On Friday 17 February 2006 12:11 am, Heather Rose Jones wrote: [snip]
There isn't so much a "problem" with the neckline as that it's a
rather unusually shaped neckline. The particular angle of the
photograph is also not very good for seeing what's going on with the
neck. Asymmetric "side-opening" necklines are quite common among the
surviving garments of this era (what few there are).
On Feb 17, 2006, at 12:29 AM, Sharon at Collierfam.com wrote:
OK, so I'm showing my ignorance, but why "side-opening" necklines?
I'd think
they'd be more difficult than symmetrical, center front openings.
Sharon
What follows is largely off-the-cuff speculation, but the answer is
most likely to lie in how these openings developed historically. The
most common neck opening configuration of the Roman Empire and sub-
Roman era was a horizontal slit, sometimes with slight dishing on the
front side of the opening. In garments woven in one piece on wide
vertical looms, this slit could be created during the weaving
complete with selveges (on the loom, it would be positioned
vertically during weaving).
Modifications to this neckline style in the early medieval period
include a lot of things other than center-front slits, and seem to
have developed from different motivations and for different
purposes. Examples include:
Narrowing the opening-as-worn by fastening the front and back edges
together closer to the (wearer's) neck, as we see in the 8th century
tunic associated with St. Ebbo, where there is a button-and-loop
closure on each shoulder.
A double layer of fabric in the body of the garment, with vertical
slits in the layers on alternate sides of the neck, each fastening at
the top, so that when closed the inner and outer fabrics overlap and
there's no direct "hole" from the outside to the inside of the
garment. This is seen in the very detailed technical drawings of the
11th c. Danish "Viborg shirt" and also appears to be the underlying
construction in the 12th c. alb of William II of SIcily (another
garment where the decorative parts are original but the garment has
been re-made at various times).
If you visualize enlarged neck openings developing from a horizontal-
slit opening rather than a circular opening, then if you start the
vertical slit at the side of the existing horizontal slit, you end up
with only one "corner" to deal with, rather than the two corners you
get if you position the vertical slit in center front. Also, a
number of the early side-opening necklines incorporate a decorative
vertical band as part of the slit, and garments of the early medieval
period often already had a vertical decorative band approximately at
the side of the neck opening, deriving from the clavii.
Just a few thoughts on the topic.
Heather
--
Heather Rose Jones
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.heatherrosejones.com
LJ:hrj
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