Heather I have made a number of tunics on this general pattern, so I took the liberty of interpreting the stripes as straight grain. The artist clearly does accurately depict the actual clothing, although I think he does a fair job of giving the general impression of the garments. However, he paints all of the stripes as straight lines with no allowance for draping/wrapping around the body. This includes both the horizontal stripes and the diagonal stripes.
I think the blue panel with red/white stripes is woven although the stripes are painted horizontal to the page and not to the person they are clothing. The horizontal stripes in the yellow/red tunic and the green/white tunic clearly carry over from the body onto the arm without allowing for the fact that the fabric on the lower arm would have been on the same stripe as the shoulder (in wide fabric), or else it would be horizontal to the arm itself (narrower fabric with separate sleeve pieces). They could be either pieced alternating strips of straight grain cloth or a woven cloth with wide weft faced stripes. In the case of the red/gray chevron panel and the green/red diagonal panel, I think these are straight grain strips of cloth appliqued on the diagonal to the base fabric (cut on the straight). The chevrons would be pieced with either mitered corners or the straight grain and the diagonal stripes could be worked as single solid pieces. I've done something similar with diagonal neck yokes on tunics, particularly where I wanted to take advantage of a stripe in the fabric to create a diamond pattern. The white/pink chevrons above could be painted, printed, woven as brocade, or pieced and appliqued. In summary, I think the artist was depicting actual clothing that can be reproduced, but doing so within the artistic conventions of his time. Actually, if I can find some of that copious spare time I supposedly have, I think I'll try to reproduce a couple of the tunics this winter. After all, I need new garb. I'll let you know what I come up with. Ginni (Gwenhwyfaer) >>> Heather Rose Jones <heather.jo...@earthlink.net> 10/20/10 9:47 PM >>> With the caveats that artistic representations aren't always intended to represent actual clothing construction, and that representations of clothing decoration are sometimes intended to convey symbolism rather than fabric structures, and that there are multiple ways to create any particular decorative effect in fabric ... What are people's thoughts on the garments depicted in the early 14th c. Manesse Codex that have diagonal striped designs? Woven as diagonal stripes? Print? Woven as straight-grain stripes and cut on the bias? Symbolic interpretation of armorial designs not intending to represent actual garments? Some other option? How is a given hypothesis affected by other stripe-like designs in the manuscript? (Primarily horizontal stripes, but also chevron designs.) Here's a link to an image showing a variety of these designs, just for reference. I'm contemplating the plausibility of the bias cut hypothesis, but I'm failing to convince myself, given that the reasoning that would support it would also conclude that the diagonal-stripe and horizontal-stripe garments in the manuscript represent two entirely different ways of cutting garments that are otherwise identical in depiction. Heather _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume CONFIDENTIALITY NOTICE: This communication with its contents may contain confidential and/or legally privileged information. It is solely for the use of the intended recipient(s). Unauthorized interception, review, use or disclosure is prohibited and may violate applicable laws including the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender and destroy all copies of the communication. _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
