Turkish
Masquerade Costumes,
2016
L'Amusette's annual masked ball had a "Orientale"-theme this
year, very fashionable on the period. The theme encouraged
making new exotic costumes, or rather was a good excuse to do
so.
At first I considered the obvious choise of making some sort of
a Robe a'la Turque, perhaps one that I could wear over my
Chemise a'la Reine, but it's not one of my favorite styles so I
could never really muster enough enthusiasm to make it.
Meanwhile my first plan for Jarno was a Banyan worn with his
regular 18th century stuff, but a google search gave me all
sorts of outlandish ideas instead. I realized that Jarno would
look great in a full Sultan-esque Turkish costume, and actually
the female costumes of the period looked kinda interesting too.
Well, of course this was the kind of "wear it just once"-idea
that I'm trying to avoid nowadays with the limited storage space
in our apartment, but it was just too tempting. I could also
perhaps give myself leave to make these outfits quick and dirty,
with machine sewing and crappy, mostly repurposed or stash
materials.
French ambassador
Charles Gravier de Vergennes in Ottoman dress,
painted by Antoine de Favray, 1766, Pera Museum, Istanbul
Jarno's
costume was mostly inspired by Antoine de Favray´s portraits
of European men in Turkish dress. The most striking elements
in the outfit are the luxurious, regal satin robe trimmed
and lined with fur and the high fez-type headdress with a
turban wrapped around it.
Antoine de Favray, A
European in Turkish Costume
A perfect reconstruction of
the magnificent robe with the fur lining would be too heavy and
warm to wear, not to mention expensive. I wanted to keep the fur
collar and trim on the sleeves and front edges however, but
settled for a fake fur. In the end I even chose a blatantly fake
looking, totally ridiculous striped fur, which doesn't even
resemble any real animal (with the possible exception of a large
number of perfectly identical English Butterfly rabbits).
Anyway, I sort of reasoned that it it would in some crazy way
work in the carnevalistic fancy dress-context.
As I wanted to make things
fast and easy, I used a readily available robe pattern with a
shaped raglan sleeve and a two-piece sleeve. I thought it would
make figuring out the pattern for the collar easy (which it
did), but it made the sleeve appear way too fitted, which I
should really have anticipated. A simple T-shaped cut would have
been more correct, but I realized this only after having cut the
lining.
I had lots of lightweight purple polyester
taffeta in the stash, as it had been dirt cheap in some
clearance sale ages ago. I had used the same fabric in blue for
some of my early projects, but felt it was too obviously
polyester for any more serious costuming. This would be the
perfect project to get rid of some of it. Of course I asked
Jarno beforehand if he was volunteer to wear purple.
The taffeta was so lightweight that it would
need some kind of interlining to look even remotely like silk
satin lined with fur. I had a bargain bin piece of cream satin
for the lining, but it wouldn't be enough for the whole robe
anyway. I salvaged an old double bed sheet worn threadbare in
the center, cut it up and pieced the interlining from the edges
that were still usable, reasoning that the satin would support
the more fragile parts. I also had to do some serious piecing
with the satin, but I managed to get a satin lining in the
fronts and the back hem almost up to the armhole. The upper back
and the sleeves were cut from a grey thrift store curtain, as
they don't really show when the robe is on. The cotton sheet
interlining was some extra work, but gives the robe a nice,
heavier drape.
The fur took up most
of the budget and also, not unsurprisingly, was the most
annoying part of the sewing. On the front edges the fur pulled
the lightweight taffeta no matter how carefully I pinned it.
At the shop the stripey fur had looked funny, but it was not
so much fun to draft a pattern, cut and sew about twenty
individual pieces of fake fur with a stripe in the center of
each one. The fake fur was quite manageable to assemble with
overlock, but no matter how careful I thought I had been with
cutting and sewing the collar did not match the pattern in the
end. Happily it was too large rather than otherways, so at the
back it was easy to leave on piece out. The slightly shaped
shoulder seam was a bit more tricky. The knit-based fake fur
also pulled to one side so at the center back the stripes are
not quite vertical. In the end I managed to get a reasonably
right shaped collar to fit the rest of the robe.
The cute bunny in the picture was not
harmed during the making of this costume.
