The third year of our children's lives has always been marked by the transition from their very first children's (toddler) costume to clothes that resemble adult costumes. Our first children's outfit, which is gender-neutral and was therefore worn by both of our children, was once described in a separate article.The new girl's outfit is quite similar, but it is tailored to the little lady's individual color preferences and based on her mother's costumes.
Since I decided to describe the girl's costume from the whole to the individual pieces separately in separate posts, the entire girl's outfit will be described here, how we came up with it and what inspired us, and the individual pieces of the costume will soon get separate posts with detailed sewing instructions.
Given our interest in costumes from the 15th to 17th centuries, I strove to ensure that as many elements as possible could be combined for this entire period. Thanks to works of art (portraits, illuminations, sculptures, etc.) and preserved documents (last wills and testaments, inventories, letters, literary works, accounts, records of charitable activities, etc.) and specific preserved items (preserved clothing and accessories), this has now been well described in publications devoted to children's costumes, which I will recommend in the text below. In general, the sources mentioned relate more to the upper classes – the poorer the class, the fewer the sources. The costume with accessories, as described below, was inspired by northwestern European costumes from 1485 to 1625 and by my own costumes.
What did I want to achieve?
BRUEGEL, Pieter the Elder. Children´s games
Ibid.
Detail of Bruegel's girls. Preschool children in skirts and dresses/coats. We can see details of coifs and caps, aprons of various colors, and partlets (white cloths covering the chest, resembling bibs, worn by the girl in the red dress at the bottom right). Leather shoes reveal multicolored stockings here and there.
Ibid.
In the next detail, we see girls in dresses with slightly shaped bodices. They wear white coifs, and the girl on the left has a red head covering. Her red dress has removable sleeves that are pinned to her shoulders. A practical blue apron covers the front of her dress. The girl in the gray dress has a dark partlet on her chest and a similar apron in white.
Ibid.
In this detail, we see girls in dresses (coats) with aprons and leather shoes, and again we see partlets/bibs and coifs—the girl on the left has her coif apparently untied, so it is a different type of head covering (the back part of the scarf hangs down her back, they're probably just not tied around the head). Knitted baskets have been a staple since time immemorial (I absolutely love accessories like this.).
The depiction of Hilleke de Roy and the four orphans shows a little girl in a red dress with long sleeves – it should be an outer dress, under which other layers of dress and petticoats are hidden (something between a dress and a coat). The little girl is probably wearing a white shirt – we see a piece of the sleeve protruding from behind the dress and a white collar is attached to the shirt or separately. A typical accessory is an apron and in her hand the little girl is perhaps holding a crumpled coif, which she wants to put on her head after combing her hair. I have already mentioned this image in my post about coifs and heairstyes.The little girl has her hairstyle braided according to the fashion of the time, which is called hair taping, and she probably also has a coif put on her head, modeled after the girl next to her.
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BRUEGEL, Pieter the Elder. The Hay Harvest
Detail from the painting The Hay Harvest by Pieter Bruegel the Elder, which can now be found in the Lobkowicz Palace at Prague Castle. In the famous depiction, we see young girls in dresses (kirtles), of medium length, about calf-length. Shorter lengths are generally most often depicted for working women. We also see white shirts with long sleeves, which served a multi-purpose purpose as a shirt, petticoat, nightgown and underwear. We see leather shoes on their feet and head covering on their heads. The girl or woman, with her back turned, has a basket, detachable sleeves and a blue apron for work with hanging edges.
SOMER, Paulus van. A Child with a Rattle
From the upper classes, we see these clothes in a pompous design worthy of their status - a dress/coat made of more expensive fabric and with more elaborate details and decorations. The apron is decorative and reaches to the neck - this upper part of the covering (longer aprons) can be seen in many children's clothes regardless of the status. The little girl has a decorative coif and cuffs, on her feet low, decorative slip-on shoes resembling fashionable shoes that were also worn by adults. She holds a rattle in her hand - a very common detail in paintings with children of toddler and preschool age.
