Introducing Lettice Knollys

I'm so pleased to announce that this coming summer, I will be playing Mistress Laeticia Knollys (Lettice or Letty to her friends) at the New York Renaissance Faire!  Letty was a fascinating woman: 1st cousin once removed to Queen Elizabeth, she came to court at the beginning of Elizabeth's reign as a Maid of Honour while her father had a seat on the privy council.  Strikingly physically similar to the Tudor queen with a pale complexion and red-gold hair, Lettice was thought to be a possible bastard grand-daughter of Henry VIII with his mistress, Mary Boleyn.  Lettice was known for being quick-witted, fashionable, somewhat morally lax and very flirtatious.  The Faire takes place in 1560, when Lettice was either 16 or 20 years old (historians disagree on her date of birth) and unmarried, living with the other Maids of Honour in attendance on her Majesty.

She became notorious later in life for her rumored scandals and ostentatious lifestyle and was banished from court when she married Robert Dudley, the Earl of Leicester and Elizabeth I's lifetime friend, companion, and rumoured paramour.  Although the two fierce red-headed women had gotten along well in their youths and Lettice had been a "favourite," they never repaired the rift and remained distant long after Dudley's death; Elizabeth once referred to Lettice as a "she-wolf".  By all accounts Dudley adored his wife, and was known to be very devoted to her and treasure her council.

Although Lettice never returned to court, her son Robert Deveraux (Earl of Essex) eventually became a favourite of the aging Queen, though he hardly deserved the honour and was executed for treason after launching a failed coup and attempting to "rescue" her Majesty from the pernicious influence of her councilors and seize the crown.  Lettice outlived all three of her husbands, her two daughters, her sons, and the Queen, eventually dying on Christmas morning, 1634 at the impressive age of either 91 or 95.  In compliance with her wishes, she was buried next to Robert Dudley and they rest together at the Collegiate Church of St. Mary in Warwick near Kenilworth Castle, where they had lived together.

How to play a notoriously stylish and alluring court lady in her younger years?  I'm thinking a big fancy gown is in order.

Cartridge pleats!  Since we all know that Beauty is Pain, I decided to use a historically accurate technique and hand-sew the pleats into my skirt.  This involved very carefully marking my fabric after inserting a layer of baby flannel under the fold, then putting in two rows of running stitches.  That's 24 feet of hand stitching!  

But every moment is worth it when you pull up those gathering threads and see the lovely, rounded, fan-like result.  This is also how Elizabethan ruffs were made.   

I marked the edged, center, and half-way points with safety pins before gathering the pleats to ensure that they would go evenly onto the waistband. 

Here are the pleats pinned to the waistband; each one had to be individually hand-sewn to the band at top and bottom, which took at least 4 hours.  My fingers were very sore from forcing the needle though the baby flannel and tightly-woven cotton sateen.  

My mannequin doesn't wear the bodice particularly well because she lacks the necessary squishy bits.  Although the mannequin is actually smaller than me, the bodice appears too tight to close.  

Everything looks classier with hems.  I love how the cotton looks in low-light; it really brings out the teal / green tones. 

Finally, I put the gown on for the first time! It's still far from complete, but now you can clearly see the overall shape and proportion.

Feeling like a princess!  Or, more accurately, a Countess-to-be.  

My Spanish Farthingale, Myself

With the help of the internet, I set out last week to construct my second piece of shape wear: a Spanish Farthingale.   I found it difficult to discern proper dimensions because of 1. the dearth of full length paintings of women during this period (circa 1558) and 2. the fact that I am approximately a full 8 inches taller than the average Elizabethan woman.  The practicalities of modern theatre also took their toll: at 5'10" there is a good chance that I'll be the tallest women in a given scene (I often tower over men, too) and I don't want my already large presence + voluminous skirt to completely over-power any tableau that I join.  So my goal was be as historically accurate as possible while maintaining proper proportions and trying not to overwhelm everything around me.  Here we go!

During my design process, I've been been taking inspiration from this portrait of Bess by Steven Van Der Meulen.  Called the "Hampden Portrait," it is thought to be the first full-length portrait of the Queen, painted in 1563.  This is just the period I'm looking to re-create, so it's a great resource.