I bag lined the robe
with machine, adding a tape in the neckline seam to prevent
the weight of the garment from stretching it shapeless. I did
a little bit of handsewing on the inside of the fur trim on
the front edges to get them fold neatly, though.
I didn't feel like spending the time or money on a proper
turkish tunic, so poor Jarno had to make do with one of his
14th century linen tunics instead. It doesn't look that much
wrong with the striped fur, anyway. I had also made him
striped pajamas pants for Christmas with this outfit in mind.
For
the fez I made a base for the wall piece of two layers of
felt with four vertical cable tie bones. Next I added a
layer of wadding that came from an old bedding and finally a
top layer of red velvet I happened to have in the stash. I
had beforehand basted vertical lines on the velvet piece at
regular intervals, and sewed a few stitches through all the
layers to create a chesterfield sofa-like surface like in
Favray's portraits, though in a larger scale to save time.
The top piece is made the same way. Then I combined the two,
which was a bit tricky to do by machine, and finally
finished the seam with a bias cut velvet tape. The final
result is none too neat, it would no doubt look nicer if I
had worked more by hand, but I had decided not to put too
much time on this project so I had to make sacrifices with
the quality too.
After finishing the fez I completed
the headdress by stuffing a scarf with wadding and wrapping it
around the fez, securing it with pins. It ended up huge and
quite heavy, but them every good fancy dress costume needs a a
funny oversized hat, right?
L'amusette named this thing "Überfez".
Pictures of the female Turkish dress
of the period, both the real thing and the European "inspired
by"-versions can be found plenty at my favorite blog, Demodecouture.
There were many possible options for my outfit. Following what I
had done with Jarno's costume I decided on an outfit based on
female costume as depicted on the miniatures of Kadni Levni,
rather than some sort of heavily europeanised outfit. It would
be done in a rather relaxed attitude towards accuracy, sort of
in the spirit of picking oriental elements for fancy dress use
but with a modern approach to the construction and even
aesthetics.
Kadni Levni's ladies wear loose, often striped pants, a very
sheer, long shift or shirt, and two jacket-like garments, one
reaching mid-thigh with long, flounced sleeves, and the top one
floor length with short sleeves.
European ladies who dressed up "a'la Turque" for portraits
seemed mostly to wear a petticoat instead of pants, though some
brave individuals are panted in pants as well. Then they
generally wear some version of one or two jackets, sometimes
with wrap front, often fur trimmed.
I began with the
shift. I Kadni Levni's pictures it's almost transparent, so I
used a blatantly polyester voile curtain to get the sheer look
while avoiding the cost of silk. In some of the pictures you
can make out the neckline being close to neck with a long
front opening. In the European portraits the ladies usually
have some sort of voluminous shift to fill the front of the
generously curved jacket at the bosom, so I cut a wide high
neckline and gathered it into a narrow band to get the same
effect. I left the neckband a bit short to leave it open on
the front.
I sewed the sleeve seams and size
seams as french seams, but the shoulder area and underarm
gussets are made with modern and quick finish as they are
covered by outer garments.
All the hemming is done with narrow zig zag with golden thread
in hopes it might pass for some kind of decorative hand stitch.
The pants also used to be a curtain of
lovely light cotton with a tiny stripe of aquamarine, white,
lime and ink blue. I liked the material so much I took some
extra effort with the pants to ensure they would also have
future use in real life. The pattern is based on a pajamas
bottom pattern, cut wider to get the most out of the fabric
width, to which I added a wide shaped waistband with buttoned
front instead of just elastic waistband to get a smoother
waistline more flattering to modern eye.
The pants were easy and fun to make, and are very comfy and
cute. I think they will get to be worn more in the summertime.
What's more, I still have the other curtain of the pair for a
dress to follow.
My shorter jacket is
made from a pseudo-silk Chinese inspired robe found from UFF
second hand. It had a nice exotique jaquard pattern and
happened to fit me perfectly. The warm green tone was not
quite my color, but would do for fancy dress occasion.
First I got rid of the lime green front closure piece. I had
thought I would have to add a bit material to replace it to
get the front edges meet, but as they really only have to meet
at the waist I was able to get enough additional width by
simply opening the front waist darts. I curved the front edge
sharply out below the waist again, and though the fabric pulls
a bit at the waist this works well enough.
