Patterns used

When pattern drafting the gown the only reference we had were our notes on measurements and photographs.

We researched patterns that had been made of robes. This was quite limiting, there was nothing I could find that had a similar sleeve. I did find some patterns for medieval robes which were similar however.

I thought that the Turkish morning gown had a similar construction to ours however it is very flared. It is interesting to see how many variations of gowns and cloaks there are from medieval times.

This pattern by Janet Arnold is another that we looked at. It is similar in its use of fur and trimmings and that it has pleats down the back. We used the shape of the armholes on this pattern to inspire ours. This has a kind of hanging sleeve that I have seen in quite a few examples of robes, which is interesting.

Norah Waugh’s pattern was also quite useful in shaping the yoke.

This pattern was the most similar that we found to our garment and was therefore very useful. We used the method of moving the two parts the distance of the bottom ready to be pleated and this worked well.

With this there was a pattern for a hanging sleeve like the one in the picture above. We have been looking mainly at medieval and Tudor garments for inspiration with the gown. This is because the Mayors robe originated from around this time as discovered in my research. I have seen a few examples of robes in Hereford museum which are more similar to this one as they have a T shape slit however the hanging sleeve is almost identical.

We had been trying to draw out the pattern for the sleeve just using the measurements we had however because we knew no angles this was almost impossible. We tried using equations to work out the angles of this particular parallelogram until we found this. We applied our measurements to it and removed the triangle off the top. This has worked very effectively. I feel that had we had similar patterns to work from the process would have been more accurate, for instance if we were making a garment inspired by a Janet Arnold pattern.