Sunday, January 06, 2008

Question from Karen - Dress/costume for poor Tudor children

Good Morning,

My 8 year old daughter Eleanor (Year 4) is studying the Tudors. She has made a hobby horse and this Thursday she is required to dress as a Tudor child. The children will be supplied with cheese and fruit punch and play tudor games. (Hextable Primary School).

She wishes to dress as a poor tudor child. Can you advise what I should put together for her to wear or maybe hire a costume from?

The letter came home yesterday and I've only jusr read it.

Kind Regards,
Karen.

4 comments:

Lara said...

You might want to start with Drea Leed's excellent costuming site: http://www.elizabethancostume.net/
Search around on "child" or "children" and there are hits. I think if you just look for poor/peasant costuming that would be fine to scale down for your daughter.

Anonymous said...

Hi Karen - when we have schoolchildren visiting for the day, and they want to do costume, we tend to dress them all as poor or working class. For the girls this involves a shift-type shirt in a cream or greyish-cream linen (not white) which is basically a large squarish shift gathered at the neck area; over this they wear a skirt (ours are all heavy linen): the skirt is basically a rectangle of material gathered along one long edge - we use cord to gather, you could use elastic if you don't need to be authentic. Over this they wear a simple laced bodice - imagine a sleeveless tightish shirt, laced at the front. Simple white coif or cap on the head, and if possible a waist apron - again pref. not white. White cloth was very expensive, and so most of the poorer or working classes had shifts etc that were creamy coloured, or creamy-grey (the colour of natural linen). Hope this helps. Lis

allstontowers said...

Do you know of the Tudors wearing clothes with shadow applique? I've been told they sometimes wore voile over blackwork but can't find out if this is fact.

Thanks in advance, Jan.

allstontowers said...

Do you have any evidence that tudors wore voile over blackwork? Known as shadow quilting or shadow applique?

Thanks in advance,

Jan