The Marguerite de Valois Gown

Description

A court gown based on the the portrait of Princess Marguerite in the panel "The Elephant" of the Valois tapestries.  It depicts Marguerite (later known as Reine Margot) standing with her brother François, the Duc d'Anjou, and an unknown, elegantly dressed young man behind them.

The Valois Tapestries

This panel was the most magnificent thing I have ever seen.  For one thing, the tapestries are woven in a 3-D effect.  There are no words to describe what a difference it makes. No picture, slide, or print, can do the originals any justice.  It was a breathtaking experience, and I do hope that in the future I can have the opportunity to see the rest of the panels in person.

The tapestries are of Flemish manufacturing, and it is believed that they were based on original drawings by Antoine Caron.  There is a series of drawings that precede the tapestries and the similarities are remarkable.  At any rate, they are a wonderful mix of French classical structure and Flemish originality and charm.  They depict the "Magnificences" of the Valois family accomplishments, and are an interesting form of immortalizing those family portraits.

It is also not clear who commissioned the Valois tapestries, although it is believed that they were made in the late 1570's or early 1580's.  At any rate, the tapestries found their way from Paris to Florence in 1589, when Christina de Lorraine, who was Catherine de Medici's granddaughter and who had married the  Duke of Tuscany, obtained them from Queen Catherine.  The history of the tapestries themselves could be a soap opera of its own.  Suffice it to say that they are the historical record of a French family, which was headed by a Florentine woman who rose from a merchant's daughter to Queen of France.  They are also a magnificent piece of art created by the combined talents of French and Flemish artisans, and which ended up residing back in Florence as a gift to Catherine's people.

But enough of the history of the tapestries.  I became enamored of Margot's gown years ago, and it took me quite a while to figure out how to put it together, while doing justice to a project that sometimes seemed impossible to attain.  It is hard to produce something that will look and feel like the historical object without looking like a costume.  My idea was to look not only like I was walking out of a painting, but more like I was walking out of a wardrobe, with real clothes.  It took me about three years to gather my materials together.  Use of the appropriate materials makes all the difference in the world.

The Pieces

• The Underpinnings

• The Overgown

• The Accoutrements

The Underpinnings

The Chemise: The first layer is a square neck chemise, with tight fitting sleeves.  The neck was cut low to line up with the corset, French style.  I made the pattern using Lea Dreed's very practical smock pattern generator.  It required very little tweaking, and it worked out very nicely.  I used a 3.5 oz fine linen, and hand-stitched it with linen thread.  

The Corset:  For the second layer I made a corset after the one worn by Pfalzgrafin Dorothea Sabina von Neuburg when she was buried in the tomb at Laungen in 1598, and which currently resides at the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum in Munich.  I used a linen foundation for the lining and interlining, and a gold silk dupioni for the outer layer.  It is entirely hand-stitched, and in the picture I still had not bound the edges.  (Binding means finishing the edges with bias tape, which I made out of strips of the same silk.)  The casings for the stays and the busk were also hand-stitched with silk thread.  The silk thread was 2/30 Gemstone Silk, color No. 117, by Halcyon Yarn, which is a soft lilac that really brought up the gold of the dupioni. 

For the stays, I used 2mm round reeds -- about two or three reeds per casing.  I avoid steel bones like the plague, as they are heavier and cannot be cut to size.  Besides, the Dorothea bodies used reeds or rushes, so even the broom bristles are more accurate (not to mention more comfortable!) than steel.  There are a number of online merchants who sell them, but you can also use broom bristles if you can't find round or flat reeds in a pinch. 

The busk was made for me out of black walnut by my husband. If you can't find anything else appropriate, you can also use a painter's stick and cut it to size.  They are free at some hardware stores.  But if you can make your own, or you can have a friend make it for you, it will be even better.

