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Late Medieval Braes with a Braes Girdle
Ian:
So most reenactors are aware that braes are like pretty baggy during early and high medieval, and then start to shrink toward the late medieval. I don't know if anyone's been following the braes thread on the AA (all five pages worth) but it's pretty interesting (and a second related thread). Mac and Will (Galleron) were experimenting with a design of braes using a braes girdle (belt) inside of a casing to recreate the braes depicted on a woodcut of Saint Sebastian. Part of the motivation is that in the reenactor world the 'diaper' look is very prevalent, but it's NOT prevalent in manuscripts, especially late medieval. Gentlemen didn't walk around with their braes hanging out like modern reeanctors and SCA folk do. The problem is off-the-rack hose are one-size-fits-a lot, so they don't rise properly in the back, and people where garments that are too short and designed to be worn with split hose, not single point hose...
I got to inspect Will's at a meeting and decided to make my own.
A braes girdle inside a casing is soooooo much more comfortable for me than a draw string, it's like night and day. I have two openings in the casing on the front and two in the back. Each opening in the casing reveals a portion of the belt that I've punched holes in to lace my points through. My split hose (high butt-covering single leg hose worn in the late 14th until the advent of joined hose) point in both the front and the back. They hold up the hose a lot better than a draw-string, and they don't need to be adjusted as frequently.
One nice feature is also that if you have to use the privy you can unstrap the belt, go the the bathroom, and re-strap the belt and your hose wind up right back where they started! Totally worth the upgrade if your not satisfied with your braes. You can add a belt casing to any style. Mine are more fitted as per the late 14th / early 15th, but the belt casing can go on baggy braes too.
Here's the woodcut and another painting, and my version underneath. You can see how the points lace through the belt. It's like the Cadillac of medieval underwear, love these things! I would love to go around preaching the wonders of a belt in your underwear, but the forum will have to do. :) Definitely recommend trying it.
Sir Rodney:
I’ve been following that thread with great interest. Your design looks very nice! 8)
I can’t quite make out the details on your casing. Did you roll it to the outside, tuck the raw edge under, and then straight stitch through the face/raw edge tuck/inside fabric?
Ian:
--- Quote from: Lord Rodney on 2014-09-12, 01:46:32 ---I’ve been following that thread with great interest. Your design looks very nice! 8)
I can’t quite make out the details on your casing. Did you roll it to the outside, tuck the raw edge under, and then straight stitch through the face/raw edge tuck/inside fabric?
--- End quote ---
No, but I should have, I basically did that backwards. The casing was the hard part of this. Next time I would make the casing longer so it could gather more along the length of the waistband. (Will's and Mac's both have a longer casing, I just mis-measured). Since I needed 4 pointing locations available the casing is 4 parts, then the edges of those are hemmed so you have a nice finished edge for the openings in the casing. That seam allowance is what I forgot to account for, so I probably lost close to 4 inches off the casing from finishing those seams on the casing openings.
One cool feature is the seam of the front half of the braes in the crotch is wider than the seam of the rear crotch. This has the effect of gathering the fabric in the front of the crotch a little forming a little cupped section that you can guess what it would be for :) I also added a modesty panel inside there (as did Will) because if that's all your wearing the linen is a bit 'shear' ... :)
Sir William:
That looks like a fantastic solution; I'm not a fan of draw strings either. I'm gonna go check out that other thread.
Sir Douglas:
The first link to the AA thread just links to a pic of your undies. ;)
I was kind of wondering if you had added a modesty panel in there, but was too afraid to ask. lol
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