Matching Houppelandes 1360 to 1490 England, France, Italy, Germany and other European countries Designed for Lord Larke the Fletcher And Lady Lêofsige Õ Caoimh By Lyssa

Summary "... the houppelande ... a very wide, generally long gown, with full, flaring sleeves, caught in tightly at the waist by a belt underneath which the material formed regular, pipe-like folds or plis gironn`es ... finished at the neck with a tall standing collar ... short form of the garment was the haincelin ..."1 These matching houppelandes are crafted based upon drawings, contemporary paintings, illuminations, statuary, tapestries, and brass rubbings, as well as written descriptions in letters, sermons, wills, and inventories. The timeframe for these garments is mid-15th century early in the evolution of the houppelande. Similar garments were depicted throughout Europe with no one country apparently responsible for the creation of the fashion. They are constructed using modern materials and conveniences, but using extrapolated period lines and techniques. The fabric is 100% cotton woven decorator fabric. Cotton was used by the nobility in limited quantities, but was extremely expensive during the period contributing to the conspicuous consumption methodology of the period. The simple woven pattern and colors are reminiscent of fabrics represented in contemporary art of the middle ages. The beads are washable modern equivalents to the glass beads crafted in Venice, Italy, for use on garments during much of the Middle Ages. The men's version contains dagges at the hem while the women's version brushes the ground. The beadwork on the men's version is in progress and will be finished to mirror the designs on the women's version with the addition of beadwork on the dagges. The bead pattern was inspired by the fabric rather than being a reproduction of a specific period treatment. The sleeves are bagpipe sleeves as found in A basic guide to the Prado 2. The high collar, hem treatments, belting, fullness and cut are found in numerous paintings shown in Les Tres Riches Heures3. As these garments were designed for summer wear, they are lined only in limited areas for structural and design reasons rather than climatic considerations.

Background In the last part of the 1300's the line of clothing began to become more tailored, forever abandoning the simple, straight cut lines of the preceding centuries. While trends in fashion might occasionally return to these lines, the prevailing lines for the next 700 years would be more fitted. Up to this point, the cut of garments generally followed the woven lines of the fabric with little waste. The primary garment from the previous century, the kirtle, showed some fitting, but primarily was a square cut garment. With the introduction of the cotehardie, a new trend emerged which involved tailoring the fabric to fit the human form with little regard to the waste of fabric. A new concept of "conspicuous consumption" also emerged. The fashionable individual displayed yards of fabric cut to display the body in scandalous ways. The cotehardie has become synonymous with the high Middle Ages depicted in artwork through the ages and in modern interpretations as the primary fashion statement of its day. While often paired in modern representations with accessories from earlier and later centuries, the cotehardie is quickly recognized upon

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Boucher, page 195. Buendia, page 84. 3 Pognon, pages 16-17, 22-23, 25-26. 2

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sight as "medieval". But as during its original conception, the houppelande appears as well, often placed upon the villain such as Maleficent in Sleeping Beauty from Walt Disney. The houppelande took the concept of conspicuous consumption to its extreme. With fabric widths ranging from 22" to 60" and more, the houppelande can still incorporate multiple panels, gores, or even half and full circles. The amount of wasted fabric can be excessive if numerous seams are to be avoided. Unfortunately the stylistic aims of the artists of the day rarely illustrated the construction elements of the garments portrayed. Instead, construction must be extrapolated from the drape of the garment, the hints given by the patterns woven into or placed upon the garments and the cutting techniques of latter days paired with the commentary of contemporary critics. Hem circumferences are reported as ranging from a conservative 6 yards to an extreme 12 yards. Costume historians have numerous suggestions for creating the garment ranging from Milia Davenport's description of the houppelande as being a gored skirt attached to a tight-fitting bodice, similar to the 'Burgundian' dresses nearly 50 years later and Mary Houston's theory of a shaped waist before the flare of the skirt to C. Willet Cunnington's theory that the houppelande was cut in four pieces, with a seam front and back, and one at each side and Birbari's very wide circle segment with the center point of the straight grain and a true bias line to the garment's center front. Herbert Norris describes the cut of the houppelande evolving from the cotehardie with various panels gores and gussets, or godets, used to achieve the fullness. This parallels the cuts as shown in the sixteenth century book of the Spanish tailor, de Alcega, so it is period for us and may very well have been the fourteenth and fifteenth century methods. It has the benefit of keeping the grain and the fabric pattern all on a vertical line while cutting. Thus, it would not matter to the cut of the houppelande whether the fabric width was the 'great measure' of Brussels or a 22" width of hand-woven silk. The 'great measure' of Brussels' wool was probably in excess of 60" wide, since England's laws were already attempting to enforce a limit of 60" width for wool. 4 The houppelande features distinctive pleats. The pleats are an outgrowth of the large amount of fabric used in its construction. Most pleats were unconstructed, falling naturally with the weight of the garment, and held in place by the belt. Towards the end of the period, as tailoring and style became more precise, the pleats began to appear constructed and arranged, in the fullest gowns of the nobility. Stay tapes were used to hold the pleats in a set position and fullness. These tapes are set horizontally inside the coat, and the inside of the pleats are tacked to them. This can be seen in a painting by Lotto, St. Dominic resuscitating Cardinal Fossanuova's nephew.5 The belt was still often used to keep them in place, but the wearer had a more sophisticated and formal look to him than in the earliest years. Another method of controlling the pleats was to tack them to the lining, or interlining, so that they could not release. The pleats, whether constructed or not, were not sewn into the shoulder seam. Sleeves are also very distinctive in houppelandes. The variety of sleeves depicted in contemporary artwork is nearly endless. Among the sle eves most often used are the bagpipe sleeve, the large wing-like sleeves often with elaborate lining, dagges, and undersleeves, the fitted sleeves with various degrees of puffing and hanging sleeves. Sleeves were inset rather than cut in a piece with the body fabric, similar to the construction seen in the cotehardies. This method of cutting the sleeves separate from the body of the garment and attaching them allowed the sleeves to become larger and consume more fabric than in earlier periods. The sleeves could be placed on the straight of grain when cutting allowing the greatest weight to be supported by the fibers of the fabric. This prevented stretching and sagging as the fibers were pulled by their own weight.

