A combination of bright colours and drabs to experiment with permanent ageing techniques for costume.
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I’m fucking awesome at doing everything at the last minute.
Like today.
I got a whole load of my costume finished.
Last night I hand finished the hem’s on my murder robes – there’s about four days of hand sewing in this thing.
And the back:
That’s the seam inside the hood:
And what the inside seams look like:
Just a close up of that nice, almost invisible hand stitching:
Then I got started on hemming the sleeves of the bottom layer of robes. Fancy decorative stitches on the sewing machine meant I didn’t have to hand sew it invisibly:
And I also tacked down the neck facing, you can see it showing through here because I’d just ironed it:
Then I figured that I had to add a new project to the mix. This is something very loosely based on Arya Stark’s belt in the new Game of Thrones series. I’m going to make a second one I think to go over it, made from hemp cord and beads:
The fastening, same as I used on the Mythlore belt:
And then knotted and all together with the top layers. I also have a hero style belt to wear over it, so you won’t see the cord the macrame is attached to:
Then after going to see Rich at Evenlode, we had chips in Chipping Norton. Wonder if this is where David Cameron gets his chips from. They were pretty good:
So…
Game of Thrones happened.
And the Dorne armour is beautiful.
And now I need this sash to go under my belt for my Minoan costume this weekend.
And Simon’s Mythlore costume needs the embroidered gambeson.
I tried out the professional dye I got a while back. Procion MX in dark brown. I’d been warned that the pro dyes are a bit of a learning curve compared to something like Dylon, but I was up for giving it a go.
I added too much water I think. I added a bit more than the instructions suggest to make sure all the fabric was covered. But the end result was that there was really wasn’t enough dye in the water (because I have dodgy kitchen scales too) and I’m not sure that the soda ash activated enough. We put a second lot of soda ash in after about 25 mins, but I think it was too little, too late.
However they did come out some interesting colours.
And altogether it looks ok. I think. I’m doing to see how it wears for the weekend at Odyssey. And perhaps do some tea staining on it before hand. And roll around in the mud a bit. And throw rocks at it.
I do love the colour that the darker brown robe has gone though. It’s now a reddish brown, almost like chocolate.
And the wool robe over the top is the one I’m currently in the process of hand stitching. Hopefully it’ll be finished. Or finished enough anyway.
Then I just have to finish the gambeson. And make myself a headscarf. No pressure.
Yeah I’ve been procrastinating.
I bought a load of wool offcuts last year with the intention of making myself a tunic, perhaps a cloak, maybe some murder robes. Today the tunic got made. Sort of made.
I’m really pleased with how the neckline came out. I loved making faced necklines, they’re so neat and tidy.
I’m not happy with how the inset gores have come out. They’re not set in evenly and in addition I didn’t put both fabrics the same way round on each side so they look different. I think they’ve got to completely come out and get put back in again.
Other than that, the grey stitching is just basting thread to hold everything in place before I hand stitch it. And obviously it needs hemming.
Meh.
So we went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. And we saw this piece. And Adam said something along the lines of ‘that would be awesome for Carthage’. So here we have it, this would be awesome for Carthage.
It’s really great finding pieces in a good museum to use as a basis for costume because there can often be a fair bit of information about the piece. You especially know that you’re onto a good thing when it’s displayed in it’s own case in the middle of the gallery space, like this kaftan is.
Looking it up on the Metropolitan Museum website gives me this page. And there’s just so much info there to be had. Starting off with a fantastic picture – click to get the high resolution image and examine the garment in real detail. Far better than my rubbish phone camera shots – although my rubbish phone camera shots do serve a purpose. They let me see the back and they let me remember details that struck me at the time.
The pinky-red fabric is all modern conservation, the beige fabric and gorgeous patterned trim is all the original bits of this amazing 9th – 11th century kaftan from somewhere near what is modern Turkey.
Except it wouldn’t have originally have been beige. The Met are helpful enough to have provided information about the garment to help us understand what it might have looked like when it was made. The ‘white card’ description says:
The original linen coat (caftan), preserved in part from the neck to the bottom of the hem, is made of finely woven linen. A decorative strip of large-patterned silk is sewn along the exterior and interior edges of the caftan. A minute fragment of lambskin preserved as the caftan’s interior attests to its fur lining. The woven patterns on the silk borders of the caftan include motifs such as the rosettes and stylized animal patterns enclosed within beaded roundels, which were widespread in Iranian and Central Asian textiles of the sixth to ninth century. The colors used in the textile include a now-faded dark blue, yellow, red, and white on a dark brown ground. The decorated silk fabrics are a compound twill weave (samite in modern classification) and the body of the garment is plain-weave linen. Two slits running up the back of the caftan make it particularly suitable as a riding costume.
Did you know that apparently in many galleries and museums the white cards next to exhibits have to have be the same standard as the national reading age – which is about 12 in the UK. These were only ever intended as basic info. So far from this description I know that:
But we need more!
Linked to the page on the Met’s website there are three journal articles written about the Kaftan and it’s matching leggings. The first is an introduction, the second is a genealogy study and the last is the conservators report on the piece. This last one is where the gold-dust lies. These three journal articles can tell us huge amounts about the garment beyond what the white card does.
