Thanks! That makes a lot of sense. Sharon -----Original Message----- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Heather Rose Jones Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2006 10:07 AM To: Historical Costume Subject: Re: [h-cost] 10th - 11th C. German
> 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 _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
