I was not able to fully explain what I wanted to the tailor, so the cut of the dress is quite modern: a lenght of fabric with a hole for the head, not the historical tubular dress fixed with fibulae on the shoulders. Now I know we could have done it ourselves quite easily, but I was scared I would ruin the wonderful tartan fabric I chose. I liked the peplos and thought it easy to ask to my town’s tailor. First of all I studied the Early Iron Age Hallstatt period clothing, the easiest historical dresses I saw around. In my favourite fabric shop I found a red viscose tartan, quite modern in design and material, but so comfortable to wear. I didn’t have a basis to start from, I’d and never made a dress before in my life, so I decided to ask for help.
While embroiderying my husband’s tunic, I was also thinking about me. We know this tunic is not historically perfect, but as a first attempt it was a good introduction into the making and embroidering of reenactment garments. The embroidery I made on the cuffs were simpler and thinner: just a hint of decoration to match the bigger one without attracting too much attention from it. One day I’ll make more crafts inspired by those artifacts… I knew about them in an article on n.32 “Celtica” magazine by the archaeologist Daniele Vitali with the wonderful 3D illustrations by Luca Tarlazzi. and their incisions are in La Tène style. Found in Comacchio (Ferrara, Italy) at the beginning of the 20th century, they came from the 5th century b.C. They are a group of 31 decorated appliques in bronze that were lost after the Second World War in Berlin, disappeared from the Staatlichen Museen. Both this and the one on the neck remind me of the lost Celtic artifacts known as “ Placche di Comacchio“. I designed the embroidery on cardboard, cut it out, then used school chalk powder to leave a non-permanent mark on the dark fabric I wanted to embroider on.Īfter the neckline, I embroidered the cuffs. I didn’t have all the useful tools, back then, so I had to figure out a workaround to draw on the tunic. Since it was my first embroidery attempt, I made various samples before trying with the proper tunic. The first thing I did was the planning of a Celtic-inspired embroidery to enrich the neckline. We bought it at the same fair where we found the tunic: machine-made and not so historically accurate, we knew it later on… To cover the machine seams around the different colored borders, my husband’s granny attached a trimming. So I got my hands on the tunic to give it a more hand-made appearance.įirst step: the neckline. In 2016, he was better than me with sewing machines, thanks to his seamstress grandmother, while I had more patience to work by hand with needle and thread. It was really plain: perfect to adapt to become his first Celtic tunic. The decorations and accessories? We made a few, others are planned.įirst of all, during a fair my husband bought a simple machine-made tunic.
The next year, having learnt a few things, we added trousers for him and an under-tunic for me. Looking at what we did now, years and projects after, makes me want to come back and start anew making everything from scratch! Well, since that is not possible, I’ll show you what we did as first try and how we are still trying to get the best out of our Celtic gowns.īeginning in the Spring of 2016, we started with a tunic for Locutus and a simple dress for me.
ACCURATE MEDIEVAL OUTFITS HOW TO
But how to do that with no clothes-making skills? We decided to go for ready-made clothes to be customised.
Since a part of the festival is about reenactment, we decided we wanted to go there prepared and in the proper attire. And, well, before that, it gave us our first opportunity to get involved into embroidery and sewing. I wrote at lenght about this wonderful event, that gave us the inspiration for several crafts, including our very first epoxy resin diorama. The occasion arose in 2016 when we decided to attend our first Celtica Festival. My first approach to embroidery and sewing, as I said several times, was related to the making of historical garments for my husband and I.
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