My trim placement and partlet design are also influenced by this painting

What we've got here is an exaggerated trumpet shape, which (unlike most iterations of the Spanish Farthingale) appears to be flared at the bottom.  Liz is also probably wearing a modest bum-roll to get that almost horizontal lift of the skirts around her waist.   I suspect that the flare shape is not actually from her support garments, but from the heavy weight of her voluminous skirts doing an elegant sweep- farthingales at the time seemed to end several inches above the ground so that the wearer could walk comfortably, and the Queen's skirt is widest right where it hits the floor.

To begin, I checked out these instructions from the Elizabethan Costuming Page: http://www.elizabethancostume.net/farthingale/period.html.  Those are based on Juan Alcega's description of how to make a farthingale, which (rock star costume historian) Janet Arnold also studies in her book series.

 I didn't use any of the same measurements or finish my waistband the same way, but I took Alcega's example and began by creating a gored skirt, with four triangular gores attaching to rectangular front and back panels.   I picked a light-weight, faux silk Polyester Nightmare (tm) fabric from JoAnn's for my farthingale because I wanted it to be 1. lightweight and 2. slippery.  I've had problems before with petticoats 'catching' and sticking to my overskirts, so I wanted to make sure that my farthingale would be nice and slick and let the petticoat slide over it naturally.  So far, there hasn't been a downside to this fabric choice, but we'll have to wait and see how it holds up to wear!

I chose to finish my waistband with elastic, as opposed to the more common snaps or ties, because there will already be so many bulky things around my waist (petticoat, bum-roll, overskirt) and I didn't want any more strings or stiffened waistbands to get tangled in.  I wanted to make my boning channels from grosgrain ribbon, but the closest color match at Michael's was satin.  So satin it is, and I hope this won't come back to haunt me.

The gored skirt on my mannequin.  We were having family visit, so I dressed the form up to prove that I am actually up to something, not just making a huge mess.

I had extra fabric, so I decided to make a ruffle!  This took forever (36 yards, serged on both sides and gathered) but I am glad that I did it- I really gives the garment a more 'finished' look, and I hope the ruffle will keep the overskirts from collapsing too much below the lowest hoop.  My skirt is about 3.5 yards wide at the bottom.

Poly nightmare fabric is your friend.

My boning is from corsetmakingsupplies.com and came in a 12 yard roll, which was just enough for my 4 hoops.  I didn't cut it initially, because I wanted to experiment with the size of the bottom hoop.

    

The farthingale with one hoop, worn with my bum-roll and the moss silk petticoat.  It doesn't look quite right- I think I'll be slimming down the sides of the bum-roll.  I can also see the bone pushing against the petticoat and causing an ugly line, which is a big no-no. 

Well, here is that portrait-appropriate flare shape, but it looks like a mess.  Not quite there yet.

Progress!  Here is the skirt with two boning hoops in it:

The left side is sticking out way further than the right- the is solved by sliding the hoops through the boning channels until they lie more evenly.  Eventually, when I decide on a final shape, I'll tack each hoop in a few places to keep them from shifting.  I also chose to stagger where the boning channels open and the hoops connect: this is so that if the hoops are weaker at their connecting spots, the whole skirt won't buckle along one line and turn into an oval or an egg-shape.

The skirt with all the channels sewn, but no hoops inserted.  This thing is huge- I had fun wearing it around, pretending to know Flamenco dancing.

Four hoops! I'm leaving the channels open and unfinished for now- I want to be able to keep adjusting the size. 

Four hoops, with the petticoat on top.  I'm very happy with how the petticoat is falling at the hem- nice and elegant, not caving in or collapsing at all.  I'm not so sure about the shape, though- it's more like a 1860's bell than a 1560's cone, but not offensively different than the portrait.  I'll keep fiddling around.  

I'm glad that I chose to only use 4 hoops, instead of the more usual 5-7.  I can't see the channels at all under the petticoat (yes!) and it's hanging relatively naturally.

It must be the hoop skirt influencing me- while I worked on this, I began to think of my character as an Elizabethan Scarlett O'Hara.  Although I haven't been officially cast, my director mentioned that one possibility would be Lettice Knollys, the Queen's cousin.  Historically, she was a social climber with fairly loose morals who was very popular with the men.  I imagine Lettice as flirtatious, tenacious, prone to jealousy, and a fabulous dresser- just like Scarlett!  She liked to marry up and steal other people's boyfriends.  In the recent BBC mini-series "Elizabeth; The Virgin Queen" Lettice even tries on the Queen's gowns and jewelry when no one is looking.  A 16th century Mean Girl!