Thursday 26 March 2009

Fugging the Florentines



This gown is being offered by The Tudor Shoppe, which really ought to know better.  Though not an offense to the eye, it isn't accurate at all.  The basic lines of the dress look Tudor inspired but the skirt is lacking a bumroll (or a touch of padding to simulate a bumroll, which I would happily accept).  The dags at the base of the bodice were never, to my knowledge, used in the Italian Renaissance, and are exaggerated to a comic degree; click here for an example of Queen Elizabeth's much smaller bodice dags.  And the sleeves are of a substantially later period; lace-edged cuffs like this are Rococo, and would have begun around the elbow, not the upper arm.  

I fail to see anything Florentine about this, but it's described as such everywhere I see it.  Someone's taken a name of some random, romantic-sounding Italian city and used it to evoke a sense of luxury.  

Here is a real Florentine gown.  The differences are obvious.

1 comment:

  1. You forgot the shiny, unflattering material. It looks like it's just waiting to wrinkle badly - even if it doesn't, it looks like it will.

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