Concept Sketches: A Mostly Medieval Banquet Dress

For all the dresses on the blog, we don't often commissions for them and certainly not to design them froms scratch. Perhaps it's due to their inherent lack of practicality (and frequently very character-specific nature, for those in larp and believe in the curse*) . So I was rather pleased when I was asked to do a banquet dress.

For those who don't live around here, Durham University Treasure Trap hosts anual banquets for current members past and present (and friends!). It's a weekend of dancing and drinking, feasting and fighting (the tournament for weaponsmaster is traditionally held the day after the banquet).

The dress was supposed to be light (as despite being held in Feburary, the hall is almost always very warm) and easy to dance in. It was also to be green.

I was intent on using these golden ivy leaf buttons (and we ended up buying the supplier out of them, which is very inconvenient for any future designs hinging on them), which seemed to dictate at least a touch of the elven.

A meander through costume books later (for all their faults, John Peacock's books are good for that sort of spirited, illustrated gallop through western costume history), we had settled on the high middle ages and sketching happened (the results of which illustrate this post).

Of course, there are also the green dagged sleeves.*

Hopefully there will photos of the lovely woman in her own dress next weekend.

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* In live roleplay, it commonly believed that you will have doomed your character the moment you buy them character-specific kit. They will likely die within an event and you will never be able to wear that gorgeous frockcoat/ dress/ shirt/ armour/ jewellry ever again.

* The Designer has been teasing me for some time about the fact that the only character in my alleged novel who had any physical description (clothing or otherwise) was wearing green dagged sleeves. I have, apparently, an obsession.