Tailor

This is not a book for the beginner nor for the faint of heart, but the person with a serious interest in costume in the 16th and 17th centuries absolutely must have it. It is a facsimile reproduction of a tailor's pattern book from Spain in 1589. Fortunately, in the back, the whole thing appears again in English translation. There are around seventy cutting patterns given, with measurements, for clerical robes, saddle trappings, felt cloaks, a silk kirtle for a fat woman, jerkins and war banners. The measurements are given in ells but the translators provide a conversion table to centimeters (this translation was originally published in England). They also provide a number of explanatory notes and a necessary glossary that defines the difference between such terms as ropilla and ropa de letrado.

$40.00 (paperback)