Dutch (Friesland) School. Portrait of a Girl, Aged One, with a Basket of Strawberries
Another girl in a long-sleeved dress/cloak. Underneath the dress, you can see a decorative petticoat, a decorative apron, and a cap with a decorative rim, or rather a cap worn over a decorative coif. The girl has a basket of strawberries, a rattle, black shoes on her feet, and red beads around her neck. These beads, along with rattles, are also often depicted in portraits of children, and according to Veronika Pilná, these "strings of red beads" are probably decorations made of sea corals, which were supposed to change color if the child fell ill. This description is found in the publication Clothing in West Bohemia 15th - 17th century (p. 112), and we can see that this was a detail common across European countries. Pilná states on the same page that even such small children wore lace collars and decorations on festive occasions. She also assumes, based on iconography, that children of the same sex were given identical clothing (p. 113), as evidenced by abundant foreign and domestic iconography. "From the age when they stopped wearing toddler skirts, boys and girls had clothing made identically down to the last detail..." she states.
AVERCAMP, Hendrick. Study of a Standing Man and Child
Depiction of a poor girl, again in practical clothing (dress/coat) with an apron, low shoes, and a warm cap on her head. A petticoat can be seen under her dress.
BRUEGHEL, Jan the Elder. Country Wedding
Detail of girls dressed like their mother in skirt, waistcoat, petticoat, coif, and low leather shoes. One blue apron and warmer stockings can be seen. The girl (boy?) sitting on the wall also has a cap.
BRUEGHEL, Jan the Elder. Country Life
Detail from Bruegel's painting containing, among other things, the same characters as in The Hay Harvest, but here with children playing in the grass wearing only shirts – the girl has a long shirt, coif, and shoes modeled after the older girls and women in the painting.
VICTORS, Jan. Het kleden der wezen
In the painting Dressing the Orphans, we see a girl in a brown dress (kirtle), a white long-sleeved shirt, and her hair traditionally braided in the hair taping style. The dress is practically shorter. The girl in the yellow waistcoat is putting on brown stockings and we can also see her white shirt and the detail of her lacing. She is holding laces in her hand, which she will probably use to tie her stockings below the knee, and she is wearing a white coif on her head. A naked girl is putting on a white shirt while a girl in a coat, skirt, and also a white shirt watches her from behind. The girl in the right corner is probably also having her hair braided in the traditional taping hair style and is dressed similarly.
VICTORS, Jan. Feeding the Orphans
Slightly older girls can be seen in the painting Feeding the Orphans, where almost all of them are wearing black dresses with long sleeves, white coifs, and scarves over their shoulders. White shirts and partlets are also visible. In all of these paintings, we see the fashion of gathered skirts, and it is clear that young girls were already dressing in the style of older, adult women. My favorite detail in this painting is the decorations hanging from the corners of the scarves—the tassels.
LE NAIN brothers. A Woman and Five Chlidren
A Woman and Five Children by the Le Nain brothers, who often depicted the poorer classes and large families. Although it is not clear from the painting whether the figures in dresses are girls or boys, given the gender-neutral style of clothing at the time, it is clear that the dresses resemble adult clothing. We can see that the children wore long white shirts, skirts, and bodices in various colors. The bodices are sewn from different colored pieces, presumably to save fabric and use up scraps. This is also documented for adults, whether for reasons of saving fabric or color fashion. The bodices are sewn with closures in places other than the chest – it is not clear whether on the sides or at the back. We see a classic skirt slit below the navel, a white shirt underneath, and low-heeled leather shoes with laces. There are also accessories – white scarves, stockings, and one figure has a kind of white headband around her head, probably a linen scarf that has been rolled up or otherwise shaped from some kind of cap. The figure on the far left has a scarf sticking out from behind her neckline, so it may just be tucked behind her neckline and serving as a bib.
LE NAIN, Antoine. Peasant Children
In one of Antoine Le Nain's other paintings, we find a nice detail in the patched clothing of the girl on the left—her skirt has been repaired or sewn from several pieces of fabric, and her coat sleeve has a patch on the elbow. Otherwise, her clothing is similar in style to that described above. We also see a smaller child in a dress apparently sewn from a single color of fabric (perhaps there was enough single-color fabric left over for such a small figure, as was the case with our toddlers).
