Late Medieval Fashion Redressed

Year: 2017

Erin Fitzgerald, Free Scholar of the Chicago Swordplay Guild, with her full-color Segno della Spada. It hangs in the center of the longest wall in the training salle.

Coloring the Fencing Master in the Getty Fiore’s Segno della Spada

Or, How Coloring Can Teach You More About Medieval Clothing This story begins because my husband, Gregory Mele, owns a martial arts studio called Forteza Fitness & Martial Arts in Chicago.     It serves as the home of his first love, the Chicago Swordplay Guild, which he co-founded with like-minded others in 1999. As the Dean of the …

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The final reproduction, back view.

Charles VI Coat Armour Repro, Part 4: Sewing It All Together

This is the fourth in a series of blog posts describing the process I undertook to recreate the child-sized coat armour on display at the Musée des beaux arts in Chartres, France. This installment covers the sewing techniques used in attaching all the pieces and finishing all the edges. You can find the earlier installments …

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All body pieces cut out and ready to be sewn together

Charles VI Coat Armour Repro, Part 3: Padding and Quilting on a Frame

This is the third in a series of blog posts describing the process I undertook to recreate the child-sized coat armour on display at the Musée des beaux arts in Chartres, France. The prior installments can be found here: Dyeing an Imperfect Lampas Recreating the Pattern The truly laborious stage was upon me now. I had …

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Measurements I took in order to recreate the pattern faithfully.

Charles VI Coat Armour Repro, Part 2: Drafting the Pattern

This is the second in a series of blog posts describing the process I undertook to recreate the child-sized coat armour on display at the Musée des beaux arts in Chartres, France. I’ll be covering the process of drafting the pattern. Find the first part here: Dyeing an Imperfect Lampas. When I examined the coat …

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Undyed lampas on the left; dyed lampas on the right. What a world of difference!

Charles VI Coat Armour Repro, Part 1: Dyeing An Imperfect Lampas

This is the first in a series of blog posts describing the process I undertook to recreate the child-sized coat armour on display at the Musée des beaux arts in Chartres, France. This post covers the challenge of finding a proper silk lampas fabric to match the look and feel of the original. Though this re-creation …

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