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A Lady of a Castle and her Pretty Gowns
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More Italian Renaissance with Sapphire
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So, when I do historical clothing sets, I’ve learned drawing two takes about the same amount of time as drawing one. Of course, the downside is that I always worry if I make a mistake then I’m likely to repeat it. I’m not 100% sure about the waist lines on these, but that’s okay.
The paper doll is wearing a shift with a gathered neckline which seems to be the style in Italy. It’s a lot more fitted than these would have been for layering reasons. There’s some debate from my research in what women wore under these gowns. There’s not a lot of evidence for stays, but there’s no way to get the smooth line shown on the bust in these portraits without some sort of support either built into the bodice or underneath the bodice. If you look closely at side of the pink gown, you’ll see there’s a fold between where the armpit meets the shoulder and that suggests there is something under the bodice; however, I have not been able to find any evidence on what that undergarment might have looked like.
Later, there’s this Venetian Woman with Moveable Skirt from the 1560s and there might be a set of stays there or it might be an artistic choice to continue the bodice after the skirt is lifted. It’s tough to know. I tend to think it’s likely stays, because the work is erotic art and there’s nothing erotic about a bodice (or is there?). When I do a Venetian set (and I plan to do that someday) I’ll use that as my base design I suspect. However, we’re not working on Venetian clothing today. Today, we are in Florence.
Both of these dresses are again based on portraits. Both sitters are probably from Florence, based on professional folk’s assessments of the paintings. Lucrezia Panciatichi, for example, was the wife of Bartolomeo Panciatichi, a Florentine humanist and politician. The other sitter there’s some debate over, but her clothing does look like that which was worn in Florence according to folks who know more about this than I do which isn’t I grant you a high standard at this point.
Despite the few small changes I might make to these in the future (and my annoyance that I couldn’t seem to track down a full length portrait to get skirt shapes right), I’m super proud that I did these despite feeling like I don’t “know enough” to do them well.
I will say that I want to do something later in the 1500s from Venice, as I mentioned, because the Venetians had these wild shoes called chopines which were platform shoes so high that women needed help walking in them. They’re so strange and I want to draw them, but I need to do more research on the clothing that would have gone with them. More research!
So, if you want to get to vote in my next paper doll content poll, join us on Patreon.
Thoughts On Paper Doll Review Vol 83
I am super excited today to get to write a little about the latest issue of Paper Doll Review that arrived a few days ago. If you haven’t gotten your copy yet, you can grab it from Paper Doll review or subscribe, which is what I do.
I always look forward to Paper Doll Review when it comes in the mail, though I don’t draw for it that much. I was still recovering from my surgery when the deadline was and I hate recycling old things for the magazine (which I know is silly), so I let this one slide. I sort of regret it, because it is always fun to see my stuff in there along with other artists I super respect.
I am working on an animal paper doll for the next issue and let’s just say- not the easiest thing I’ve worked on!
Renaldo Barnette was the featured artist and his interview was fascinating, plus there were many images of his amazing at. You don’t follow him on Instagram, you should, because there’s always fun stuff to see. His ability to render fabric texture in markers (I think it’s markers?) is awe inspiring.
There was an article about Katy Keene where I learned some things I didn’t know about the history of the comic. A lot of space in the magazine was devoted to the Katy Keen Dress-A-Doll which was fun, but I confess I’m not the biggest Katy Keen fan on the planet. Nothing against her, of course, but there’s a lack of nostalgia for me, because I didn’t grow up with Katy Keen comics I think the same way people twenty years older than me did.
While I was going through the magazine, I noticed that two of my favorite Dress-A-Doll designs by artist Tori Wright had exposed skin. Wright illustrated the doll’s skin tone for those outfits brown, much darker than the Dress-A-Doll figure. It made me wonder what the result of dressing Katy in some of these costumes would have been- a sort of strange paper doll semi-black face? I realized that if I had wanted to dress Katy up in these outfits it felt wrong somehow to do so.
So, I thought, maybe they could have had a second dress-a-doll for those outfits that had brown skin. After that thought, I realized I couldn’t recall ever seeing a Dress-A-Doll in these magazines that wasn’t white. I don’t own enough back issues of Paper Doll Studio (no longer in print) or Paper Doll Review to do a complete survey, but the ones I have this was the case.
