Making a Renaissance Inspired Costume – Part 1

Hello everyone. So this is the second post on my renaissance inspired costume (undergarments, dress and coat) and the first one on the dress. I will discuss the bodice in this post and the skirt and the sleeves in the next one.

If you are interested in the other posts about this project, you can find them here:

• Making 16th Century “Stays”
• Drafting the Coat – Part 2
• Assembling the Coat – Part 3
• Finishing the Coat and Making Accessories – Part 4
• Making the Sleeves – Part 5

Thanks a lot for reading. No let’s directly dive into this project:

The Materials

All fabric for this project was bought on buttinette.com. The sequins are from a local craftstore and the beads as well as the beautiful rose pendant are from Bastelzentrum Bern. The trim is from Spitzen und Borten and the clasp is from Etsy, but I really don’t remember the seller.

This costume ate soooooo much fabric, it is insane. This is what I used:

• 2m of black taffeta
• 2m of black satin
• 3m of the green organza
• 0.5m of golden crushed velvet
• 2m of grey crushed velvet
• 2m of green crushed velvet

As I said, insane! Now, onto using all of this fabric!

Drafting the Pattern

First I draped the pattern from my dressform. I positioned the neckline too low here. Even with the seam allowance, it was to low which forced me to cover it with velvet in the end, instead of hemming it.  I love the neckline, I am happy this happened.

I then tried to arrange all fabrics, trimms etc. that I want to use on the project. Combining the cool green and grey velvets with the warm golden green organza first seemed to be a little bit daring to me, but in the end I think, they look really nice together.

Making the Bodice

As I did not have enough black tafeta I used black satin to cut out the bodice and then covered it with organza.

After cutting out all pieces from satin and organza, I sewed the two layers together with a running sticht to secure them. Then I started to embellish the front part of the bodice with sequins and beads. I love these iridescent sequins, they sparkle beautifully. Unfortunately, I did not have too many and I used every single one of them.

I sewed all pieces together by hand, I did not want to use my machine on the darts and just went on by hand from there. It fits very well, so I went on decorating it.

I added some more sequins, this time golden ones and then used golden bouillon wire to create a crisscross pattern, that I finished with a silver pearl. It does not look as elaborate as I had hoped… But half of it will be covered anyway, so I went on with it. I covered the raw edges of the neckline with golden velvet.

After putting it on my dressform, I noticed, that I might have to add a waistband to make the bodice a bit longer. But all in all I’m really happy with how it turned out. I hope for the best for skirt and sleeves.

Thanks a lot for reading, I hope you enjoyed.