Presentation of reconstructed 15th century garments from Lengberg Castle (original) (raw)
The Lengberg Finds. Remnants of a lost 15th century tailoring revolution. NESAT XIII
Archaeological Textiles – Links Between Past and Present. NESAT XIII, 2017
Among the textile fragments discovered at Lengberg Castle in East-Tyrol, Austria, were a few almost completely preserved pieces of garments such as several nearly complete linen bras and fragments of possibly skirted bodices. Before the finds at Lengberg Castle, no physical evidence of supportive undergarments, so-called ‘breast bags’, had been discovered, although garments of this type were mentioned in several written sources of the time. There were also fragments of linen linings for three gowns: two for a small girl (one of blue wool and one of red silk) and one blue woollen example for an adult woman. These linen linings are most noteworthy for the techniques applied to their tailoring. The Lengberg lining fragments demonstrate that 15th century tailors had a highly-advanced understanding of the bias properties of fabrics, far beyond anything expected, and not to be duplicated in fashion until the 1930s. In the creation of the fashionable 15th century gowns with under-bust pleating, the tailors used the bias collapse and drape of the fabrics to provide the shaping around the individual breasts, instead of using straight grain panels and gores, as is seen in the Greenland finds – a dramatic revolution in tailoring techniques. While this design augmented the shape of the breasts, it provided no support, and thus separate supportive garments were worn under the gown to support, shape and lift the breast. With the transition to Italian style garments at the beginning of the 16th century, these bias techniques of women’s tailoring were no longer needed, and thus were lost, with bias-cut hose and stockings being the only remnant of this tailoring revolution. The aim of this research is to draw a correlation between supportive undergarments and the tailoring of the gowns worn over them. The bra allows for looser tailoring of the gown, which accentuates two separate breasts, as opposed to supportive kirtles which result in a monobosom (one curving mound). One garment requires the other. The three gowns, the supportive underwear and smocks are under reconstruction to better understand the tailoring methods used, how the single garments worked individually and as layers (supportive undergarment – smock – gown), and contribute to the study of female apparel of the second half of the 15th century.
A unique survival: A woman’s fifteenth century headwear from Lengberg Castle, East Tyrol.
CRAFTING TEXTILES. Tablet Weaving, Sprang, Lace and Other Techniques from the Bronze Age to the Early 17th Century, 2021
In Lengberg Castle, East Tyrol, a perplexing textile fragment made of humble fabric but with exquisite detail was found beneath the floorboards among thousands of objects. It is of white linen cloth with a variety of decorative elements in linen thread. These decorative elements include needle lace, loop braids, and most strikingly, sprang. All three textile techniques were worked with an undyed linen thread. The complex tree of life pattern of the sprang suggests this is a noteworthy garment. It was meant to be seen. Since the original function of this textile could not be determined with certainty by merely investigating the extant garment, a reconstruction was attempted in order to produce a copy with which wearer trials could be conducted. Thanks to a grant from the Janet Arnold Foundation, new light can now be shed on this mysterious textile, and how it was worn. After frustrating failed attempts, a surprising solution was determined: the textile is headwear.
Enigmatic Beauty_Headwear of Lengberg Castle.pdf
2019
In Lengberg Castle, East Tyrol, a perplexing textile fragment made of humble fabric but with exquisite detail was found beneath the floorboards among thousands of objects. It is of white linen cloth with a variety of decorative elements in linen thread. These decorative elements include needlelace, loop braids, and most strikingly, sprang. The complex tree of life pattern of the sprang suggests this is a noteworthy garment. It was meant to be seen. Since the original function of this textile could not be determined with certainty by merely investigating the extant garment, a reconstruction was attempted in order to produce a copy with which wearer trials could be conducted. Thanks to a grant from the Janet Arnold Foundation, new light can now be shed on this mysterious textile, and how it was worn. After frustrating failed attempts, a surprising solution was determined: the textile is headwear. Note: Parts of this article will go into a chapter of a book (work in progress) on the reconstruction of the garment fragments from Lengberg Castle. Complete with cuts and patterns. Therefore you are welcomed to comment on the article and how helpful (or unhelpful) you find the instructions, cuts and patterns, especially if you want to make such a headdress for yourself. This article was uploaded on 12 January 2019, to commemorate the 500th anniversary of the death of Emperor Maximilian I, who died on 12 January 1519.
K. Grömer and F. Pritchard (eds.) 2015: Aspects of the Design, Production and Use of Textiles and Clothing from the Bronze Age to the Early Modern Era.. Archaeolingua Main Series 33. Budapest 2015., 2015
The NESAT XII symposium was organized by the Natural History Museum Vienna from 21st to 24th May 2014 in Hallstatt, Austria. The North European Symposium for Archaeological Textiles (NESAT) was founded in 1981 as a discussion forum between various disciplines: textile archaeologists, historians, art historians, natural scientists, conservators and craftspeople. The conference volume contains 35 scientific papers grouped into seven chapters. The first chapters introduce Austrian textile research and prehistoric textile finds from Europe, such as recent analysis of the earliest wool finds and early Scandinavian textile design. The main corpus of articles deals with textiles and clothing covering a time span from early medieval to the early modern period, their archaeological research, experiments and art historical context. Five papers focus on tools and textile production, object-based research as well as experimental archaeology and investigation of written sources. The chapter “Specific analyses” embraces interdisciplinary research including dyestuff analysis, isotopic tracing and a drawing system for archaeological textile finds from graves. The book, therefore, provides a wealth of information on recent research being undertaken into archaeological textiles from sites in Central and Northern Europe.