As for the casings, I followed the Dorothea bodies style, as you can see in the picture on the right.  This image is from a previous corset that I had made in green wool fabric and pink silk stitching. The details can be seen better than in the gold silk and pale lilac version. You will notice is that the casings do not go all the way up, but that they delineate the bust shape instead, and that they have the busk in the center.  The biggest difference in the fit between this style and having the casings go all the way up, is that it provides very nice support, and that the bosom sort of "nests" in the home provided by that shape.  It is a flatter and somewhat softer silhouette than the one provided by the casings all the way up.  Once we add structure to the gown itself, the effect will be even flatter and more structured.

The Farthingale:  This piece is made after the pattern by Juan de Alcega, in the "Tailor's Pattern Book -- 1589."  The foundation is a nice, medium weight dark brown linen, and the casings are burgundy taffeta. I did not make this farthingale.  In fact, if you are familiar with the work of Kimbely Lumpkins (Mistress Alina Silverthorne), you may realize that you have seen this farthingale before.  Yes, it is the same farthingale that is featured in her Webpage.  Why, you may ask?  Because Alina and I engaged in the much honored tradition of bartering and I acquired her hand-stitched farthingale in exchange for me embroidering this 16th Century coif for her.  And we both rejoiced.

At any rate, the farthingale is pointed to the corset, so that will ensure that the two pieces will remain in place.  For those not familiar with the term, pointing means that both pieces have matching eyelets, and that ties, or "points" have been used to attach them together, as it was customary in period.  For more information on the cut and construction of this particular farthingale, visit Alina's page, here.

The Medici Collar:  For the longest time, the Medici collar  baffled me.  I was very familiar with the later period method of construction for standing collars that involved a frame (suportasse or rebato).  I had also seen many an unsupported ruff wilting and falling apart in a very short time, no matter how starched it was.  Yet the Medici collar, like the one sported by Margot in the Valois Tapestries looked too small to be supported by a rebato.  How did they manage to keep it crisp and in place without the help of a frame?

Enter Melanie Schuessler, otherwise known as Mistress Melissent St. Claire.  I had seen her Webpage before, and I was a big fan of hers.  However, I had totally forgotten about this particular gown.  As soon as I saw it, I knew I had my answer.  I contacted her immediately and asked how she had done it.  Simple, she said.  She had attached a starched ruff to a high necked shift, and then pinned it open to the corset.  The ruff would stay put on tension alone, which goes to prove that sometimes the most obvious solution is the correct one.  Armed with that information, I decided to make my own version, which featured a square neck chemise, partlet and ruff instead of a high necked shift and ruff.  You can use any Flemish style partlet pattern for this purpose.  As you can see in the picture above, it works very well and it stays in place by tension.

The Ruff (Medici Collar Part Dieux): In order to build my ruff, I utilized information that I had gathered during my visit to Florence in 2008, for the Janet Arnold Colloquium.  I also used the instructions and information from Arnold's Patterns of Fashion 4 (with Jenny Tiramani and Santina Levey).  The pictures I took in Florence from the actual ruffs reconstructed by Arnold and her team,were invaluable.  One of the most interesting things is that these ruffs are actually cartridge pleated -- or gathered in very small, even gathers, if you prefer.  Once you start gathering, you will notice that the fabric wants to pleat itself like a ruff (figures 1 and 2).  And once you have attached it to the neckband, you can simply proceed to starch it and shape it with a hot poker or hair hot iron.

My ruff was made with lightweight European linen that I had purchased a couple of years ago.  I liked it because it was very fine, but it had a lot of body.  I made it 2.5 inches wide, since a wider one like those in the pictures below was not used until a later period and would have required a frame.  I should have taken notes at the time, but I think that I used a length three times that of the neckband measurement.  If in doubt, make it a little bit longer.  You can always shorten it if you realize that it was too long.  Since this was my first ruff of this style, and I was in a hurry to finish the entire gown before 12th Night, I cheated and starched it with a spray starch and a hair iron (the ones without the safety tip work best.)  My next set of ruffs will be starched the period way.  Stay tuned.

