Tuesday 28 April 2009

Drachenfug: Bints' Edition

At least Drachenhort's 'Gothic' section refers to Medieval Gothic, not Goth Rockic.  Trouble is the clothes don't look even slightly, just possibly maybe, a teeny weeny tad bit, infinitesimally accurate.  Ostrogoths, Visigoths, modern Goths and chicks from the High Middle Ages have one thing in common: they wouldn't be seen dead in this shit.




Whoooo!  Shoddy hat!  Side-slit skirt!  Strange oversleeves!  Enormous wrist ruffles!




What. The. Fuck. Hennins, those famous pointy hats of the late middle ages, did not have stuffing around the brims! Padded head rolls with veils are a completely different style, and mixing them is like trying to wear a top hat and a baseball cap at the same time. I can't tell much about the dress from this picture, but it's certainly not well fitted and barely resembles gowns of the 1400s at all. To see what they really looked like, there's no better site than this.




Gaah!  My eyes!  You can only get away with red, gold and orange if you do it with panache, and pick your tones carefully.  It might also help if you centre your print so it looks symmetrical on the front panel, and maybe put some trim around the rest of the hem to match the edging pattern.  Hell, you might even pick a design that looks Medieval, instead of Art Nouveau Meets 70's Upholstry.  But none of this will fix the historical inaccuracy, because ladies in the middle ages DID NOT WEAR CONTRASTING FRONT PANELS in the first place.  

I might add that they didn't have contrasting side panels, either. Or contrasting hanging sleeves.  And both the skirts and the sleeves should be a whole hell of a lot fuller.  Not one of these dresses uses enough yardage to look at all authentic.

As for their Renaissance stuff, it's equally fugly.  'Florence' features an ill-fitting bodice with lacing over the bust that the real Florentines never would have used (though I guess it's needed here to make the damn thing fit).  The swirly pattern of the fabric looks quite modern, and the contrasting purple skirt panels are just plain tacky.  

And don't get me started on 'Venezia.'  More modern fabric, floral this time, and fuckin' HUGE dags tacked onto the waist of the bodice... even though I suspect the whole costume is a one-piece dress that's just dressed up to look like a top and skirt.  There is, of course, no separate underskirt; they've just sewn a panel on the front to fake the look of it.  They've gathered the damn thing instead of pleating it.  And don't you love the tacky blue trim on the sleeves that doesn't match with anything?  Or how about those ENORMOUS floppy cuffs with contrasting panels?  None of this is period.  At all.

But it's their Queen Elizabeth dress that really leaves me stumped.  The print looks modern yet again, and they've dropped the waist so low that I'm almost reminded of the 1920's.  The English never wore sleeves like this, which look like a misguided attempt to ape the Italians.  It's no better or worse than the others, but they've slapped up a portrait of the real Elizabeth, wearing a gown that's completely different and highlights all the mistakes they've made.

Ahh, well.  I can't expect much from a site that offers THIS and doesn't stick it in the LARP section.

2 comments:

  1. You forgot to mention the princess seams all over the place... and the lack of many other seams; even the few examples we have of simple long tunics and dresses have a more complex construction than many people, and sites like this, use.

    Prints and patterns could be a whole post of its own, if not a series, couldn't it?

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  2. There was so much to say that I didn't feel like I *could* say it all. This isn't the first site where I've been boggled at the mounds of sheer awful!

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