INTRODUCTION & BACKGROUND MUSINGS
For a long time now, I’ve wanted to make a reproduction of the gown Queen Elizabeth I wears in the Ditchley Portrait (click here to be taken to the Web Gallery of Art’s image of this portrait), but had no satisfactory “Great Farthingale” (as it appears to have been called at the time) to wear underneath the gown. Without the correct underpinnings, the dress would just not look right.
I had previously tried to make a French Farthingale (the most common modern term for the “Great Farthingale” of QEI’s time) using the “wheel” arrangement (V1.0), with spokes radiating out from the waist band which supported the main hoop that delineated the edge of the farthingale. It also had an attached (huge) stuffed bumroll underneath to support the entire contraption.
Sadly, the thing sagged at the back something fierce, and the poor actress playing the Queen had a droopy bottom for most of the show. I am sure most people had no idea what it was really supposed to look like, but *I* knew, and it bugged the daylights out of me…’low before and high behind’…well, her behind was everything but high.
After that show, I retired that design, but the challenge of engineering a better-performing model never quite left me…
So let’s let a few years lapse so that we come to the present…as I mentioned earlier, I’ve been wanting to make that repro Ditchley portrait dress for some time. I suppose the biggest reason for this is that I’ve been playing QEI myself for a number of years now, and that dress is IMHO portrayed in the single most recognized portrait of ole Queenie’s.
So, for a few years, I’ve been slowly gathering materials for the gown, but hadn’t put any effort into tackling the problem with the French (or Great) Farthingale until a fellow costumer posted a question about making one herself in an online forum I frequent. She was working on a late Elizabethan gown (for her own portrayal of Good Queen Bess) and reading the posts got me inspired to try to find a solution to the problem once and for all.
(This would be a good time to read those posts, so click here* to be taken to that discussion.) And since this page is starting to get a tad long, I’ll continue with the actual construction notes in a new page.
Addendum 11-10-2007: Due credit must be given to some very clever costumers whose ideas were the inspiration that got me going in a very different direction than I would have gone had I not stumbled across this* discussion online. I linked to it in the posts I referred to above, but it no longer points to an operable web page, so I thought I’d put in a current link. Credit must be given where it’s due.
ADDENDUM 4-14-09: DANG!!! Now the two links above don’t work, either. I realize now that the info the first link pointed to is gone for good since that forum was hacked more than a year ago now and all the old posts were lost. BUT, I imagine that my inspiration is out there somewhere…I remember a name associated with it: Robin Netherton, so I’m sure I’ll find it, somewhere…when I do, I’ll be sure to post it…again…
ADDENDUM 4-16-09: The question was again asked in the online forum I frequent about how to make a French Farthingale, and during the course of the discussion someone asked about an entry in Wikipedia that calls it an “Italian Farthingale”, which confused me greatly.
Not that I’m an expert costumer, but I did enough research while trying to come up with a design for this contraption that I think I would have stumbled across that term before now, and I NEVER came across a reference to an “Italian Farthingale”–not in this context nor any other, come to think of it. It may just be one of those pieces of misinformation that gets quoted and re-quoted and then becomes “correct” just because it’s been repeated so much.
But just in case, I did a quickie search on the term “Italian Farthingale” and came up with these two links: this one from 1999 which also questions the term, even though it’s in reference to a much earlier style, and then this one from a book published in 1961 which may be the culprit behind the whole “Italian Farthingale” thing.
Now that I think about it, though, I wonder if it has anything to do with Catherine de Medici (an Italian) being such a strong personality in France…hmm…nah!–I still think it’s a modern term. If anyone can confirm a period reference to an “Italian Farthingale”, please feel free to comment.
Until I can find otherwise, I’m going to be so bold as to state that there is no such thing as an “Italian Farthingale” and that it’s only A FEW modern costumers who use the term to differentiate between the 1580’s French Farthingale (bumroll) and the shelf-like style of the 1590s. So why don’t we all just call the later style what it appears to have been known in period (”Great Farthingale”) and leave it at that?
The reality is that regardless of what you want to call the “Great Farthingale” (other modern terms I’ve heard range from “French Farthingale” to “Drum Farthingale” to “Cartwheel Farthingale” to “Wheel Farthingale” to “Catherine Wheel Farthingale”) there *are* none of these extant beasties to study, only a few drawings (read: caricatures) from which to go by, so it’s anybody’s guess as to what they *really* looked like or were constructed.
So the answer to the question of what a French Farthingale actually is (and therefore how it’s made) will depend on what time period one is trying to portray.
I can see where a large roll, either stuffed or held out with lots of little mini-hoops (to create a tube) would serve by itself to produce the fashionable silhouette of the 1580s. It seems clear to me, BTW, that there is no “Spanish” farthingale worn under the skirts of the ladies depicted in the link above. It looks to me that wearing just a large roll with lots of petticoats would create the sought-after look of that time period.
My largest bumroll, which produces a 1580s look is only slightly larger than the woman on the left is wearing in this picture. I know because I made it for her. This is a shot of how it looks when she’s standing up straight. You can see me in the background wearing one of my smaller bumrolls, but you can’t really see the silhouette because my arms are in the way. I do wear a Spanish Farthingale underneath all of mine, BTW. I think it creates the look I’m after better than just a bumroll and a bunch of petticoats. That and it’s cooler to wear a farthingale in the summer.
But I digress…where was I…oh, yes I remember: the problem is that as the century came to a close the silhouette changed from a soft roll look to more of a shelf, AND the diameter just got larger and larger. IMHO, it becomes harder and harder to justify the shelf-silhouette as being produced by *just* a roll, and that’s where modern costumers have found varying solutions to the problem.
Practically speaking, anything larger than my largest stuffed bumroll becomes too heavy and hard on the hips to wear for an extended time if you’re wanting a c.1590s silhouette. Also, the solution of adding a “shelf” made from radiating spokes that has so often been suggested as *the* way to achieve the look just didn’t work for me, which is why my solution was to make a hollow one. Admittedly, I did not make my original “shelf” with caning. I used plain old hoopwire, which may have been part of the problem (not stiff enough).
BUT, I still contend that my solution (a hollow shelf + bumroll in one with integral tilt built in) is much more comfortable than even the sturdiest cane “shelf” supported by a stuffed (read: HEAVY) bumroll. I’ve worn my most recent version of the Great Farthingale a couple of times, for about 6 hours at a go, and it stayed put, didn’t shift, and was as light as a feather to wear. I’m positive that wouldn’t be the case with a stuffed model.
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