Wool Gown with Velvet Guards
Persona Pentathlon Item 2: Clothing/Garb
A gown in the style sometimes called a ‘Flanders’ gown, worn by women of the middling and gentle sort in the latter part of the 17th century. It was inspired primarily by the gowns worn by three of the women in Lucas de Heere’s work, Three London Citizens and a Farmer, from ‘Description of England, Scotland, and Ireland’.
The gown is executed in dark gray double cloth wool with silk velvet trim. It is interlined with heavyweight undyed linen, padded with wool melton, and lined with handkerchief weight undyed linen. All stitches are hand sewn using relatively heavyweight silk thread. The pattern was drafted based on the proportions for a straight front doublet as they appear in the tailors’ manuals of Alcega, Freyle, and Burguen and analyzed by Matthew Gnagy in The Modern Maker, Volume 2.