LE NAIN brothers. The Villager Piper
The painting with children and a street artist, again by the Le Nain brothers, depicts a genre scene in which poor children are dressed like adults. Two girls are wearing head coverings – a coif and a scarf wrapped around the head – and both are wearing kirtles (dresses with bodices). The barefoot girl on the right shows a white shirt, a tattered piece of clothing, but with a clear pattern – a bodice with a skirt and sleeves made of fabrics of different colors: the skirt is beige/light brown, the bodice is also brown, the bodice straps are red, and the sleeves are yellow/beige. Under the skirt is a dark-colored petticoat and a white shirt. A partlet protects the front of the girl's chest. The girl in the shadows reveals only the upper part of her dress – a bodice with sleeves, again in different colors, and a white shirt.
Step by step
Shirt
I sewed/cut several copies of the shirt for the girl so that she would have something to change into if she fell into a puddle, got wet, or had some other wet accident.
As with the boys' version, I again drew inspiration from my favorite publication, The Tudor Child: Clothing and Culture 1485 to 1625. The pattern is very simple and can also be used for adults. I chose the simplest option possible, as this will make it easier to adjust in the coming years. In other words, the shirt is designed to grow, not only in terms of the sleeves and overall length, but also in terms of the circumference and shoulder seams, which I will try to describe later in a separate post.
I also used instructions for sewing on details from the publication Seventeenth Century Women's Dress Patterns, which describes the process of sewing on individual parts of the shirt based on preserved examples.
The pattern consists of two main panels – rhombuses, one of which has a neckline, two rectangles – sleeves, and two squares – underarm gussets. According to the publication, this particular pattern is suitable for the period from 1485 to 1625 for all social classes, with the difference that for the lower class, it is necessary to pay attention to the simplicity of the decoration, i.e., it is appropriate to omit ruffles, flounces, and cuffs.
The shirt has a simple neckline and straight sleeves. For smaller children, less decorative shirts with the option of lengthening are more worthwhile, so I made the sleeves with almost 20 cm of extra fabric, as well as the overall length of the shirt.
Our little village girl in the open-air museum in Vysoký Chlumec.
Kirtle
I sewed the dress, so called kirtle, inspired by the girls from Bruegel's Children's games mentioned above, and I drew the pattern again from the publication The Tudor Child: Clothing and Culture 1485 to 1625. The picture above shows our woolen dresses in colors chosen by my daughter, and below is the model from the publication – Bruegel's little girl and a kirtle sewn by historical costume designer Nina Mikhaila, who is the co-author of The Tudor Tailor book series.
The little kirtle is made of very comfortable wool, which I bought as leftover material in Belgrade by the kilo. Since my daughter really liked this color, I had to figure out how to make do with the fabric and still create a growing costume. In the end, this was reflected in the waist, where the skirt is not too gathered, so it did not need to be very wide. However, the result is faithful to the models from the publication and Bruegel's girls.
The linen lining is, of course, pink, as requested by my daughter.
The kirtle fastens with brass hooks.
We owe this snapshot from Vysoký Chlumec to Páv Lučištník. I would like to return to the kirtle soon in a separate post and describe the process of sewing it, which is suitable not only for children's kirtles, but also for adults/women. The kirtle is suitable for the period from 1485 to 1625 for all social classes.
And this snapshot is from Honza Dvořák (HD-foto) from the battle at Lomnice (Slověnice) – thank you!
Coat / warm dress
As a second layer, warm enough for colder weather, I chose an outer dress, or rather a warmer coat. Knowing that our daughter loves dresses, I couldn't have sewn anything better. It was practical for several reasons: dresses/coats are easy to sew and our daughter can wear them over a shirt and petticoat/kirtle, giving her a very warm layer for winter. To her delight, I decided to use fabric that was really enough for a very gathered skirt, so she has really gathered pleats that she can twirl around all day long. (This is probably one of the greatest joys for little girls.) The picture above is again a photo of a girl in a costume from the workshop of N. Mikhaila, whose detailed instructions can be found in the publication The Tudor Child: Clothing and Culture 1485 to 1625.
The coat is made of heavier, coarser wool. It is fully lined with light blue-gray linen.