The original garment had long side slits
reaching up to the waist. When I closed these the front edges
opened quite wide at the bottom due to my wide hips, but then
they showed more of the lovely sheer shift and the pants, so it
didn't look that bad on the whole. I also shaped the final line
of the top of the front edges on the fitting.
In Kadni Levni's pictures the open
sleeves have a very interesting shape, which I haven't seen in
the European portraists (I admit I haven't seen that many of
them, though). The European costumes seem to have simply a long,
narrow sleeve with the seam opened up to the elbow. This would
be super easy to make so I decided to be happy with that. I
finished the sleeves similarly to the other edges: neatened them
with overlock, then turned the edge under and covered it with a
super-cute pink pom-pom tape.
The
decorative pom-pom-tape also doubled as a buttoning, when I
sewed a looped band on the other front edge. The loops are too
large for the tiny pompoms, but when I buttoned them by two's it
somehow worked, especially after I added a securing hook and eye
on the top of the buttoning where it takes most strain.
The green jacket was so cute that with the
ball weekend approaching fast I nearly gave up making the top
jacket altogether. At this stage I also made the decision to
leave the green jacket a bit longer than the ones worn with a
top layer so that it would work better alone. But then I tried
all the garments on together, and realized that with the printed
chiffon piece I had found for a turban headdress (and which I
had thought would fit brilliantly into the color scheme)
everything just blended boringly into a pink/green sameness and
the aquamarine pants didn't fit in. Added to that, I was a bit
jealous of Jarno's opulent purple robe. So, I decided to scratch
together a top jacket after all.
According to portraits European women favored the fur-trimmed
robe too in their Turkish costumes, but I didn't want to have
anything to do with the fake fur at this point, and flimsy
materials on my outfit would also create a nice contrast with
Jarno's heavier, more masculine garments. A light, unlined
jacket would also be quick and easy to make.
The cut is based on my
14th century kirtle pattern, a shaped four piece garment with
a guaranteed slevehead fit. I just changed the neckline shape
and flared the skirts to the estimated width that would look
right. This cut had probably just about nothing to do with
real 18th century Turkish garments, but it gives a flattering,
fitted shape.
I made the side- and center back seams as french seams, but
the sleeve and shoulders seams allowances are finished with
overlock. The front edges and sleeve ends are finished with a
machine sewn decorative band, and the hem is shocking done
with machine stitch.
With this top layer the green jacket hem is barely visible,
and I could have fixed this by shortening it more and using
the extra material to make gores on the side seams, but was at
this point too lazy to do so.
I'm really happy I finally made the purple jacket, however, it
gives a nice contrast to the other colors and binds it to
Jarno's outfit. As mentioned above, the purple taffeta came
from the overflowing stash, but the green underlayer on both
of us was more of a coincidence. Anyway, the result of
matching outfits is kinda cute, as we like so different colors
we are seldom seen in co-ordinating color scheme. And yes, my
outfit picks the colors from one Kadni Levni miniature as
well.
One more thing needed was a belt. The
portraits usually show a wide belt with a symmetrical two-piece
buckle, round in the European portraits, square in Kadni Levni's
miniatures. Of course I couldn't find either (at least for a
reasonable prize). In the end I resorted to an UFF second hand
sale belt, not quite right but with the tempting cost of 1. I
got rid of the original elastic band and replaced it with a base
of several layers of spare fabric stitched together covered with
the remains of the brocade I had used to edge one of Jarno's
medieval tunics. The decorative edge of the same fabric went
into Jarno's sash.
People today tend to
wear contemporary make up and hairstyles with the most exotic
fancy dress costume, and 18th century people were no
different. I wanted to keep the idea of a fashionable 18th
century lady dressing up in a risque Turkish costume (with
pants and no stays, just imagine!), so I kept a fashionable
make up with pink cheeks and lips, and a high hairstyle with a
turban-esque piece of fabric wrapped at the top. For some
reason ladies seemed to wear a lot of pearls with
Turkish-esque costume, so I added a string of pearls on my
hair and wore my pearl bracelets. The mask is very modern, but
as it fitted the color scheme nicely I picked it from my
collection.
The costumes were really fun to make.
While I enjoy long time projects with lots of detail too, it was
relaxing for change to make something quick and dirty with a lot
of shortcuts. Next I can tackle something more ambitious
again...
I'd like to thank Petri and Hanna for the additional photoshoot
props!
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