzo Campi: Market, 1580's
Pinacoteca di Brera, Milan

This follows my many attempts at making accurately shaped COMFORTABLE peasant gear…

To explain - (really long, behind the cut...)

The Kentwell way of bodice construction uses plastic ridgeline and plastic coated steel bones. This gives a very ridged, conical shape. It looks great but not that comfy if you are bent over a hot forge swinging a hammer.

I had seen the late, great Janet Arnold's pictures of bents in an old corset shortly after it was published and had been thinking of using hemp string as a substitute for years. I had even made string corsets, but not applied the principal straight into the bodice. I started to look at German engravings of the same time period and noticed that while the merchant class had the firm conical shape, the peasants didn't. You could see the rounded form of the breast.

Then looking at the paintings by Vicenzo Campi I began to notice a certain constant dynamic set of element shared by all the dresses. Some of these elements being the same solutions I had observed when wearing typical modern boned bodices.

1. Lower cut bodice in front - diminishes the triangle of descent (the difference between the under bust measurement and the absolute bust measurement) keeping your breasts from slipping down and preventing the need to constantly hoik the ladies back up into position. Also added benefit for breast feeding!
2. Shoulder strap coming from the back piece achieves two things:
1. stops the dress from sagging and weighing on the lower back
2. creates the lift in the bodice
3. Under arm piece - also to diminish the angle of descent.
4. Spiral laced side panels. Finally a simple a practical solution to pregnancy!
5. High necked, low opening chemises. With a low cut bodice supporting the breast, you need to have a solution to keep them from falling out.

This actually looks like an evolved dress solution other than a fancy court dress.

Now I reallllly want to try it! And see if it will pass costume check!

My inspiration is the girl in the centre of the painting looking over her shoulder as if to ask, "Does my bum look big in this?" Which makes history very real for me if women had the same attitudes then as they do now!

I started out with my dress dummy and cut a basic 3 piece toile in muslin. It is amazing how much easier it is to draft patterns with a ductape double!!! (But I would heartily recommend using two layers of tape and going up your neck and the tops of your arms!) I like to cut WITH seam allowance on the side seams and shoulders so I can test the toile and make adjustments there before I actually cut the final pattern. You can only properly do this with a dress dummy.

I then cut out:

• Two layers of muslin (ordinary weight)
• One lining layer (in tan linen)
• One wool layer in blue

After assembled the pieces, I machined the channels (1/4 inch - half the sewing machine foot) in the muslin (right sides together).

I happen to have a lot of brass 2mm round wire (2 kilos to be precise - and that is another long story…).

Make a Bodkin:

Then start threading! Pack the channels VERY tightly! Tighter channels will give you stronger support and prevent wrinkling. Trim the ends to under the seam allowance - you don't want to be sewing on layers with hemp string too!

Next I laid out my layers, wool and linen right sides together and corded muslin on top then sewed them together - then turned them inside out.

More soon!