Atlantian Business Casual But Make It Spanish
Project Summary: A 14th Century Saya and Camisa
Final dress fitted on Lady Catherine (lazily, because the dress is made for squishy bodies and Lady Catherine is not squishy, it does fit me comfortably, I promise)
Duration: 76 hours and 20 minutes over 65 days.
Saya timesheet results
Camisa timesheet results
Materials cost: $84.16
First event: Persona Pentathlon Instructor Spotlight, April 2024 (online). Summer University, June 2024 (in-person) and online.
To quote Bea, the 14th century in (Christian) Spain is boring because it’s the century where they were doing things most like the rest of Europe. And I don’t disagree. This particular dress is much more similar to Atlantian Business Casual, aka a cotehardie/Gothic Fitted Dress (GFD) than really anything else Spanish. There are a few ways to make it more Spanish though, and that’s what I’ve tried to lean into for this project. On one hand, a front lacing gown is an option for these dresses and can be seen in much of the art of the time. This version is worn with a camisa whose sleeves are fitted from the elbow down. Another option for this is something called a saya encordata or a laced saya. These sayas had visible lacing on one side that may or may not show underneath their overdress, depending on the style. They were worn over a camisa that also had lacing on one side, opposite to where the saya laces. Several examples of these can be seen in Alfonso X’s Book of Games but the style was going out of fashion by the 14th century.
Bea’s website has a lot more info on this century and I’m leaning very heavily on her learning for this project.
My choice in doing this was in part to expand my repertoire of outfit options, but also to have something that looks reasonably nice without a lot of dressing effort. The goal is to have something easy and comfortable that I really just don’t have to think about when wearing.
Saya Design Process
I have made precisely two of these kinds of dresses in the past (the Green/Red Dress and the Summer Saya, though I also assisted when Bea made a similar dress for Condesa Anya for her coronation) and my current washing machine is responsible for the death of both of them. Both of them were made with a pattern that didn’t really work as well as it was supposed to, so this time, I decided to draft my own. It is for this reason that I stuck with the more continental European style of the front lacing dress. Morgan Donner has a fabulous video on doing this that I relied really heavily on for my use and I think if I can successfully make one of these, I may give a saya encordata a go in the future. I also liked the style of camisa described for this particular garment- slightly longer and while narrower sleeved, only really fitted from the elbow down.
For the colors, I don’t actually wear a ton of outright blue stuff but I love a good rich blue, so I wanted to try something a little different. At an event right before I started this project (but after I purchased fabric), I saw a young woman wearing a really lovely Italian outfit in navy blue with a mauvey-ish trim that really got me inspired. I was able to find a nice rust red for my outfit choice and the color palette just tickles my fancy. It worked out great because the fabric I have in mind for the outerwear for this outfit is a light blue that needs some additional contrast and I think the outfit as a whole will look great together. The color choices for this echo a lot of the trends seen in 14th century Spanish art, which show a lot of pairing of blues and reds/golds together. Admittedly, the warmer color is most often shown close to the skin vs the blue, however my own personal tastes dictated that choice a little bit more.
From an overall stylistic direction for this outfit, the effigy to the left really inspired me. It has beautiful trim going down the openings of the lower arm and wrist, and similar trim on the wide sleeved cota or over dress (I’m calling it a cota vs a hopa because the sleeves are shorter, it has no collar, and there’s a chance it itself is short instead of floor or calf length, but I need a sanity check on that). While I wasn’t planning on going this ornate with the trim, the combo of trim and buttons down the arms is something I chose to incorporate, though I purchased buttons because I don’t hate myself enough to make that many fabric buttons for each arm. I’m toning down the overall affluence of this outfit a bit and skipping the woven trim for a single color satin trim, but the combo of the (most likely) front lacing saya, what appears to be a front opening cota with matching trim and wide, mid arm length sleeves, and a cloak or manto of some sort, also with matching trim, is the ultimate goal. This outfit has a higher, fairly flat neckline, laying approximately right below the collarbone on this effigy, which is also a new thing for me.
Saya Construction Process
In a somewhat unorthodox decision, I decided to make the dress first for this project. Normally, I would start with my undergarments and work up. However, I knew I wanted sleeves to be fairly fitted and in order to reasonably make a camisa with sleeves that specifically fit under this dress, I decided my best bet would be to make the dress first so that I could test out sleeves as I made them on the camisa.
