Pettigale?
Pettigale?
First I’d like to stress that a “Pettigale” is NOT a period accurate term or clothing item. It is a term that our group came up with for a modified garment that we use. We live in the Phoenix metro area in Arizona where temperatures reach to over 120F / 49C in the summer, vastly unlike the cold weather experienced during the 1500’s in England! The “pettigale” is an adaptation of two period accurate clothing items that allow us to wear our outfits a bit longer into the summer season – a Petticoat and a Spanish Farthingale.
**Side Note: Hooped Skirt – First Attempt
While I would love to say that we went straight to Petticoats and Farthingales, unfortunately that would be a lie. We were new to this whole historical costuming thing and it was a bit before the Tudor Tailor book first came out. We were following the common costuming advice out there at the time which was to use a regular hooped skirt that could be readily found for quinceañera dresses or Southern Belle type dresses. These hoop skirts are round with the wearer standing in the center. This has the circles going around the wearer evenly.
We were really proud of those first attempts! They were a generic Tudor look for a themed dinner party we were attending. Thankfully everyone there was as new to it as we were. Those initial outfits have long ago been disassembled to erase all traces of their existence however, they did serve to spark our interest in the period. This spark later grew into the desire to recreate portraits. When we attempted our first portrait outfits we quickly realized that the look was all wrong!! This led us down the rabbit hole of research, and remaking pieces, that we have never really emerged from. Luckily others have fallen down that hole and have published some great information that has enabled us to continue our adventure. Please see our Resources page for some of the sources we have delved into over the years.
Now onward to our Pettigale story…..
Petticoat
During the Tudor Dynasty petticoats were widely used in England and usually made of wool. They served a variety of purposes including adding warmth and shape to the skirts. The drawing below is by Hans Holbein around 1527 and is a study for a family portrait for Sir Thomas More. The lady on the far left shows the full skirt look that a petticoat (or petticoats, as multiples could be worn) can give under a skirt – a bit full but not a wide skirt at the bottom. You can also see by the lady sitting on the floor on the far right, the skirts fold softly underneath her – which they wouldn’t do if there were stiffened hoops under the skirt, as with a Farthingale.
Spanish Farthingale
Spanish Farthingale
The Spanish Farthingale is an underskirt with stiffened hoops of graduating size – smallest at the waist and largest at the bottom. The hoops were stiffened with a variety of materials: cane, rope, and in later versions, whalebone.
The hoops of a Spanish Farthingale started as a part of the over gown but soon moved to an underskirt. This transition does not appear to have affected the shape of the garment. The “Salome..” painting below is of the earlier style with the hoops in the over gown. It gives a clear idea of that shape since it does not have overskirts blurring it.
“Salome from the St John Retable” by Pedro Garcia de Benabarre (1470 – 1480)
As you can see, it is not a complete round circle. It a bit of an oblong with more of the circle in the back and a bit flatter front. This shape is due to the way the skirt is cut, not the formation of the actual hoops. If you get a chance to look at a copy of the Juan De Alcega’s Tailor book from 1589 he includes a diagram of this garment. The Tudor Tailors also have this pattern included in their books.
While we found notations that a “Spanish farthingale” came over to England with Catherine of Aragon (1501), farthingales don’t appear to have caught on at first. However, Janet Arnold notes in “Elizabeth’s Wardrobe Unlocked” that the first inventory mention in wardrobe accounts is in 1545 for young Elizabeth. Below is a portrait of Catherine Parr which shows that they were quickly adopted by those of high rank.
Catherine Parr (1545)
The Spanish Farthingale gives a much wider skirt bottom than the petticoats of before.
Farthingales VS Petticoats
While some of the portraits that our members have chosen to recreate are earlier than 1545, many of us decided to use a farthingale anyway. As Arizona is a desert state, we would have a very short time frame in which we could wear woolen petticoats here – they would simply be too hot! We needed a different solution that wouldn’t look too out of place. We couldn’t just take out the inner skirt, as this would have left a very limp-looking skirt – which is not a look we wanted.
The hoops allow for the heavy skirts to be held away from the body and for air flow under them. This makes the outfits a bit cooler and enables us to wear them in warmer temperatures. In fact, we wore them to an outside event on a day that got up to 100F / 38C (we were in the shade and drank LOTS of water – it wasn’t comfortable, but it was tolerable). Those of us recreating the earlier dresses do keep our hoops a bit smaller to give us an approximation of the petticoat look.
The other modern choice we made was in the stiffening for the hoops. Our outfits get transported a lot, piled into the back of cars on top of each other, and just generally abused.
Birth of the “Pettigale”
Birth of the “Pettigale”
We had a plan, had materials, had each chosen a portrait to recreate, and now even had a pattern (purchased from the Tudor Tailor ladies). So away we went to our cutting table and sewing machines. Off to create our Tudor portrait inspired gowns!
As with all good period creations, we knew that we had to build them from the inside out:
Linen shift….. check!
Hooped petticoat….check!
Kirtle (that’s another adventure – see our write up “Kirtle or not to Kirtle”)….check!
Foresleeves….check!
Overgown….check!
Every step of the way mockups were stitched, fittings done, changes made. Then came the day the over dress was assembled and ready for its first test run. We got our first Queen (Mary Tudor) all dressed up and it was a wondrous sight!! Not perfect – but it was as though the picture had stepped off the canvas! We were all thrilled!
Our Mary was so happy and excited that she was parading around everywhere, not wanting to take it off….then….gradually…the farthingale started slipping! The more she moved around, the more it slipped. We thought it might be the waistband stretching so we tightened it up. And had to tighten it again….and again. It became clear that there was a serious flaw in our plan. The weight of the farthingale, with the added weight of the heavy skirts over it, was just too much to keep the farthingale in place. So back we went to our sources for further study. Eventually we came to a realization: in the Tudor period, ladies would have worn the farthingale over a petticoat. In our desire to lighten the outfit, we had overlooked an important part of how these clothes work together.
So we went back, made a petticoat using the Tudor Tailor pattern, and tried it on again. Sure enough, the farthingale stayed up. The waistband of the farthingale sat just above where the skirt of the petticoat is attached to the top bodice of the petticoat. This juncture point gave a small “lip” for the farthingale waistband to sit on to keep it from sliding down. The petticoat has a kind of wide open bodice attached to the skirt with shoulder straps (see picture above under “Petticoat”) which kept the weight of the farthingale from pulling the petticoat down.
Since we needed to take the skirt layers of the petticoat out, but we still needed its shoulder straps, we didn’t see any reason why the bodice of the petticoat couldn’t be attached to the skirt of the farthingale. So out came the seam rippers and back to the sewing machines we went…..
And the “Pettigale” was born!
While it’s not really period correct, it works perfectly for what we needed it to do, and has allowed us to wear it a bit into our summer season. We do make sure to explain to those we present to what is the period accurate way, explain the changes we made, and why we made the choice to deviate.
