06/09/07

In order to see the trend of the saia in Italy, we must go outside its borders to find what it evolved from and what it became.  In part, the saia originated from many different types of overgarments.  Germany had a short waisted overdress as well as the Flemish.  These overdresses, along with the mid renaissance Spanish habit and saya (loose fitting overdress until 1540)  At this time, around 1540 fashions changed to more of the manly style and adopted doublets.  Having a loose coat over a fitted doublet seemed to be a bit silly, so the coats, or in Italian saia developed to be a doublet, with short sleeves or long open sleeves with skirt attached.  There are many instances from 1540’s and on in the northern countries of the doublet style of overdress being worn.  It gravitated to the southern countries with the advent of mobile courts.  Courts and courtiers moved from area to area, with some courtiers moving from court to court.  This was in popular fashion by the time of Elizabeth, who had upwards of ½ of her court on assignment in other countries.

Now that we have found that courts and fashions moved quicker than in previous times due to increased transportation, the influx of the middle class and courts moving, it is easy to see why fashion evolved quickly in 50 years.  

My first enticement into this realm of late period fashion revolved around a small black and white photo of a portrait done by Coello.  It was a lady in a doublet with a large fluffy ruff, cool jewelry and well, just looked fabulous.  A webophile helped me find a webbed version of the painting at the Prado Museum in Spain

 I dove into Janet Arnold’s book trying to figure out the nuances of this spiffy dress, making some assumptions and generally trying to figure out the grid pattern in the back of the book.  I ended up with this dress *****To be added later

 Then I kind of swayed this century and that century trying to find something that fit me and my desire for dress up.  I then found the portrait of a Noblewoman by Lavinia Fontana at the National Museum of Women in the arts.

 This straightened my idea of what I liked most about the later period and I dove in again full.  Having tried out the pattern on black velveteen and trim I wasn’t happy about, I understood more of what I was seeing in the portrait and changed for the next dress that I did and was featured on Bella’s website in December 2004.  This dress from the inside out is done by hand.  One to figure out the nuances of the Spanish collar as found in Alcega’s Tailors book and the other to prove a point.  Since then I have discovered many things about my choices for this particular dress.

My friend and I went to Habermans in Royal Oak Mi and were looking for an underskirt fabric.  When looking for this I happened upon this lovely gold and green tapestry.   I thought it was nice, but more for a ropa for a friend than this saia.  It sat on my sewing room shelf, was packed with the rest of the sewing room for transport to the new house and put in the new sewing room shelves.  When it came time to make the overdress, I took out the fabric I had thought for it and changed my mind.  Then I eyed the tapestry.  It was a great compliment to the doublet fabric, which was changed from the white or cream in portraits to aubergine.  I stretched out the fabric on the floor, put my skirt pattern out that I derived from Alcega, my practice fabric doublet and prayed.  I had just enough for the basic parts of the dress and very little extra, what was I going to do about sleeves?  I wanted to use the basic pattern, but it may be difficult with little bits gone here and there.  This is when I decided to do the big open short sleeves, not normally seen in this dress, but someone must have been in the same boat I was before.  Lo and behold they were.

The tapestry fabric is similar to that found in Italy at the time Fabric Book from Serina Among other portraits and furnishings I saw a similar design!

 This is a design that I made for St Valentines Day Massacre this winter (07)

 Here follows a HEAVY photo load, hopefully all are thumbnailed to facilitate easy loading (or are smaller)

 Saia in portraits

Lavinia Fontana

Coello

 From Bildindex

From Vecillio

From the National Portrait Gallery

From Album Amicorum - Getty Museum

Sotheby's

Web Gallery of Art (my favourite place to look for ideas)

From BBC website on found art

Metropolitan Museum

Found by Friends or surfing, need to find out more info