Starting with a drafting example from Morgan Donner’s Youtube proved a relatively reasonable way to start. It got me going on the top body block in a way that at least gave me something to go off of. The back turned out surprisingly perfect, but the front required some more adjustment. I don’t know why, but the curved front patterns never seem to work out for me super well, even though on ostensibly because they’re based on measurements they ought to. I think it has something to do with the fact that I’m making more supportive garments and therefore compressing my chest measurement differently. In any case, once the mockup was adjusted to my satisfaction, I re-drafted the pattern and moved on.
I did make one major miscalculation here. I know that I can get a dress of reasonable skirt fullness with long sleeves out of 3 yards of fabric as long as it’s not pleated at the waist- I’ve kept records of my own fabric usages across projects specifically for confident shopping purposes. What I did not account for is bias cut sleeves. When I went to lay out this dress, I did not have sufficient fabric after cutting the body pieces and gores out for the two bias cut sleeves. I ended up needing to order an extra yard of fabric to finalize the dress, though the majority of the construction could happen before it was time to do that.
The construction went pretty smoothly all things considered. There were no major hiccups or hold ups, I was just a bit slow on working on it. I did also interrupt my progress by going on my honeymoon in the middle of it, which added about 2 weeks to the overall duration. I really enjoyed wearing it (though undecorated) during my University Instructor spotlight in April, so getting its decoration finished this month really wrapped up the project nicely.
Camisa Design Process
As soon as I put the saya on for the first time, I knew my camisa would have to be planned accordingly. The saya fits exactly as I wanted it to, meaning supportive but also meaning pretty close to the body. The camisa would also have to do that. After a tutorial was shared with me on making a supportive smock, I decided that would be the route we took for the camisa. The pattern is based primarily on the dress itself with added ease so that I can pull it over my head with ease. The other big difference is that I left this sleeveless. There are a couple of potential documentable sources on this as a choice (the Bathhouse girls in particular) but I have not tracked this choice back to Spain. However, because this isn’t a super documented garment, I didn’t feel the need to do so.
Instead of basing my fabric needs on my usual camisa pattern, I decided to use the dress to base it off of. The original cut of fabric (3 yards) gave a full skirted dress that is floor length. Shortening my length to about knee length, I estimated that about 2-2.5 yards total of fabric from my stash would be necessary. Unlike the dress, the skirt didn’t need to be super full on this one so that more conservative estimate felt like it would be ok. That estimate turned out to be correct. I managed to get this cut out of about 2.5 yards and had left overs to cut out some good small travel projects as well.
From a construction design perspective, I used the same four panel approach as the saya itself. There are also four gores, that are slightly less wide than the ones on the saya at the same height.
Camisa Construction Process
I will admit to taking the easy way out here. My highest priority on this item was finishing on schedule to keep my pre-Pennsic sewing schedule on track. To that end, I did all of the construction seams on my sewing machine. Thankfully, whatever demon inhabits my sewing machine was merciful and I made it through the sewing process without any major issues and the gores all turned out nicely in their places. The camisa itself fits as needed- tight enough that it won’t encumber the fitted saya on top of it, but easy enough to get on without any lacing or buttons or anything. There’s not much to write home about with this item, but it functioning as necessary without a ton of additional research/stress/prep is its own kind of victory.
Project Takeaways
I really like wearing this dress. The neckline change took a while to get used to wearing, but it has a shockingly high degree of freedom of movement. I have full mobility in my arms and shoulders, and the dress itself encourages nice posture too. Temperature-wise, this absolutely ticks the box of heat friendly garb. The color combination on this turned out exactly as I was hoping it would too. The slightly rusty pink ribbon contrasts beautifully with the rich blue of the dress. All things considered, this is going to be a fantastic inclusion in my summer clothes and I’m really glad I decided to make it.
Next Opportunities
I really want to the cota to go over this outfit. I have this idea of using a lighter blue silk I own already, even though it doesn’t necessarily match the trend of contrasting colors as I would wish it to, but I think it would look really good and work well with the trim. Red would probably be more appropriate a choice, but my overall goal longer term is still stash reduction and this blue needs a purpose. Plus, I acquired some absolutely delightful gold trim on my honeymoon, and I think it would be a great way to dress the cota up a bit.
I need to take a look at appropriate headwear options to go with this, because I don’t love the effigy above.
For wearing the underdress alone, I think it would be super cool to have a midwife’s apron for a more working class impression, though this is much more common in continental European depictions than in Spanish ones.
