The Sture shirts

[frualeydis]

There are four shirts preserved from the Sture murders in the 16th century (you probably all know about the costumes, since they are in Janet Arnold's book Patterns of Fashion). The shirts are afaik only published in a little booklet in swedish. They are rather alike all of them and are based on rectangles, like for example the Warwick shirt. There are a few things that are different though.





See the cut-off corners on top of the pieces? Those are about a decimetre long and when the straight sleeve is sewn in there, like you do with the more normal T-construction, you get a more shaped sleevehead.
All the shirts are very long, though I don't know what is considered normal. They're about 125 cm long. They're also wide, the widest is made of two 115 cm wide pieces.
Except for 6 cm in each side, the straight tops are gathered and sewn to the collar.

Comments

[ragnvaeig.livejournal.com]

I've been looking for an article that might discuss those shirts since I saw Lia was doing one. Would it be moderately easy to find that booklet in Uppsala/Stockholm, or should I look for its publisher and try to order?

[frualeydis.livejournal.com]

You can get it at Historiska Museet in Stockholm, but I think the easiest would be to order it from www.handelsgillet.se

/Eva

[ragnvaeig.livejournal.com]

Thank you. If I don't order a copy in the near future, I'll pick one up in Stockholm in April.

[pearl]

I'm sure you would have seen this already, but there is a dress diary and photo gallery of the actual shirt here.

Are there any other shirts that share that shaped sleevehead idea? That's really clever.

[frualeydis.livejournal.com]

I sort of knew Lia was making hers, but I didn't remember it.

/Eva

[bippimalin.livejournal.com]

I'm not totally sure I follow you now.
Isn't it the diagonal bits that are the shoulder seam?

[frualeydis.livejournal.com]

Nope. The shoulder seams are the 6 cm bits of the top. The diagonal bits are more like the top part of an armscye.

/Eva

[liadethornegge.livejournal.com]

I've been looking over my research on this particular topic lately, after discovering my dress diary had outdated links (bad webmistress, no cookie), and I can't see where you get this particular information. It seems to me quite clear that the diagonal bits are the shoulder seams in shirt 1 in particular, and all the others as well.

If you look at the pamphlet published by the Royal Armoury, Bild 14 & 15 show close-ups of the shoulder seam and sleeve attachment of shirt 1, and all along the sleeve the grain of the fabric is parallell, while up into the shoulder seam the grain of the fabric comes in at a 45 degree angle. And in the pattern sketches, Bild 2 & 3 clearly label the top of the side seam O and E, which corresponds to the middle of either sleeve.

Do you have another source of information for this? If so I'd love to see it! More research-y goodness.

[sneprinsesse.livejournal.com]

I read about long shirts in the folder about the mens Ringeriksbunad (not in this article, but it has beautiful pictures anyway), that they used to have long shirts so they could cross the shirt between the legs, because they didn't have anything else between themselves and their trousers.

Perhaps that is also why the Sture shirts are so long?

[ginger-dragon.livejournal.com]

I've read that too, and in another place (though I can't for my life not remember where). It makes sense to use them as underwear, I believe- breeches in stiff fabrics must have been very uncomfortable to have next to the skin. And expensive fabrics that where hard to wash. you probably didn't want them next to the skin for that reason as well.

[therru.livejournal.com]

Yes, this is how folk costume shirts are supposed to be worn in Sweden, too. No pants, just the ends of the shirt crossed between the legs.

[sneprinsesse.livejournal.com]

My former boss borrows his wife's tights to wear under his bunad because of the itch :)

On my Gausdalsbunad, the shirt is actually really midriff-itchingly short. Apparently to make it easyer to breastfeed. According to the wonderful book by

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My former boss borrows his wife's tights to wear under his bunad because of the itch :)

On my Gausdalsbunad, the shirt is actually really midriff-itchingly short. Apparently to make it easyer to breastfeed. According to the wonderful book by <a href0"http://www.bunad-magasinet.no/folkedrakt-og-bymote-i-gudbrandsdalen-1650-1940.201515-29761.html">Ragnhild Bleken Rusten: Folkedrakt og bymote i Gudbrandsdalen 1650-1940</a>, there are long shirts for women recorded as well in Gudbrandsdalen, but they are not included in todays costume.

[frualeydis.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, that's what I think too.

/Eva

[peteyfrogboy.livejournal.com]

I don't think I buy the "shirttails as underwear" theory. There's ample evidence for 15th century underwear, and I can't see why it would suddenly go away. I think they are long so that they are less likely to ride up as you move. I have one shirt that is only about hip length, and as the day goes on it tends to crawl up inside my doublet. When your pants are pointed to your doublet, there's no easy way to get the shirt back down. If the shirt is long enough to tuck it down into the pants, this problem is eliminated.

[mmcnealy.livejournal.com]

That's really neat. What is the title of the book?

[frualeydis.livejournal.com]

Stureskjortorna, by Anna-Maja Nylén.

/Eva

[therru.livejournal.com]

Thanks for sharing this!

[jillwheezul.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the info on how to get this booklet Eva! I've been trying to get it from the library but they will not lend it. Yay!

[brambleberry.livejournal.com]

There's a translated copy in English at the Library of Congress...