Textilvetenskap vid Uppsala universitet, photos by Julia Holm
"What do you do if you want to research a person's clothes, but there are (almost) no clothes left? If you are lucky, there is a well-preserved archive that can tell you about the clothes and their owners.
The archives that were created during Christina's time are relatively well preserved, which may be one reason why so much research has been done on her. In the castle archives, the accounts from the royal wardrobe are preserved, and they contain bills from large parts of Christina's time as ruler. In the bills you can see how much clothes the court tailor Johan Holm sewed for Christina, in what colors and fabrics they were, and what kind of garments she used. Here you can find both the queen's more solemn garments, such as a very lavish nightgown in golden cloth with sable leather lining from 1648, or more everyday garments, such as an overcoat in gray cloth from November 1645.
Overall, she seems to have preferred black garments, something that is in line with the fashion of the time, but there is still a large color variation from light blue and gray tones to stronger yellow and red shades. Some fabrics are also said to be patterned, and most garments are decorated with large amounts of lace, often in gold thread. Large quantities of smaller garments, such as hats, shoes and socks, were also procured for Christina, the latter of which were probably torn out then as now.
One can also guess Christina's attitude to her clothes in the accounts. The time after she took office as monarch in her own right in December 1644 is marked by a refurbishment of the wardrobe. Relatively large amounts of clothing are sewn up, and the model seems to change slightly from previous years, when one begins inserting so-called fishbone, i.e. whalebone, as stiffness in the waist of the garments. Previous accounts show no such stiffness in corsets, instead she used lace under her clothes. Christina seems to have wanted to mark her entry into adulthood with her clothes!
On later occasions, one can again see other ways of relating to fashion. An example is the previously mentioned nightgown, which when sewn up in 1648 was a new garment for both the queen and the court tailor, and needs to be preceded by a toile, a sample garment, so that it gets the right design. There is still some uncertainty about exactly what a nightgown from the middle of the 17th century looks like, as it is bad with preserved garments and pictures that can be linked to the concept. However, the design of the garment and the choice suggest that it was a lavish garment for informal occasions, rather than something to sleep in.
The accounts also show the view of housekeeping and the use of materials at the time. On recurring occasions, the queen's garments are repaired or redone to keep up with fashion. Every little piece of fabric would be reused!
Unfortunately, the accounts do not contain any images, as they were not written for curious textile researchers 400 years later, but a little bling-bling in the form of some samples of gold lace!"
No comments:
Post a Comment