If the magazine was going to feature an artist, like Renaldo Barnette, whose rendering of black models is such a feature of his work, surely there could be a black Dress-A-Doll, Katy Keene inspired or otherwise? I’d love to see Barnette’s version of Katy Keene. I bet that would be fantastic.
If you don’t subscribe to Paper Doll Review, I would so highly recommend it! There’s some magical about getting a paper magazine in the mail every few months and I’m always so impressed the articles, layout, and amazing paper doll art featured. I took a few pictures of my favorite pages, but I didn’t want to reveal all the good stuff.
Did you get this latest issue of Paper Doll Review? What did you think of the magazine?
Early Italian Renaissance Dress with Topaz
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I have a pretty bad tendency to get super tangled up in myself. For the last few years, my Patrons have been requesting two historical time periods in every poll- the 1980s and Italian Renaissance. In my whole costume book collection, I only own one book on Italian Renaissance clothing and it’s a translation of a 1590s text, so not the most useful when trying to do overview research.
What became abundantly clear to me as I did my digging into the topic was that styles in Italy were not standardized across the entire country, as we know it today. At the time, Italy was a collection of city-states (it remained this way until it unified around the 1870s), so every area had its own fashion which makes things super confusing.
Plus, since most of these are taken from portraits of the period and the identify of the sitters isn’t always known, it’s nigh impossible to be certain where the paintings were painted. Is that lady wearing Naples fashions or those from Rome? Who knows?
Anyway, I got myself all wrapped up in my worry about not being “right” that I avoided drawing anything claiming to be Italian Renaissance for two years. Finally, I realized I was being ridiculous. So, I looked through all the paintings I had collected on my Pinterest Board devoted to Italy. I read what I could find and then I set to work. Here’s what I know- These dresses are based on those in two portraits.
The dress on the left is based on Portrait of a Lady by Pier Francesco Foschi. Dress on the right is based on La Bella by Titian. Both painting date from the 1530s.
Pier Francesco Foschi (1502–1567) was an Italian painter active in Florence. It’s possible the lady in this painting is also from Florence. There are other examples of this dress style here and here. Since those are also unidentified, it’s impossible to know exactly where this combination was being worn. The fur trimmed sleeves, black trimmed bodices, raised waists, long gridles, and high collared camisoles seem to be the common elements.
Meanwhile, on the right, Titian was a Venetian painter whose work is well regarded. The person in this painting is unknown, so the area this style of dress was worn is also unknown. Titian worked all over Italy, which adds to the confusion. The low neckline seems to be somewhat unusual for this period, as most dresses I saw had something filling in that space. In my rendition, I think I made the waist too high, but that’s neither here nor there.
A few things I noticed generally, unlike Tudor dress which is super stiff, the sleeves and skirts of these gowns fall more softly. I wasn’t able to find any full length portraits of these dresses, so I am guessing they fell to the floor without knowing for sure.
There’s some debate if these dresses were worn over some sort of stays. I have no idea, but I do know the flattened bust of these dresses wouldn’t have been possible without either some sort of support in the bodice of the dresses or underneath them. It does seem like wide open necked shifts were often worn and are referenced in several books I have.
Anyway, shoes were snagged from a few different places like here and my favorite- Stepping Through Time by Olaf Goubitz. Of course, from Stepping Through Time focuses on Netherlands and this is Italian, so… mileage may vary.
All in all, while there’s things I would change for next time, I’m okay with that. I have one more Italian renaissance foray to share and I just got a few books on order about the period from the library so… there may yet be more of this to come. I’m sure after I’ve done more research, I’ll approach it differently, but I didn’t want my own need to “be sure” get too much in the way of finishing some new paper dolls.
And if you’d like to get to vote on future polls about “what I should draw next” join us on Patreon.
Talia Tuesday and Her Formal Gowns
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So, there’s a not so fun side to any new paper doll series involving me figuring out how many pieces of clothing I need to draw to fill in a set. Too many and the clothing won’t fit. Too few and it looks weirdly sparse. I’m still sorting out with Talia Tuesday what I need for each set and evening gowns (because they are large pieces) are always a good way to test and get a feel for things.
Plus, I enjoy drawing evening gowns. Who doesn’t?
