Dress in Italian Painting 1460-1500
by Elizabeth Birbari
W&J Mackay Limited, Great Britain: 1975
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This little book weighs in at 110 pages and is just a bit bigger
than a trade paperback. That doesn't stop it from being enormously useful.
Ms. Birbari, the author, has a MFA degree from U of Texas, and has been a
costume designer for many years. Her book is written for theatre designers
more than anything else -- without getting distracted, she succinctly sums
up how to use portraits to glean details about Italian dress.
Focusing mainly on Florentine school painters, the book has a
sizable center section of black and white portrait details. The book
itself refers to them in the text. Some of these you might have seen
already, but a lot of these were new -- and of the ones I knew already,
details are focused on that I hadn't seen before. Even now, having had the
book a year or two, just flipping through it as I write this review, I see
new things I hadn't seen before and which help me (like whether or not to
put cuffs on my camicia -- the answer to which is "no", incidentally).
Birbari's biggest talent is her eye for detail. I don't know if it's
possible to come away from this book without gaining some skill at
analyzing portraits for costume details. She does include some patterns
(you will need to know how to blow them up to size and alter them; they
are gridded), but not many. Also, you may not agree with all her analyses;
research has changed a few things since this book was written nearly 30
years ago.
Will you want to buy this book? If you are interested in costume of
this time period and area, then I'd say if you have the chance and the
funds, definitely. If US$60-150 is out of your range (it's small, but rare
and out of print -- so it's pricey and hard to find), then most college
libraries seem to have it or can ILL it, and you can photocopy it easily
enough (try greyscale color copying for the center sections -- those
portrait details are not to be missed). I definitely do not regret in the
least getting my copy, though I know that others have bought copies and
been disappointed -- perhaps its length or tightness of focus was
off-putting.
Book Chapter Details
Introduction
The Importance of Dress in 15th-Century
Italy: Social implications of costume. Stories of historical clothes
horses Battista Petrucci, the Este sisters Isabella and Beatrice, Bianca
Maria Sforza, and their mother, Leonora the Duchess of Ferrara. Mourning
clothes and sumptuary laws figure into these tales, as well as anecdotes
about embroidery patterns.
Development of Fashion in Italy,
1460-1500: Wardrobe size, information about the Guild of the
Rigattieri (second-hand clothes dealers), and layers of clothing in men's
clothes. Sleeve trends. How the silhouette changed over the book's period.
Concise diagrams of doublets, over-tunics, sleeves, and closure schemes
for doublets. Women's clothes: layers, how women's fashion mirrored men's
clothing, and how the silhouette changed over time. The general notion of
Spanish influence on clothes.
Textures, Layers and Linings: How to
tell all of these from portraits. Definitions of same. How to use motion
depicted in portraits to ascertain weight of fabric. How men and women
both always show a bit of the layer beneath at the neckline, sleeves, and
skirt. Arrangement of over-tunic and over-dresses. Much discussion of
details in portraits, including some by Ghirlandaio and Piero della
Francesca. Linings and hose -- how hose are attached to doublets and why
their top facings are very important.
The Man's Shirt: Discussion of the
camicia and how to wear it underneath the doublet and overgown. Discussion
of undershirts as seen in portraiture. Weight of fabric discussed: the
heavier the fabric, the less there is in the shirt; the lighter the
fabric, the more of it there is and the more voluminous the shirt. Length
of shirt: if narrowly cut, side seams are split for ease of movement.
Basic pattern concept of T-shape, a basic rectangular shirt. Necklines.
Neckbands.
The Woman's Chemise: Length and weight of
fabric discussed. A basic pattern discussed and given on a grid. Change in
cut of chemise and advent of embroidery on them. Necklines discussed, and
how they changed over time (and within the same time, fashion variations).
And last but not least, a translated song to be sung by Italian retailers
to sell capes, gowns, and linen.
Doublet and Hose: How they were worn in
layers. Lining of the doublet. How hose were attached to it. Length of the
doublet and how it changed over time. Back seams and neckband
construction. Extent of knitting discussed, as well as the use of woven
textiles in hose-making. Seam placement in hose.
Women's Dresses: Brief discussion of
terminology. Guilds that sold dresses. Layering of dress and over-dress,
and length of each. Discussion of dresses with and without waist seams.
Rectangular-cut patterns and circular-cut ones. Fabric amounts -- if more
fabric, probably would employ waist/bodice construction as more material
could be pleated into the skirt that way. Box pleats and their use in
various portraits. Cartridge pleats. Closure schemes -- front opening,
side openings. Neckline sizes and shapes. Theories on types of necklines:
drawstring, pleating into a band, ruffles. Dating paintings by varieties
of neckline.
Men's Sleeves: Shape of sleeves, one and
two-piece construction, seam placement and split sleeve construction.
Quilting of forearm sleeve pieces. Unjoined upper/lower sleeves.
Women's Sleeves: Despite women's clothes
generally following male fashion, sleeves were more varied. Assertions
regarding dresses with no sleeves (in which case the camicia sleeves alone
appeared through the armholes). How ties worked. Seam placement. Simple
pattern diagram. Some commong fitting problems caused by improper cutting.
Overdress sleeve construction. Slashing. Split sleeves. Gridded patterns
for T-shaped dress, including sleeves. Divided sleeve.
Fastenings: Eyelets and cord, lacing
schemes, fancy metal eyelet holes. Metal points/tips on lacing cords.
Buttons, either conventional modern types or using loops, and their
shapes. Brief discussion of hooks and eyes.
The Head-veil: Color, material, and how
they were worn and by whom. Gridded pattern for a kerchief worn over the
shoulders.
The Tailoring of Men's Clothes:
Circle-cut outer garments -- how to get the pleats looking right.
The Tailoring of Women's Clothes:
Gathering stitches, gridded patterns for various dresses. Vertical darts.
Working with a patterned fabric.
Adjustments and Arrangements of Dress:
How artists shifted garments, sometimes in stilted ways, to show off
design and decorative elements. How people adjusted their clothes when
they had to exert themselves or when they needed extra freedom of
movement.
Discrepancies in Painted Dress: Now that
we've spent an entire book discussing how to glean costuming details from
portraits, now we learn when not to trust portraits and how to analyze
critically.
Conclusion: Foreign clothes, vestments,
and thoughts on the realism of Renaissance painting.
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