We wore the coat for the first time at the Libušín battle, where it was sufficient without undergarments. With spring just beginning, it was the best choice. Since we were all dressed in late 15th century attire for the Libušín battle, and these dress/coat is suitable for the period from 1485 to 1625, we were able to use it for this event as well. According to N. Mikhaila, the pattern is suitable for all social classes except the elite during this period.
When making this dress, I tried for the first time the laborious task of sewing a densely pleated skirt onto the bodice. The result is beautiful, fully functional, and comfortable, which every parent will appreciate when it comes to children's costumes.
The coat was made with plenty of material for growing in the sleeves and overall length, and has already been lengthened since it was sewn to the maximum sleeve length. The width is always slightly larger at the beginning of all my costumes, as I know that children grow really fast and I try to do the first enlargement, i.e. lengthening and loosening, only after about two years. Therefore, the coat was a little looser at the beginning of wear, but the pattern itself is also supposed to be like that so that the young lady can squeeze into all the other layers underneath.
The coat fastens with brass hooks, and I will soon be preparing a more detailed tutorial on its overall creation from the abundant photographic material.
Headwear
From toddlerhood, both of our children wore coifs as their basic headwear. I sewed countless coifs for myself, my children, and my husband (to go with his 15th-century costume). When the children were small, it was the only thing that stayed on their heads, thanks to the ties (they threw everything else off). The coif is very simple in design, and I believe that even the most novice reenactor can make it. For more information on women's coifs and patterns, I refer you to my older article below.
In general, I think that the youngest reenactors should choose their own headgear so that there is at least some certainty that they will wear it. Our children always wore coifs when I wore mine, which was all the time, as I never really take it off. Under the coif, I braided my daughter's hair in a period hairstyle – braids wrapped around her head/taping hair.
Thanks to her hairstyle, my daughter could also have a completely period-appropriate look even without any head covering. I wrote about this hairstyle and various types of coifs in the above-mentioned post about coifs and how to wear them..
We would like to thank my mom for this photo from Pecka castle.
This hairstyle works well on little girls with medium-length hair as well. If the little lady can sit still for a moment, you can easily create a twisted braid using a single long strand. I have fond memories of this event – Soldiers in the Village – an event with the historical group Die Kompanie and Danar at the open-air museum in Vysoký Chlumec.
When my daughter's first hair grew and I tried to braid it before an event, it looked like this. With each subsequent braiding and practice, the braids become tighter and neater (provided that the child stays still during braiding). So that you don't have to read an article about coifs and period hairstyles, I will try to describe the process very briefly in bullet points:
1) I comb the hair into two halves on the left and right sides and get ready to braid two pigtails à la Pippi Longstocking.
2) I take a string about 1 m long and braid it into a single braid halfway along its length – when braiding, I treat it as a piece of hair (one end of the string hangs down).
3) At the end of the braid, I wrap the string around the end of the braid and tie it in a knot to secure the braid.
4) I repeat that on the other side, with the second braid.
5) I lift up the ends of the braids, where the string should hang below the knots, wrap them around the ears and tie them around the head.
6) For a firmer hairstyle, the ends of the strings can be wrapped around each braid before tying, threading the string through several places at the roots of the hair.
My daughter's favorite headwear was initially a bonnet, which I sewed for my son after much hesitation. I hesitated to sew it because it no longer fits into the Czech environment, but when we used it, we got the look of a little Tudor girl, which would not have been theoretically impossible in the Czech lands at that time, so I sewed the beret because of my great fondness for this nice head accessory. Once again, the inspiration comes from none other than Bruegel's work Children's Games, where we find abundant depictions of bonnets on children's heads.
It proved particularly useful in the rain, when it really protected the head well – it is sewn from warm wool and lined with linen. I am planning to create a tutorial for it, so hopefully you will find it on the blog soon.
The bonnet is warm and can be worn over a coif, providing double protection from the cold, which works very well in strong winds and cold weather, especially because the coifs also covers the child's ears.
Just like my son, my daughter loves hats, and this one is currently her favorite. She borrowed it from me, and I'm afraid it's been confiscated permanently. The hat is smaller, and I bought it in Grolle, Holland. It has a popular period pointed shape, and the advantage is that it has strings for tying. I used to tie it at the back of my head, but I tie it under my daughter's neck so that it doesn't fly off. It's a handy trick for children's hats. The hat is decorated with a silk ribbon, which I also bought at a stall in Grolle, and its small floral embroidery apparently caught my daughter's attention. Although I will probably have to buy a new hat, I am glad that my daughter wears it—there is no better headgear for rain and winter, and it is also a universal size (she will soon outgrow the bonnet).
