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Click for larger version; click for the list of dolls.
Wikipedia says that “uncritical acceptance of the Annals of Ulster would imply that he [St. Patrick] lived from 373 to 493″ and for the purpose of paperdolling, I can be uncritical. This is my guess at what an upper-class Celtic woman might have worn during the time of St. Patrick. She wears a sleeveless saffron-dyed, heavily embroidered léine, which is a linen tunic, over another light green sleeved léine. At this point, the sleeves, if there were any, were long and straight; the larger sleeves that you might see at a Renaissance fair come later. The green fabric she wears as a cloak is called a brat, and it’s made of wool and edged with gold. She pins the brat with a white bronze penannular brooch, and she wears a woven leather belt.
I cannot say that this is entirely historically accurate; I’ve read about clothes from that time and done my best to make it so, but I’m no expert. I read a lot of great resources about clothing from this time period:
Ceara ni Neill’s Early Period Online
Paul Du Bois’ Book of Kells Images
Clothing of the Ancient Celts
Echna’s Celtic Clothing Page
Crafty Celts
Also, if you’re looking at the dress and thinking “Well, how would someone actually cut that out? Or were hand amputations common in the 5th century?” my advice would be to cut a line between the edge of the sleeve and the cloak and slip her hand through it. This is, of course, if you have already followed my advice (given somewhere…) to cut Sylvia’s hand away from her hip, so that dresses like Margaret Hale’s gown work better.
Brian told me I should have done something for Saint Urho. Maybe next year.
An excellent choice for St. Patrick’s Day. :-)
Thank you! It was a lot of fun to research and do, although I can’t shake the feeling that a clothing historian specializing in 5th century AD celtic clothing is going to come spank me for my saffron being too bright, or something. (And as I was drifting to sleep last night, I remembered with a start the flaw in the embroidery I meant to photoshop out and forgot. Luckily, resized, you can’t really see it anyways. ;) )
Min, I’d like to draw an outfit based on one of your excellent hats one of these days, would that be OK?
I would be flattered beyond measure. :-)
Happened on your blog while looking for heian-period art…what a great idea! I’ll be reading regularly. Would you mind if I used your heian robes image in my poetry blog to illustrate a waka inspired by Sei Shonagon? You will get full credit and a link.
Hi Kate, thank you! Certainly, go ahead — I look forwards to reading it, I love the Pillow Book :)
It’s up now if you want to see, and if you go please make sure that I credited you properly!
http://thingswrittendown.blogspot.com
Thank you, I enjoyed reading them. The Heian-era imagery with your voice was really quite effective, I thought.
Once I got this one cut out and on the doll, it instantly became my favorite. Beautiful work!
Thanks! It was really a lot of fun to read about and interpret. :)