One of the next major projects to work on is a new set of garb for K, who loves his 12th century French stuff, but on further research, was really taken by 12th-13th century Persian garments.
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| Pre-intensive research, so take pretty much everything with a generous helping of salt. |
He likes bright colors and lots of them, at least for medieval clothing, so I picked up some incredibly bright orange silk for the long-sleeved coat, which we're going to make reversible with light green linen (the pink in the doodle was before I'd checked the yardage of the linen in my stash...not enough to fully line a coat). Instead of the buttons I've drawn, it appears most garments were tied with self strips, so we'll do that, too, and make the sleeves long enough to bunch up.
I also got some light silk suiting for an outer coat, this one with a crossover front and shorter, wider sleeves—a style that seems to have been brought west by the Mongols as they made contact with Persia. Again, instead of the button shown in the doodle, this will be tied with self fabric strips at the side, and will be reversible with gold linen. I'm eager to try some stamped designs, and K's willing to have his garb be the guinea pig, so the silk suiting will get a resist pattern stamped and be vat-dyed in indigo, and the orange silk will get a simpler red printed design—possibly little quarter-sized circles.
The linen sides are planned to be plain right now, though like all things, that may change before actual sewing begins.
I have two yards of striped green and taupe silk taffeta (an unlikely fabric type and pattern, but I have seen striped trousers in a
very few illustrations, so I know they existed) I'm going to see about eking salwar out of, while K learns a bit about handsewing by making more practical green linen salwar from a simpler pattern.
Shirts are largely a mystery in this period, so I'm going to rely heavily on other people's conjectures that seem sound enough for my purposes and make a long sleeved, mid-thigh-length shirt that can be worn tucked in (as some presumably lower-class figures in later illustrations wear their shirts) or left loose. It'll have a slit neck with a tie closure, to make the high, horizontal neckline we
do see in illustrations while leaving room to get the head through.
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| Silk suiting, seen through a powerful little magnifier. |
There was some question about the fiber content of the silk suiting and taffeta I'd bought, so I did burn tests on both, as well as on some silk yarn I had at home, and those suggested at least a high silk content, if not pure silk. Under magnification, there are some fibers that are suspiciously translucent-looking, which suggests some synthetic content; silk fibers are opaque. All that said, between the burn test and the potential for my eyes to be wrong, I'm satisfied to call it at least
mostly silk.
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| Silk taffeta, through the same magnifier. |
The taffeta was slightly more complex to test visually—since I have only
barely enough to achieve pants, I can't afford to destroy enough of the fabric to get a good look at the warp threads. However, the burn test again suggested high silk content, and the weft threads are definitely silk, so this is
at least 50% silk, and likely to be 100%. Also in the photo above, you can see the differing weave structures of the stripes: the lower/left stripe is a twill weave, and looks green to the naked eye, while the upper/right stripe is plain weave that appears taupe.
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