Commission - Houppelande lite

I've seen this somewhere before....

 You may remember the fabric for this one from my post a little while ago - this was the strange situation where the lining actually cost more than the outer fabric and I was sure that was breaking some kind of rule.

Well if it was it doesn't seem to have done any harm, for here is the completed garment:

LARP-tastic

The costume was for a Dawnish Civil Servant in Empire. The spec for this was something like a houppelande - a voluminous medieval tunic worn by the upper classes with split sleeves often made of velvet with a satin lining and/or trimmed with fur.  Only my brief was to make it as if it was being worn by a civil servant rather than an aristocrat, so: no velvet, no satin, not too voluminous and open down the front...but apart from that just like a houppelande.

The good thing about historically based costume is there are some people out there who seriously love historical costume and will go to great lengths to re-create it and document every step for posterity.  These are often people doing such things as a hobby so the descriptions aren't always the best, but who cares when you can actually find, at the very least, a starting point.  For the not-a-houppelande I found CV's theory on the construction of the houppelande, which looks pretty extensive and super useful if I was actually making a houppelande (is the word houppelande starting to lose all meaning for anyone else...).  CV has based his on a circle, but that would be far too voluminous for my purposes and also doesn't have the split down the front and the sleeves weren't really what I needed...so I drafted my own pattern instead.

Here are my wonderful sketches and detailed measurements of my client:

admire my fabulous skills

I vacillate between pride and embarrassment that I can make something that has actually come together really easily and works well from such a slapdash plan.  It is a very simple garment, that I've made similar bits and pieces of before, and really I didn't need any more than this, but still I feel like I should have had a mood board or fashion drawings or something...ah well.

I turned the sketch into pattern pieces from the measurements (adding somewhat random bits here and there as ease and extra volume - bonus of a garment that's not supposed to be fitted).  Even with simple garments I always make pattern pieces.  I used to think I did it in case I needed to make it again in future, but the reality is it's just way easier to work with paper than with fabric.  Chinello Bally from The Great British Sewing Bee a couple of years ago really got people into the idea that you don't need a pattern and that somehow this is a good thing, but really it just means you're doing all your working out and drafting directly onto your fabric.  I don't know about anyone else, but I make enough changes as I draft that this would go horribly wrong for me, especially with a bouncy fabric like the black crepe for this commission.

I made up the lining first and had the client try it on, basically using it as a toile since any modifications I would need to make to it would be hidden on the inside.  Luckily it didn't need any.  This was a really quick and simple commission, but, because of the drafting, it was properly satisfying in a creative way.  If you'll be at Empire  you may even see it on the field.