A Beige Satin Farsetto

I think the above picture is particularly DASHING! However, next time I do one of these, the lower sleeve (the tight bit) seems to go past the elbow in the paintings I'm looking at. This lower sleeve comes just to the elbow.

I think the above photo proves that you really do need a doublet underneath these outer garments. The doublet does make a major difference. Some men will just wear their fluffy white undershirts under a jerkin/outer garment, but I've seen so many examples of it done correctly that they look underdressed to me now. The fluffy white undershirt is the equivalent of a white undershirt a man wears under his suit shirt, and the doublet is the equivalent of the suit shirt itself. The cioppa/giornea/whatever worn over it is roughly equivalent to a suit jacket.

Now, you don't need the doublet if your outer garment already has close-fitting sleeves built into it already. Some paintings indicate that some men wore these closer-fitting garments with doublets as well, but I see others where I can't see any doublets at all.

This doublet is a basic mid-period Renaissance design, taken from Period Patterns' #43 Italian Renaissance package. It is made of light beige polyester satin, lined in off-white cotton. It features a low standing collar, a v-back construction, and two-piece sleeves, plus a little skirty bit at the bottom.

The doublet closes in front with about 20 pairs of 1/2" brass rings, gotten from Calico Corners for about 5cents each. They are spaced about 3/4" apart and laced up with black lacing cord gotten from Grannde Garbe (in these pictures I think we just used crochet string because I hadn't gotten the cording yet) -- a good buy there, about 30cents a yard -- I got 20 yards... Additional rings are sewn into the doublet waistband for the points, which attach to the black hose (like garter belts).

The lower sleeves are interfaced in medium-to-heavy for body -- they really need to support those rings. There are five pairs of rings in each sleeve, which is about normal.

The rings were sewn on without holes being punched. Each ring was tacked down in three places, with the fourth side open along the lacing edge. It worked out very nicely.

The undershirt, which is quite fluffy, can poof out through the holes, but as soon as you move, it unpoofs! That's no fun! So I sewed a 18"-wide rectangle of thin white cotton, identical to that used in the undershirt, into the lower sleeve, tacking it along the edges of the slit. Presto, insta-poof, and it DOES stay where it's told.

It's very snug across the torso.

In these two shots you can see the v-back construction. For the record, this sucked to make. But it does look nice.