The beads were chosen for their ease of purchase and their low price. The two varieties are 1millimeter black seed beads and 3 millimeter gold seed beads. The materials are modern, but they closely resemble glass beads. Seed beads have been used throughout Europe since the 15th century and were highly sought after. The History of Beads provides a timeframe for the early production of seed beads.

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Parkinson, pages 4-5. Carrara Gallery, Bergamo, plate 91, Birbari. 2

"Manufactured in Northern Italy since the late 1400s, Venetian-made drawn-glass seed beads were coveted throughout the world. Graded in size from approximately .120" (size 5) to .040" (size 22), the tiny beads have been used by artisans for nearly five hundred years to decorate clothing, weave into necklaces, and assemble into wearable sculpture."6 The need to import the beads to England, their newness in the market, their position as a curiosity or fad item and their high demand in the market would have made them a costly addition to the garments of the time. Their cost paired with the amount of fabric to be covered work well with the conspicuous consumption theory of the houppelandes.

Construction Both the man's and woman's houppelandes were cut from the same style of body.

Bibliography • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

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Birbari, Elizabeth. Dress in Italian Painting, 1460-1500. John Murray Ltd. London, 1975. ISBN 0 7195 2423 7. Boucher, François. 20,000 Years of Fashion, The History of Costume and Personal Adornment, Expanded Edition, Harry N. Abrams, Inc., and Thames and Hudson Ltd., New York, N.Y. 1983. Buendia, J. Rogelio. A basic guide to the Prado, Silex. ISBN 84-300-5.807-9. Disney, Walt. Sleeping Beauty. Walt Disney Home Video and Buena Vista Home Video, Disney Enterprises, Inc. 1959, 1998. Dubin, LS 1987 History of Beads From 30000 BC to Present. NY: Harry N Abrahams, Inc. ISBN 0-81092617-2. Fetcher, Manny. Uses and Availability of Cotton in the 16th and 17th Centuries in Europe, http://users.aol.com/maist/cotton1.htm, November 4, 1998. King, Donald and Levey, Santina. Victoria and Albert Museum’s Textile Collection Embroidery in Britain From 1200 to 1750, Canopy Books, New York, N.Y., 1993. Köhler, Carl. History of Costume, A, Dover Publications, Inc., New York, N.Y. 1963. MaggiRos. Fashionable Vocabulary: Clothing and Fabrics, A Compendium for Common Knowledge, A, http://ren.dm.net/compendium/36.html, November 6, 1998. Newton, Mary Stella. Fashion in the Age of the Black Prince: a study of the years 1340-1365, Woodbridge Boydell Press, Totowa, N.J., 1980. O’Neill, John P. Editor in Chief. Renaissance in the North, The, Metropolitan Museum of Art, The, New York, N.Y. 1987. Oswald, Valerie (Mistress Mirianna Wrenne of Ravenswood). Cotehardie and Houpelande, A study of the clothing ranging from early 1400's to early 1500's. Self published, 1999. Parkinson, Lyn M. (L. Allison Poinvillars de Tours). The Houppelande C.1355-1450. Self published, 1998. Pognon, Edmond. Les Tres Riches Heures Du Duc De Berry, 15th Century Manuscript, translated by David Macrae. Minerva, Spain. Racinet, Auguste. Racinet’s Full-Color Pictorial History of Western Costume With 92 Plates Showing Over 950 Authentic Costumes from the Middle Ages to 1800, Dover Publications, Inc., New York, N.Y. 1987. Staniland, Kay. Medieval Craftsmen Embroiders, University of Toronto Press, Toronto, Buffalo, 1991.

Durbin, pg. 43. 3