Medieval / Renaissance

The Arnolfini Dress

The „Arnolfini Marriage“ gown Subjects on this page (click or just scroll down to see them all): Overview of the portrait gown Making the dress The finished gown Differences between my reproduction and the portrait gown Statistics for the dress Links to other reproductions of this gown that I’ve found on the net Overview of […]

Study

Navigation for this part of the page: [catlist categorypage=yes] A gazillion people have already studied the Cranach gown, so I don’t expect that I will come up with something new. However, I have discovered something that I have not seen come up in any other Cranach study, so I thought I should write it down. […]

Planning

Navigation for this part of the page: [catlist categorypage=yes] I’ve decided to start with some basic measures that I would need to actually make the gown.. As explained in the planning of my ‚Hardwick‘ gown, I’ve first laid a digital grid over the painting of the ‚Magdalena‘ so that I could estimate the actual width […]

Neckring

Navigation for this part of the page: [catlist categorypage=yes] Surprisingly I didn’t finish of the clothing parts for this costume first. Instead, I suddenly had the inspiration to make the neck ring. I used Fimo (an oven-hardening, flexible clay), leaf gold and Swarovski rhinestones. Here’s how I made it: First, I sculpted the neck ring […]

Skirt

Navigation for this part of the page: [catlist categorypage=yes] I made the skirt with the pattern that I pictured on the ‚Planning‘ page from golden brocade and plush rayon velvet which I dyed to a beautiful garnet red color. The actual skirt was sewn pretty fast; just to add the linen lining took a bit […]

Brustfleck

Navigation for this part of the page: [catlist categorypage=yes] I started by decorating the fabric that’s supposed to become the Brustfleck. I am using the same brocade as I used for the skirt, and decorated it with silver and golden embroidery yarn, *real* garnets (no, *not* rhinestones. The real stuff; Rosen cut!) in rim settings, […]

Bodice

Navigation for this part of the page: [catlist categorypage=yes] Constructing the bodice was relatively simple, I basically constructed it by draping and having a mix of the back of an Elizabethan dress with scooped neckline and the front of a Robe à la francaise lining in mind. Sounds weird? I guess it is, but those […]