16th century german Gollar, with silk embroideries

While doing inventory last week it was obvious that I needed a new gown, so what do you think I made? I made a new gollar..! Not really true, but it sounded funny. 

I started with an embroidery with a gollar in mind a couple of weeks ago. And now its done. Its a undergollar in white linen, with a silk embroidery, and a high neck with a ruffle.

In a lecture held by Marion McNealy at medival week in Visby a couple of years back she talked about the gollar as bustsupport. As an extra layer with a double function, both to cover the neckline but also to get some extra support. As she said, using the dress as support is not going to give the support needed, especially if you lost weight. You could not just remake the dress every time that might happen. And if you depended on two dresses for support, that must have been really difficult during hot days, or for people working in the fields and other similar professions, or times when you for some reason used just one dress.  So I thought that I was going to try that out. My last gollar became to short and wont work that way. Its just pinned down and wont give that kind of support. I made a drawstring at the bottom and ended the garment right below the bust. But I have not yet been able to try it out for real.

Gollar

The garmen called gollar referees to a garment for women, that is used over a dress or between the dress and the shirt, to cover the decolletage. It could be made to only cover over the shoulders or like a vest. The garment were used during the first half of the 16th century, until it was replaced by jackets, dresses with high necked bodices and ruffles when the fashion changed with the reformation. The need for it were obsolete. According to Zander-Seidel, Textiler Hausrat, the inventories describe several different kinds of gollars - Brustgoller, schwebische goller, Tanzgoller, Zway halbhelsene goller (half-jacketed gollar) and Tipfelgoller for example. But there is no description of the different types. May a "Brustgollar" be a description of that kind of supportgollar? They could also be described as "high" or "round". A bit easier to understand... Gollars made by linen are not mentioned in the sumptuary law but so is gollars made by finer materials like cloth of gold, cloth of silver and velvet. The version of 1506 said that all women from the patriciate to the middle classes were allowed a gollar made from "Atlas, Damask or silk" (Textiler Hausrat). The deep and wide cut on the shoulder neckline was also regulated in the sumptuary laws. Therefore, if your neckline was to low, you needed to wear a high-necked hemden/shirt or a gollar not to get a vanity penaltie. Remember that when you are going to create a persona with credibility, use a gollar or a high necked shirt, or both.

I use the term gollar because I make German fashion. In English the same garment are called partlet. To my knowing it is spelled gollar today but in German 16th century inventories it is spelled goller.  In the Tudor Tailor it is said that "covering the throat was another sign of propriety, particularly after marriage, for lower and middling women". And also that partlets were used both over and under the bodies to fill in the neckline.

Embroidery

I made my embroidery on a loose piece of linen. The linen is from Medeltidsmode and has an even weave with 15-16 threads/cm. Its a nice linen for embroidery because the threads are clearly visible. Many 16th century German extant embroideries are thought to be borders. If they are borders that could mean that it was common to make embroidery on a loose piece of linen and sew that on to the garment. Roberta Orsi Landini and Bruna Niccoli presents the theory in the book Moda a Firenze - Lo stile di Elenora di Toledo e la sua influenza that embroiderers, or traders of fashion accessories, offered ready made bands of embroidery to be applied to clothing. This applies to Italy but may also be applicable to Germany. 

When I started with the embroidery for my new gollar I had one special in mind. A painting with a embroidery that you don't really see at first glance. But when you zoom in, there it is, a very delicate embroidery in gold/yellow/metallic.

Who she was is not known. But she is painted by Hans Mielich 1540 and the painting is hanging in Veste Coburg, one of the most well-preserved medieval fortresses of Germany, now a museum.

But I didn't want to do exactly the same, just be inspired by. Something delicate like this, the same color, the same feeling to it. For another embroidery I found a very nice mix of different shades that together became a similar color, that I used for this too. I use filament silk from De vere yarns in three different shades - Glow 085, Conch 087 and Sunrise 008. 

The pattern is first presented in Schönspergers patternbook from 1529. Its made with crossstitch and I used two threads of each of the three colours. That means each stitch is of 12 thread, many, I know. But I kind of liked the reliefeffect with the quite chubby stitches. And when I already started with that many I didnt want to change in the middle of it. 

 

Pattern

The inspiration for the gollar comes from this painting. Its painted by Cristoph Amberger 1531. She was the wife of the goldsmith Jörg Zörer. I searched for her name but could not find it.

The painting is located in Museo Nacional del Prado in Madrid.  
I interpret this as a gollar and not a shirt. And that is because it has no pleats, it is smooth.

Its in white linen with a opening at the front, shoulder-seams and a high collar with a ruffle. The collar appears to be made of a separate strip of linen because the shoulder seam does not occur on the side. 

To close the gollar she has two of these lovely small buttons. A friend of mine made me buttons of the same kind, small round very cute ones that I decided do use. They are not exactly the same, but close enough. 

The making

I used a pattern I had at home, a pattern for a gollar with a high neck. But this time I wanted a high neck that was attatched to the bodice and not a piece of the fabric. So I needed to remake it a bit. I also wanted a longer gollar, so I added an extra 10 cm to the pattern while cutting. 

I remade it by pinning it on my maniquin, cutting of small pieces while working, to get the shape I wanted.  

This is a quite easy garment, made by three pieces of linen, one back piece and two front pieces (and the collar). There are just two seams, accept for the hemming and the drawstring, and those are on the shoulders. The pieces are sewn together by back stitch with a waxed linen thread. The seam allowance is folded and whip stitched.

The collar is made by two pieces of linen of the same kind as the rest, and one piece for the ruffle of a lighter linen. I thought it looked like the ruffle where almost laying down in the painting and the linen used where to thick for that. 

To keep that light feel to it I used a single piece of linen and made a rolled hem. Last time I made a ruffle I used two pieces put together. 

The ruffle is the pinned down to the neckpiece.

And whip stitched. 
And yes, that is a Dalecarlian horse on the pillow in the background. Now you know where I come from =) 

The embroidery is sewn on by putting it on the backside and turned, like this. The seam allowens ends up between the embroidery and the bodice. Im sorry for the very much unclear pictures of this, but further down I have pictures of how I made the drawstring at the base using the same method, look at those.

I did a basting stitch along the edge to make it more firm. The other end is fastened with back stitch to the gollar. 

And this is what it looked like in halftime. The collar is just laid around the neck here. Except for the embroidery this took me more or less a day. 

Continue working on the collar, by pinning it to a pillow to get tension and then attaching the collar to the gollar by whip stitch. Still only working with waxed linen thread.

I made the drawstring at the base the same way I attached the embroidery, by adding a strip of linen on the "wrong" side, with back stitch.

And when turned and ironed it look like this.

And then whip stitched on the top.

Drawstring on all three sides!

I made two fingerloop braids by looking at this tutorial. It was a new method to me, when you hold your hands a bit differently. I made mine in the same silk that I used for doing the embroidery, it took forever...

I attached it to the gollar by using couching stitch. Now there is no longer possible to see that the embroidery is made on a loose piece of fabric.

I didn't think it look liked the collar in the painting where overlapping so instead of buttonholes I made worked bars. The worked bars are made by blanket stitch over several strands of threads, three is this case, anchored  at two points in the fabric.

And attached the lovely buttons Åsa made for me.

Now this gollar could have been done. But I thought it needed something more...

So I made knots! I have not tried that stitch before. A fun one but I think I need a thicker tread next time, they turned out a bit small. Its the same, six threads, I used for making the embroidery. 

But now its done. I will have to get back to you after I tried it on a event, to see if it works for bustsupport, of if its just a nice garment.