While I was attending the Middle Kingdom 50-Year Celebration this past May, I purchased a soft, light wool cloth to make a new cotte. As I admired the fabric at home, still sitting bundled on my desk, I began to consider that I had an opportunity to do something I'd never done completely before- create a fully-handsewn AND fully-documentable dress. Sure, I've dabbled in these two categories many times before, and most of my more recent cottes can be suitably documented and have an acceptable level of handwork for most Living History group standards, but I'd never gone through the effort of packing the full amount of considered authenticity into one piece.
So that's what I did.
Today, I want to share with you some photos of the final result and a bit about the garment style. Over the course of my next posts, I'll go into detail regarding the research and experiments I conducted, the techniques and tools I used, and of course the lessons I learned.
This garment, like most of my dresses you'll find on this blog, is based on a pervasive style of dress found in later 14th and early 15th century depictions of women, known as a cotte (1). It can be classified as a dress with a full skirt with no waist seam, a skirt length to or beyond the ankles, long sleeves fit to the arm along their full length, and a large round neckline. It is also, most distinctively, tailored to fit snug to the body through the trunk, and is fitted in a manner that adjusts the form, particularly the bust, to an ideal silhouette. These particular features distinguish the cotte from other female dress styles used within the European Medieval era, and can be considered, in this combination, generally distinct to the period between circa 1350 to circa 1460 (2).
The style of cotte changed throughout the period of its use, meaning that a cotte from 1360 will look different in shape from a cotte used in 1440, though they will both be functionally the same and still both fit the description above. This evolution is partly tied to the gradually increased popularity of the style, but may have also been due to a changing understanding of how to fit a garment more expertly. These changes can primarily be seen in the way the torso is shaped and the bust supported, but there are also differences that occur to the shape of the neckline and additional decorative elements.
The cotte was initially used by noblewomen, possibly influenced by the corresponding male cotte that originated out of Italy sometime in the 1340’s which has a similar torso and sleeve fit (3). Before this point, women’s clothing was created with a reliance on straight or triangular components which made good use of the cloth with very little waste. The introduction of these fitted dresses, which rely on curved seams, created the ability to waste cloth in the production of the garment, which could have been used as a status symbol. By its very nature, therefore, a fitted cotte was an exclusively upper-class garment for at least the first decade after it appeared in Northwestern Europe.
Perhaps motivated by the drive of conspicuous consumption, decoration of the cotte came into favor in the 1370’s. These types of decorations include the use of fur trims, streaming sleeve additions called tippets, and added embellishments like appliqué, pearls, embroidery or metal spangles known as bezants. By the 1390’s, however, whether through a shift in wealth distribution, economic restructuring or simply just that more people knew how to create the style, the cotte had widespread use outside the boundaries the upper class.
With the style's greater popularity, the focus moved away from expensive and frivolous embellishments and moved toward a simplified style that highlighted the fit and cloth itself. This lead to the cotte being created in vivid and diverse colors of high-quality wool without the addition of decoration by the dawn of the 15th Century. This newfound popularity also lead to a move away from the cotte being used as a fashionable garment among noblewomen, who began to layer more expensive gowns overtop of it, such as the houppelande or versions of the cotte that used different sleeve types and included fur linings (4). The plain fitted cotte, therefore, became the visible fashion staple of the middle and lower classes.
The cotte of a non-noble housewife in the 1410’s was a straightforward wool garment that was suitable for daily wear in a variety of situations. It was fitted in the torso, lifting the bust to reveal a narrow waist. It may or may not have included a long opening that was laced together, with a side placement for this being the most evidenced. The skirt was full to heighten the appearance of a round, healthy abdomen and hips. The neckline was open, revealing her collarbones and decolletage, but did not extend so far that her bust was too openly revealed, and it was not meant to slip off her shoulders. The sleeves were tightly fitted through the bicep and forearm. The forearm could have been sewn closed or it may have been closed with buttons- an invention still in use from the second quarter of the 14th century. The cotte could have been layered with other cottes (either as the foundational layer or the outer layer) but would have also been suitable as a single layer over a linen chemise when in her comfort.
In the next post, I will go into detail regarding my research and conclusions surrounding the cloth type and color of the wool I used.
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Sources & Notes:1. In more modern times, the term “Gothic Fitted Dress” has been coined by researcher Robin Netherton to bring the various terms of this general style under one category. Other terms it may be known by include kirtle and cotehardie, or cotte simple.
2. For a great look at how this style evolved into, through, and out of this period, see Scott, Margaret, A Visual History of Costume: The Fourteenth & Fifteenth Centuries, (London, B.T. Batsford, Ltd., 1986).
3. Scott, Margaret, Medieval Dress & Fashion, (London, The British Library, 2007).
4. Hurst, Janis, The Early 15th Century French Woman's Style Book, ebook, 2019.
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