Since my daughter likes everything her mother wears, she also likes my coifs, of which I have several, and whose designs I also wrote about in my article on comfort in coifs. This type is inspired by Dutch paintings and is still too big for my daughter, but thanks to the tie at the back, it stays on very well.
A knitted hat is also suitable for children. You can be inspired either again on Children´s games, where different headgear is also included, or surviving caps, many of which are from the Tudor period (basically what we see at Bruegel's), can also be found on the museum's website. I've made a collage above for comparison: top left is a knitted cap we owe to our Balkan aunt, which could be such a suitable alternative to what's on the right - a child at Bruegel's games with a similar cap, and below - extant cap located in the Victoria & Albert Museum – densely knitted, woolen, very warm and waterproof, which protected the neck and ears. More similar hats are preserved, but for a child I find the ear hat the most practical, which is why I always have this woolen one with me at the event as a reserve.
Scarves and aprons
As we can see in Bruegel's painting, aprons were an essential accessory for little girls. I consider the apron to be an absolutely indispensable part of the costume, not only because of its practicality in the kitchen, but also because it adds variety to the overall look of the costume and because women wore it regardless of their status – it was an accessory that had many functions, and I would like to mention its significance in a separate article.
For the girl's apron, I chose mustard-colored linen, which I liked the most and which is very practical in terms of color when it gets dirty.
The pattern is very simple – it is a thin strip of linen sewn onto the shorter side of the rectangle. The corners of the upper edge are removed from the strip to create a period apron with hanging edges.
For cooler weather, I always have various linen scarves or a single-color blanket handy. When it rains or is windy, my daughter and I often wear a scarf around our necks and over our shoulders, which we usually tie around our waists with apron strings so that it doesn't flap around. Such accessories can then be layered as desired.
We have linen scarves in several variants: larger triangles, smaller ones, thinner and lighter linen, and also this one, for example, which is warmer for colder days. In this photo from Pecka Castle, you can see that it was time to lengthen my daughter's sleeves. We would like to thank to photografh Frýzl for this photo.
© Frýzl
Shoes and stockings
Girls' shoes and stockings were also not very different from boy's so after my son and daughter outgrew their first (sewn) shoes/slippers , I switched them to brown leather shoes/slippers bought online—the speed at which their feet were growing meant I could no longer keep up with sewing shoes at home.
Unless the children are running around barefoot, I try to make sure they have socks and shoes that are as period-appropriate as possible. The girls' socks and shoes did not differ in color or style from those worn by adults. In the collage from the documentation above, we can see low leather shoes worn by both the lower and upper classes. My daughter usually wears earth-colored tights under her costume. On colder days, we keep her feet warm with knitted socks, which we layer over the tights.
I already made collages with socks for boy´s outfits, so here is the girls' version, as we have these new yellow knitted socks now. As I wrote earlier, I would look for socks in the grandmother's closet or have them knitted by someone skilled (to order, for example, on the handmade portal Etsy, where you can also find ready-made pairs). The collage above our socks comes from the website of a London museum - the linked image shows preserved Tudor knitted accessories.
For inspiration: three preserved children's shoes with perforated side leather tabs for lace-up - top left low shoes/clog with leather upper, top right shoes with a visibly folded tongue and below one with decoration for the little countess, but again similar in type.
As I mentioned earlier, due to lack of time, I bought leather slip-on-shoes that don't detract too much from the authenticity of the costume. The children liked them so much that we bought them as long as they were available in the right size. They are definitely suitable for such small children because they can easily put them on and take them off by themselves, so I don't have to run around tying shoelaces all the time. The leather slippers/slip-on-shoes like these stay dry inside for a long time, even when walking on wet grass, and both of our children love them.
It is also possible to improvise with older shoes or, for example, inexpensive trainers. I first tried sewing leather onto cheaper slip-on shoes from Pepco.
