Dress of Adelhaid, Gattin Albrechts I

The first lady up is the lovely Adelhaid. The word Gattin means "married woman", so I think we can safely assume that she is the wife of duke Albrechts I of Hapsburg. I just fooled around with the picture of her in Photoshop, and suddenly realised how awesome her dress is, making me want to start this blog. So she is a special lady if you ask me.

This picture is from the lovely Eme's compendium

I'm crazy about this dress, and have seriously considered recreating it. The only things scaring me off is the headpiece and the belt, which would be quite an expensive investment. I guess I'll got to learn to do metalwork.

The kirtle

..or what one might call the dress that is underneath the outer dress. Is it a chemise? I'm not sure. It's not much that you can see of it, but it's there. A brownish kirtle with an embroidered golden neck opening that is supported by a string around the neck. My theory is that the string is there because the cut of the kirtle is very low, and it thus can't be held up by itself. Unfortunately we can't see the rest of the kirtle, so I have no idea how the sleeves look or if the kirtle is close-fitting or loose. 

This kind of string-supported kirtle can be seen in other late medieval paintings, such as this and this portrait by Albrecht Dürer. Bettina from Bettina's Pages created a dress with the same string-attachment to the kirtle, though it seems that the kirtle she uses is rather close-fitting, and thus doesn't need the support of the string.

The dress

The outer dress is a long-sleeved, close-fitting green dress. The fabric looks like its made from silk or velour, but it's only a guess based on the looks of the painting.

The front opening is embroidered with 3 rows of pearls, first a row of large perls, then a row of small ones and finally another row of large pearls. It's laced with a golden string, and some embroidery or jewellery that I can't classify.

 

The dress itself is embroidered with larger golden beads, with alternating red and golden gems inside them. Between the beads a criss-cross pattern is embroidered with golden thread. From each bead hangs a golden tassel (How awesome is that?! I'm crazy about the tassels...). I assume that the embroidery and tassels continue down the dress, even though it's hidden in the painting.

 

The sleeves are long and close-fitting as well. At the end of the sleeve is an embroidered border, encircled by two rows of pearls.

The accessories
Adelhaid wears a large golden belt with what looks like large red gem in the buckle. Swung over the side of the belt is a long red sash, woven or embroidered with gold threads. In the end of the sash is a large golden ornamentation.

 

She wears thin rings on each hand, the left one seems to be with a red stone. And finally she wears a large, heavy necklace. I suspect this lady (or her husband) was rather rich...