Five years since finishing my degree

Today marks the five year anniversary of the end of my degree. My classmates and I finished it during the first Covid lockdown. We actually didn’t have a graduation ceremony for another two years. We missed out on a lot due to lockdown.

My final piece was different to my classmates as they had to do three costumes and I did one. The reason for this was because mine was an historical reconstruction that was 100% hand sewn. The costume was from Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion 3. The original is said to have been from 1600-05. I believe it was from before that as the style was going out of fashion. In the book it says the possible wearer was 13th Lord Peregrine Bertie, Willoughby de Eresby and he wore it to the Coronation of James 1. Lord Bertie died in 1601. I think the suit was from a few decades before as he did travel extensively and through my research I did find that he was in a part of Italy known for its silk velvet. I found this out through diving through the records of British History Online. https://www.british-history.ac.uk/.

Another theory I have is that due to Lord Bertie’s connection to Queen Elizabeth I, he was allowed to wear purple. At that time certain colours and fabrics were heavily controlled under the Sumptuary Laws. The family heavily linked to the The Tudors. Bertie’s mum, Catherine Brandon, lived in the courts of Henry VIII, King Edward VI and Queen Elizabeth I. She also married Charles Brandon who had previously been married to King Henry’s sister. Charles Brandon was played by Henry Cavill in The Tudors.

If you are a nerd of historical clothing and accuracy then I highly recommend recreating something from Patterns of Fashion. From the drawing up of the patterns, creating toiles and finishing the suit it took about 5 months. Regarding the fabrics I tried to be as accurate as I could and used purple cotton velvet as the closest I could find to the original was about £125 a meter. Due to creating this suit it also started me on my path to learning and selling historical buttons and learning the art of Passementerie.

In the future I would like to do a Masters in Historical clothing so that I can carry on from where I left off. The dream is to fully recreate a dress worn by Elizabeth I. Maybe one day….

Oh and here’s something strange. I also found out that me and Peregrine are distant cousins through his mother. Bizarre