Design Survey

I spent a decent amount of time looking through portraits and PoF with Adam, and I think we're evolving a good sense of what he likes. Here are some key portraits that we hope to emulate and meld.

First, his favorite look (as in decoration) for a doublet was this one:

This painting is listed as "Portrait of a Man 1571." It doesn't indicate where its from, but at least its the right time period. We dislike the peascod belly, but like the combination of vertical pinking on the lower torso and horizontal details on the upper chest. Our design will feature this in some combination of pinking/couching.

For pants, I kindly offered venetians, as they seem to be the least "frufru" of the pant choices. His comment was something along the lines of, "I might as well have fancy pants." Fancy pants meaning trunkhosen or slops. Mwahahahaha, I really am slowly twisting him to my ways. Last year he would have vehemently refused such a caper....Anyway, he liked these ones:

This is Emporer Maximilion II (of the holy roman empire) from 1550. These slops are admittedly tame compared to a lot of the ones out there. Very narrow. He was vehemently against the balloon butt look. I'm actually quite pleased with the slimmer slops look.

This picture best shows the type of collar I'm allowed to give him:

Adam was adamant on the no lace rule. No lace whatsoever. A short straight up collar on the doublet with a little tiny bit of ruffle peeking through. I'm apparently allowed to blackwork to my heart's content, though. Fine by me, he will be a "manly man in tights".


from Janet Arnolds Patterns of Fashion --these are the style of waist and shoulder tabs that he likes--large seperatted waist tabs and single fused decorated shoulder tabs. Incidentally, the second white doublet is also a good inspiration for designs/decoration on his doublet--he was fond of that.