Status: re-purposed
Year finished: 2005
To Do: n/a (remake from silk with alllll the stripes)
Updates since last photo: n/a
Inspiration: portraits by Ludger tom Ring
Many years ago I was a student at the University of Auckland and gained my Bachelor of Science. What I spent a lot of time doing adjacent to my study was to make use of the library holdings. The Gneral Library had the complet collection of Die Mode which was the first time I had seen a series of images outside of the Italian and English renaissance that so many standard books on the history of costume use.
And within those tiny volumes were the portraits of the North Rhine and Westphalia and I was immediately entranced.
The Braunchweig style is quite unique and looks like stacked stripes of the same fabrics used to create a striped underskirt.
Before I invested in silk I used some extremely pink linen I had purchased at very low cost. I toned it back for this project.
I never was satisfied with my pleated skirt. It was full enough but I have a feeling the originals were shaped and the pleats heat set like a ruff. They look like they are the same size from waist to hem, but the skirts have a fairly gentle slope from waist to hem and so I feel certain the secret lies in a very firm semi-gloss silk that has been treated to retain pleats even while wearing.
They are a very impressive example of conspicuous consumption while never breaking any kind of sumptuary laws. It is all in the maintenance of the pleats.
I also am not entirely sure what the neckline looks like as the kleyr (goller, shoulder cape) is so long and never removed.