 

Figure 1: Reconstruction of a ruff by Janet Arnold.  Taken in Florence, with permission, during the Janet Arnold Colloquium.  November, 2008.	Figure 2: Reconstruction of a ruff by Janet Arnold and her team.  Taken in Florence, with permission, during the Janet Arnold Colloquium.  November, 2008.	Figure 3: Reconstruction of a ruff by Janet Arnold and her team.  Taken in Florence, with permission, during the Janet Arnold Colloquium.  November, 2008.
Figure 3:  My ruff.  Band hemmed and lace attached.	Figure 4:  Ruff pleated and starched.  (From the back)	Figure 5:  Ruff pleated and starched, from the top.

The petticoat:

For the petticoat, I used Alcega's pattern No. 60 from his Tailor's Pattern Book 1589 (Figure 6). I only used the skirt part of the pattern, since I was already using a separate corset.  The greatest thing about this pattern is that it is very user friendly.  You unfold your fabric to a single thickness, and then you re-fold it until there are two folds:  one at the top, and one at the bottom, and the selvedges meet in the middle as shown by the solid line in the diagram. Then you trace away and proceed to figure out how wide or how narrow you want it. This petticoat only needs two gores in the back piece.  The front piece comes out perfectly shaped and needs no gores at all.   However, should you want a fuller skirt, you can always add more gores. 

The other great thing about this pattern, is that it ended up fitting perfectly on top of the farthingale -- almost like one cone nesting over another one.   I have always said that Alcega was a genius, and no kidding.

I used a linen twill that I found on sale at G Street Fabrics.  It had great body and it served perfectly for my purpose.  I have not seen a linen twill again, so I was happy that I had been able to score that purchase.  However, almost any regular medium weight linen or silk would work well too. 

To prevent the linen petticoat from accidentally peeking out from under the over gown, I decorated the bottom with a silk guard (Figure 8). 

Last but not least, I also sewed eyelets to the waistband and pointed it to both the farthingale and the corset (not shown).  This definitely made a difference and helped keep everything in place.

 

Figure 6:  Kirtle and low-cut bodice of cloth rash for a woman.  Juan de Alcega, Tailor's Pattern Book 1589, Pattern No. 60.	Figure 7:  Petticoat on top of the farthingale.	Figure 8:  Detail of silk guard.

The Forepart

The forepart is the decorated piece of fabric, cut like a truncated cone, that shows under the open skirt of an over-gown.  In the sixteenth century, it was common practice to use a forepart and pin it or stitch it to the petticoat, as opposed to decorating the latter, since no one would see the part covered by the gown anyway. Plus, you could use the same petticoat and simply switch foreparts for a different look.  Princess Margot, in the particular gown I was trying to emulate, is wearing a blue forepart under a pink or rust colored over gown.

The fabric I used for my forepart was a shot blue-orange silk taffeta, which means that the warp and weft are of different colors and they seem to change from one to another depending on the light. It is very pretty and the pictures below do not do  it any justice. Because this fabric was on the expensive side, I purchased only 3/4 yard at the time and decided to make a corset with it.  Later on, as I was looking for fabric for the forepart, I realized that this one went beautifully with the silk brocade I had picked for the over gown.  Because I had so very little of it, I had to really get creative and piece it together to make the truncated triangle that would make the forepart.  Luckily, piecing parts together was also a common practice in period.  Janet Arnold, in her Patterns of Fashion, discusses an extant forepart from the Museo Parmigianino, which is pieced so much that it looks pretty much like a jigsaw puzzle.  I can assure you that I used every single scrap of my taffeta, but I did achieve a forepart!

For the top and bottom row of the decorations I used some vintage trim that I found in a Florence Pasamaneria when I attended the Arnold Colloquium in 2008.  I decorated it with spangles to give it shine.  The center decoration is some nice trim that I found on Ebay, which went surprisingly well with the whole color scheme of the project.

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Next time:  The Overgown

Sources:

Arnold, Janet.  Queen Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlock’d, W.S. Maney & Son, LTD, Hudson Road, Leeds, 1988.

Mikhaila, Nynia, and Malcolm-Davies, Jane, The Tudor Tailor. BT Batsford, Bramley Road, London W10 6SP.  2006.

Yates, Frances Amelia, The Valois Tapestries. Routledge Kegan & Paul, 1975.