The latest experiment was transforming modern barefoot shoes into period shoes. I had long been motivated by a desire to provide children with suitable footwear for running on courtyard cobblestones and other hard surfaces. These are also warmer canvas shoes with waterproof rubber soles. Above is a photo of my son's worn-out sneakers, and below is the result.
I also remade a pair of shoes for my son.
Accessories
What else does a little reenacting girl need?
- Hair ties and a comb so that someone can braid her hair into a traditional hairstyle
- A doll – preferably a small twin
- A basket in which she will place all her treasures, especially flowers
- A bowl, spoons, and preferably a mug, which we don't have yet.
- Balls - so she can play with other rascals
I bought the comb for myself, but in recent years I have used it more to comb my daughter's hair. According to historian Ruth Goodman, the denser side of this comb was used to comb dirt out of the hair (as a kind of ancient hair washing), and the sparser side was used for combing after the dirt had been combed out. (From the BBC program Tudor Monastery Farm.)
I will soon be writing instructions for this simple doll based on a historical pattern. The pattern also comes from the book The Tudor Child: Clothing and Culture 1485 to 1625.
The basket is an integral part of the outfit. We usually bring it home with a collection of flowers from a historical event.
Children's tableware is a must. I don't have any mugs for the children yet, so they drink from their favorite sports bottles, which we keep in a linen bag. I would definitely like to get them some, as they like to drink from ours.
My daughter carries balls to play with in her basket. Leather balls were the first period toys I made for children. The inspiration came from nowhere else but again from Bruegel´s Children Games and at the same time archaeological findings that show us different types of marbles and balls. Balls from Harborough Market held together with clay and are lined with cloth or leather. Tennis ball from the London Museum is made of leather with dog hair filling.
Our very first children's costume: a coat, dress/petticoat, wool socks, coif, and leather shoes. We loved wearing it, and it served two children very well. Now we have a new outfit for a girl. Just a reminder: I once described the sewing of the first children's (gender-neutral) outfit on my blog, including a detailed description of all its accessories.
What did I use?
For the shirt:
For the kirtle
- A soft medium-weight purple-burgundy wool fabric purchased as a remnant at a Belgrade store selling Italian fabrics by the kilo, Italtes.
- Pink linen made from fabric scraps supplied by my friend Galia, who sews under the Galia Couture brand.
- Dark red/burgundy and gray linen thread from Sartor
- Brass wire from Manumi for bending hooks for fastening
For the coat / warm dress
For the apron
For a bonnet:
- Gray wool from the remains of fabrics of unknown origin
- Soft beige and gray linen from the remains of fabrics of unknown origin
- Gray linen thread
For the balls:
- Remnants of thin leather
- Remnants of woolen fabrics
- Brown cotton thread
- Brown linen blacksmith thread
For a doll
- Cotton balls with faces (or without) from stationery stores
- Stick, skewer, or chopsticks
- Wire
- Beige/skin color linen remnants
- Pieces of worsted from any haberdashery or remnants of woolen fabrics
- Brown wool yarn for hair and any other color for braiding plaits—I have some from trifolium.dyeing.
- Hot glue gun
- Remnants of fabric for little outfit
For other accessories:
- Remnants of white linen and white linen thread for coif and scarves
- A piece of braid for braiding the hair
Non-products:
- A hat
- Knitted cap
- Thin leather slip-on shoes
- Knitted socks
- Cotton tights
- Comb
- Wooden dishes
What will I do differently next time?
- I will buy a tankard!
- I will add more toys!
- I will pay even more attention to color preferences when choosing fabrics and consult on details of the pattern, e.g. my daughter wants her apron to be pink next time...
Highlights:
- A child can be outfitted from head to toe in "growing" items if the fit is appropriate. Some pieces of clothing are difficult to sew in a "growing"style - for example, instead of a doublet, it is better to choose something that may not fit exactly and correspond to the fashionable silhouette of the time.
- All children's clothing should be as comfortable as possible and easy to put on and take off, so that the child can help himself at any time.
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I recommend having more spare layers. My rule is to have one spare item for each piece of clothing.
- Pay attention to children's color preferences, as this often makes wearing costumes easier. In addition to color, think about other details that children like—for example, full skirts, lacing or hooks, etc.