Here are notes from the journal articles, with my own speculations:
So then I finished off by taking a quick look through the Vecellio book of costume (from the 16th Century and before) and there’s a remarkably similar garment in the Persian section, illustrating a soldier. Unfortunately Vecellio doesn’t make any comments about the kaftan, only the armour and the horses tack that he would wear. But it does reinforce the idea of kaftans as riding garments. I also really like the way that the front flap is fastened up to the belt. That might have to happen for fighting and stabbing.
There are also similar garments in the Hungarian and African sections of the book, although they tend to not be asymmetrical closures like this one.
So what have we learnt…
So there we have it. Time to make the pattern pieces!
I promise, this is absolutely the last one in the series for now. However hopefully Simon will pick another game next year that we can use to develop this costume.
I want to thank Tom Garnett for sharing some gorgeous pictures from the event where he captured all my hard work. I want to thank Simon less for not wearing the whole thing and apparently not taking the armour I made for him out of the car. However, it was designed to work in layers of various kinds, and so I think it’s ok – as long as he wears it in the future sometime so that all my hard work becomes worth it.
Also Adam, for seeing me through a day of costume making where there were sense of humour failures, serious regret and almost even tears as I battled to get it finished on time for the event.
I’m surprised at how light the blue of the outer robes looked in the end. They looked far more grey in my flat, but I really like how it came together.
I was particularly pleased with the tagelmust. Not anything particularly fancy, but I added a row of studs to the end of the fabric that echoed the design of the armour. Before he wears it again I plan to also trim the long edges with yellow binding so that there is a twisted effect when he wears it.
You just have to love that striped effect around the legs, don’t you? Well I do. The back being cut into three and the high side splits really make it for me. I love the way that it flares as he walks.
I’m also really pleased that we did the whole thing out of natural fibres. I know some people really like synthetic fabrics for this kind of costume. I mean, they are an easy way to get bright colours and cool patterns. But I’m pleased that early on we decided to stick entirely to natural fibres. I much prefer working with them and I like the look of natural fibres about a thousand times more than synthetics. I know there’s a time and a place for everything, but if I’m ripping traditional middle-eastern/Arabic/Bedouin to pieces and recreating it in a fantasy style for shits and giggles, the least I can do is remain authenticish to the materials. That’s a vague attempt at some respect as well as making it look cool. (Cultural appropriation really bothers me.)
I should add at this point that yes, I’m willing to take on commissions. However I’m not cheap. Nor will I make something completely off the peg. Please don’t send me shitty emails telling me I’m more expensive than other LRP traders or I’m not worth as much as I think I am. I don’t really care about your opinions and if you don’t like my prices you can have something from someone else. Also, I only create kit for people I like, with a brief that I can fall in love with. Try me.
After all was said and done though, this whole outfit cost about £130 in materials in total. That’s the robes, outer robes, armour and tagelmust. As well as a whole metric-fuckton of love for a friend. You can’t buy that shit.
And just two more background shots…
With a scant twenty-four hours before he’s due on the field at Mythlore I handed over the costume to Simon and it was at last gone from cluttering up my flat!
So here’s the pictures of the final stuff. Please excuse the unwilling model.
The robes were… a sticking point. I started making them up in pale grey and blue and they looked horrible. Like this… (excuse second unwilling model).
I’m not kidding. They sat pinned to my mannequin for weeks without being sewn because I just couldn’t face it. Eventually it started to become critical so Simon and I decided that a short wallow in some Antique Grey Dye was the way forward.
And hey presto, in 24 hours the magic happened and both the robes and the armour got finished and covered liberally in Fullers Earth!
I also distressed the robes as much as I could without ripping and destroying them. You’ll spy seams that have been pulled through deliberately, and I wanted to simulate a slightly clumsy wearer by stretching the front of the loose weave linen robes *after* I’d sewn the more stable cotton bias tape around them (did I mention that I made somewhere around 24m of cotton bias tape by hand for these robes? I have mentioned my pain several times to Simon). Basically I put my foot on the bottom of the robes and yanked upwards on the collar to make it stretch around the feet where he’s fallen over it.
The only bit I’m not quite happy with is the way that the back hangs. However that might be rectified in PtII – The Return of the Minoan Robes.
Would I do things differently? Sure. There were many lessons learnt, especially on the armour. However I think it all turned out more or less ok.
I’m kind of sad sending my first completed costume out into the world. I’m hoping it has fun at Mythlore this weekend and Mr Pennington doesn’t get them all slotted within thirty minutes so that they can go to the pub.
As a little added extra I wanted to show you these in a beautiful black and white. Some of you might know that I used to work full time as a product photographer and it’s really my passion when it comes to photography. Portraits and products (and a bit of architecture). I’d love to, one day, shoot products ahgain more regularly, but for clients who want something a little bit different.
Simon and I started sorting through his leather accessories to see what we could use with the costume I was making. He pulled out one belt declaring that this would would work really well… and unfortunately it was broken.
See? Is broken.
No, I have no idea why M&S would make that bit in the buckle removable either, but apparently it fell out.
Doesn’t work very well as a belt without that middle bit.
Anyway.
The leather strap was still in good condition so I went on eBay, ordered a new 1¾” buckle for a couple of quid.
All I had to do then was unpick the stitches…
And then I used to waxed linen thread that I had for bookbinding to sew it back up again. I think you should really sew it with a double needle in order to hide the ends, but I didn’t have two needles I could use and I didn’t really care too much since otherwise Simon was going to chuck it away.
Not too shabby, eh?