Hem & H.A*
(Historically Adequate)

Welcome to the "Little Black Dress Experiment"! This is truly Mixing & Matching gone mad. For a bit of context... Ages ago I got it into my head that it would be fun to re-style a black fitted gown in as many different ways —and for as many different decades—  as possible.

PART 2: COST EFFECTIVE (Previous post: Part 1 Elevative ) Welcome to a Part 2 of a recent talk I gave at the Westcoast Elizabethan Clothing Symposium entitled: " Wearing vs Styling: Accessorizing to Create a Period Look ". ~ Cost Effective By their very nature accessories are an extra expense; either in money, labour, or resources. And some pieces (like weapons, hats and shoes) can end up representing a significant percentage of the final cost of an outfit. 

PART 3: TRANSFORMATIVE (Previous post: Part 2 Cost Effective ) Welcome to a  Part 3  of a recent talk I gave at the Westcoast Elizabethan Clothing Symposium entitled: " Wearing vs Styling: Accessorizing to Create a Period Look ". ~ Transformative In the previous section we experimented with building a basic capsule wardrobe by accessorizing a single foundational garment. It focused on creating variations on a similar look from broadly the same social status and period in time  (and in the case of the “Field of the Cloth of Gold” all the looks were originating from the exact same moment).

In  preparation for a presentation for the "Westcoast Elizabethan Clothing Symposium", I decided to attempt to recreate several of the outfits worn by women in the crowd of "The Field of the Cloth of Gold" (1545). The idea was to use my red kirtle as a base and then accessorize it as needed to create four different looks (as highlighted above).

Another attempt at "Medieval Cosplay"! But this time with my new red kirtle. I know basically nothing about clothing pre-1500, so this is very much me playing historical Dress Up... But I do love this ridiculous bycocket hat (originally made for a similar attempt at styling my blue kirtle ) and will take advantage of any opportunity to wear it.

Welcome to the second of my "Mix & Match" posts for my Blue Kirtle.  The insanity continues! As I mentioned in my last post , I'd taken some additional photos of my new kirtle but these quickly devolved into playing ahistorical, Medieval dress-up...so I thought they'd be better off in their own post.

Welcome to the photo dump for my new blue kirtle (the construction of which was recently documented in my latest  Dress Diary ). Based on early 16th century illustrations, the kirtle laces up the front and features short sleeves, a 'V' back, and a shaped skirt (constructed with piecing).

As documented in an earlier post , I recently finished a brown wool doublet (well, not so recently, but we'll that that slide...) Made of scrap fabric, it was originally intended as a practice piece to learn some tailoring techniques, and as a result the design was always a bit of a hodge-podge. This made stying the outfit somewhat difficult, since without a firm inspiration image or decade to work from, everything just seemed a little  off.