Fashion Theory, Special Issue on ‘The Making Turn’, eds. Peter McNeil and Melissa Bellanta, 23, 3 (2019): 363-399, 2019
This article showcases experimental dress reconstruction as a valuable research tool for the historian. It presents a case study detailing how two underskirts of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, French Farthingale Rolls and French Wheel Farthingales, were reconstructed using historical techniques and experimental methodologies. The first section outlines my methodological approach to reconstructing these ephemeral garments, exploiting archival and printed records, visual sources and knowledge of seventeenth-century sewing techniques. The second section focuses on the experience of reconstruction and shows how this process allows the historian to form tacit knowledge. This section also raises questions and provides answers about artisanal design practices such as reflective rationality, embodied experiences, and tacit skills that cannot be accessed in other ways. Finally, this article shows how reconstruction can inform understandings of the embodied experiences of dressing and wearing. Dressing the female body in the reconstructed underskirts discussed in this article made it possible to observe the garments’ practical realities and challenge polemical historical sources concerning fashionable sixteenth- and seventeenth-century European dress.
Two Radiocarbon Dated Linen Fabrics with Samite Trimmings in the Collection of Katoen Natie, Antwerp
2005
T HE last few years, linen tunics woven-to-shape with loops have been studied and published. Roberta Cortopassi studied a group of linen tunics with weft loops at both sides (CORTOPASSI, 2002: 33-43; 2004: 10-16). A second group, also tunics or fragments of tunics woven-to-shape but with weft piles only at one side was presented at the workshop «Textiles from the Nile Valley» in Antwerp, 2005 (COR-TOPASSI and VERHECKEN-LAMMENS, forthcoming). According to quality, technical features, and the iconographical models, these tunics could be split up in two groups. Fragments of two linen pile fabrics, found in Egypt but of unknown provenance are in the Katoen Natie collection. These two fabrics are studied separately because they are remnants of garments which differ in construction from a woven-to-shape tunic. Both fabrics have a pile type different from each other and also different from the types of pile of the woven-to-shape tunics. The silk samite trimmings along the edges are very intriguing. Description of the textiles Of the two garments we only have fragments. Based on these fragments we know that these garments are not tunics «woven-to-shape» but tailored and open at the front as in woollen «riding coats» of oriental origin (FLUCK and VOGELSANG-EASTWOOD, 2004). On these two garments the loops are at the inside, and the edges are trimmed with silk samite fabrics.
2017
The article considers the textile findings of 17th – 18th centuries obtained during archaeological studies conducted in 2014–2015 at the cemetery of St. John the Baptist Church in the quarter of Novodevichy Convent. The items were in an extremely unsatisfactory state of preservation. The study allowed to identify their purpose and partially reconstruct their appearance and decoration. Of most interest among the remaining items were the fragments of shirts, covers and a phaelonion shoulder. On the basis of the results of reconstruction conducted by the author, the phaelonion, representing an element of church attire, featured a high rigid trapezoid shoulder made of red velvet and decorated with gold ornamental embroidery imitating the appearance of Turkish textile. According to the author, similar shoulders in terms of the shape and manufacturing technique are characteristic of the discovered phaelonions of 16th – 17th cc.
Textile research has made significant advances in recent years as new technologies and methods are developed, tested, and applied to the analyses of archaeological textiles. The FWF-Project1, a collaborative research effort involving researchers and artists from institutions in Austria, the Netherlands, and Germany, engaged in a four-year effort during 2008-2012, to examine dyeing and fabrication techniques used in the production of prehistoric textiles from Austria and neighboring countries. A number of publications and exhibits resulted from this groundbreaking body of work, including this ambitious book version, the subject of this review, which includes more recent research and additional finds, such as the Iron Age Hammerum Girl textiles.
Analysis, Reconstruction and Interpretation of Two Early Medieval Embroideries from Kruszwica
The subject of the paper are two silks from the Collection of Textiles at the National Museum in Warsaw, dated from the turn of the 12th century, found in 1961 during archaeological excavations in St. Peter and Paul collegiate church in Kruszwica. They have not yet been analysed, except for some approaches to the interpretation of ornaments made in the 1960s. They represent fragments of silk fabrics woven in weft-faced compound weaves embroidered with silk and metal thread. One of the fabrics is a band with a Latin inscription, the second one represents fragments of a stole ornamented with the figures of bishops. The paper presents the results of structural and physicochemical analysis of the fragments and an approach to computer reconstruction of their original appearance. Comprehensive analysis with similar objects from the same period as well as the analysis of re-read inscriptions lead to some hypotheses concerning the origin of the textiles. The quality of the finds demonstrate the high status of the men buried within the graves in the church hierarchy. They, therefore, confirm historical investigations indicating that Kruszwica was a seat of the Wloclawek bishop at that time.