A dark pink German gown from the first decades of the 16th century

This gown was made for a specific party at the SCA event Double Wars in 2018. I was obviously inspired by the paintings of Lucas Cranach the Elder.

The party was a rose themed party given by the Ladies of the Rose(former queens in the SCA) and somehow that got me inspired and insane enough to make a 16th century Saxon Court gown which would have suited Barbie. In pink (synthetic) velvet and rayon brocade, both from my stash (the velvet was a gift many years ago).
Despite being made mostly as a joke and from non-period materials, it is well made, and with no visible machine seams.

The skirt is a full circle, with a few pleats at the back.

A full circle skirt uses a lot of fabric so I ended up being really, really short on fabric, and it got just a little bit shorter than I wanted. That is also why I bound the edges of the skirt with bias tape, so to not loose even 1 centimeter of the length. It doesn't look too bad though, and it makes it easier to walk in high grass.

The front edges of the bodice are stiffened with a row of hemp cord. The pink band over the bust is sewn to one side and pinned to the other with two large brass pins.

I used Jennifter Thompson's method for ladder lacing, where you thread your lacing cords through two rows of ribbon sewn along the front edges. This method makes the cord/ribbon remain parallell also when tightened.

That particular page is down, but you can see the method if you scroll down this page.

Instead of embroidery along the edges I used metal trim from Indian Beautiful Art on eBay- after all I had only one week to make it. And I think it looks reasonably okay.

The upper velvet sleeve is slashed and the edges are sewn down by hand. The white fabric at the upper sleeve puffs is a tube of white linen stitched to the velvet sleeve at intervals. The white at the elbows is my shift.

The hairnet is crocheted and just an old one I had brought. I will make a better one later. Because I feel so pretty in this gown, despite the materials, that I plan to use it more.