A few notes- for those of you who haven’t seen Talia here yet, all of her sets are two pages. I mention this because it’s one download, but there are two pages there. I had a question about that last week, so I wanted to clarify. This is the third Talia Tuesday doll, so if you need a friend (or clone, I suppose) there’s another Talia Tuesday with some retro ski clothing you can check out and a friend named Tashi with some fancy winterwear.
Eventually, this collection will expand to have other paper dolls with T names, but I am not there yet. Slow, but steady and all that. I have one other friend for Talia and Tashi ready and a foray into fantasy clothing I’ll want to share soon.
Dolly and Her Dresses for April 2022
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Jade goes Catalog Shopping in the 1980s in today’s paper doll
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A 14th Century Fashion Paper Doll With Citrine
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It has been a while since we had a Jewels and Gemstones 2.0 paper doll, hasn’t it? It feels weird to have taken a two week break from them, but here we are.
So, I actually had this drawn last year, but I needed one more piece of clothing to fill out the set, so I had to draw some last minute shoes which delayed it’s debut until now. But I technically meant this to go along with my 14th century Pearl set. While I never meant for the 14th century to become such a common time period on this site, every time I draw another 14th century paper doll set, I feel like I learn more about the period and get better at rendering it. And I like the learning aspect.
So, Citrine here has two patterned dresses, a veil, a hood, and an extra pair of shoes. The paper doll’s shift is based one illustrated in Roman de Giron le Courtois (fol. 87v.) at the National Library of France from around 1370-1380. I’ve used the same one for my 12th century and 13th century paper dolls, so they can all share clothing. Shifts are not the easiest thing to find reference images for in this era, let me tell you. Her shoes come from Stepping Through Time by Olaf Goubitz (my usual shoe source for anything this early.
The dress on the left is a sleeveless surcoat (unlike a sideless surcoat, sleeveless surcoats didn’t have huge armholes). I based the pattern on it from BNF Arsenal 3481 Ci commence li livres de Lancelot du Lac (fol. 65r). However, I’ve noticed these lines and dots patterns show a lot in medieval manuscripts and I don’t know if that is because they were easy to paint or if that is because they were commonly worn. The sleeveless surcoat shows up all over the place in early 14th century manuscripts. Here it is in Français 761: Artus le Restauré (fol. 25v) from between 1325 and 1350, in BNF Français 1433 Le Chevalier au Lion (fol. 67) from 1300-1350, and in BL Yates Thompson 13 The Taymouth Hours (fol. 107v). I think it is reasonable to say the style was super popular.
The dress on the right is a patterned surcoat with buttons which I sometimes see referred to as a Cotehardie. I don’t know enough to know if that term is correct (it is for men, I know). I was inspired to draw the pattern, because Roman de Giron le Courtois is full of these elaborate patterned dresses. The text is Italian and I wonder if that is why. Anyway, was the specific inspiration for this one was Folio 44v and Folio 75r. I have no idea what the manuscript is about, but there’s a lot of decapitated heads in it. In case you’re wondering, medieval manuscripts use Folio rather than page number, because most of them lack numbered pages.
Now that I’ve done two 1300s Jewels and Gemstones paper dolls (see Pearl here), I feel like I should do something from the 1400s, which is not a period I know as much about. However, the only way to learn is to try and so I guess I’ll add that to my to do list.
On Patreon I have a poll right now about the next time period to tackle. So, if you join us there, you can vote.
Meet Tashi- Talia’s Friend and her Refined Winter Wardrobe
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Meet Talia’s first friend Tashi! My patrons helped me name her. Tashi is a Tibetan name that means “good fortune” and beat out several other names to win the poll I shared on Patreon. Thanks Patrons for helping me name her! I had planned to wait a while to share her, because I had several other Talia dolls finished, but I really wanted to show off her and her fun winter looks, so she jumped the line- as paper dolls sometimes do!
According to my research into Winter trends for this year, I noticed a few things- tapered trousers, pleated skirts, mini-skirts, puffed sleeve sweaters and crop tops with high waisted styles. Interestingly, I also noticed that these lady-like styles got paired with more chunky masculine boots which felt very 1990s. Anyone else getting Doc Marten’s with floral dresses flashbacks? Anyone?
Colorwise, lilac has been an on-trend color for Fall 2021, so I decided to embrace that when I was coloring this paper doll set. I really like pastels for winter, but you have to keep them dusty and vintage feeling, or else you get into saccharine sweet territory.
If you want to get to help me name paper dolls, than join us on Patreon.