My 17th century shift

I finished my 17th century shift a while ago and here are, finally, some pictures. Unfortunately there are very few 17th century rooms in our flat, so the settings isn't quite right. I used a pattern in Janet Arnold's Patterns of Fashion 4, a smock that supposedly have belonged to Charles II's queen Catherine of Braganza, or some of her ladies-in-waiting. The original is lavishly decorated with lace, but I made mine plain. I wanted to use this particular pattern as it has an oblong neckline that fits well with a 17th century gown with an off-the-shoulder neckline. It also have rectangular inserts cartridge-pleated There is a more eloquent post about the pattern here. to the sides instead of the usual triangular ones, which I wanted to try just for the fun of it.

A shifty question

Namely, what kind of chemise to go under a 17th century gown? The sleeves are easy- voluminous seems to be the keyboard. And though I have seen cuffs, the style I like is when there seems to but no cuff and all the excess fabric is folded, back or in loose pleats. Like here, where the shift sleeves seems to have been tucked up with the sleeve and then a decorative pin is used to keep it all in place:

The sleeves look like they have been either pinned up or basted to the gown’s sleeves.

(Black sleeve from a Swedish painting)
So the sleeves are no problem, but how to make the body of the shift? The neckline treatment can look very different. Looking through Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashions 4, I find that most of the shifts are versions of this (Or rather, thjis is a modern version of that...). I don’t think I’m too far-fetched is I assumes that these are made up that way:

It’s nothing wrong with this kind of chemise. It’s easy to make and the chemise itself looks very nice. I have one. I just don’t want it with a 17th century gown. Then these are many painting where you just see the edge of the shift along the neckline.

They could be the gathered kind of chemise, I suppose, but they look, at least in my eyes, to be much smoother. When we see more of it, the wrinkling gets more horizontal than vertical.

And lucky us! The very last pattern in Patterns of Fashion 4 is a shift that fits the bill. It is thought to have belonged to Catherine of Braganza and though it has very wide sleeves, though the neckline is shaped like a smooth oval with a slit in the front.

My books are still unpacked so I can’t give you a direct quote, but I’ve read in more than one book, that the shift was sometimes pulled out and folded over to make a simple collar. I think that would be pretty easy to do if you are wearing a Catherina of Braganza-type of shift.

Some even look like the slit is in place too!

To finish, let’s look at two examples of collars that imitates a folded out shift, if it isn’t the shift that imitates the collar.

This is a French gown, it could be a shift, but it’s so much more gossamer than the visible shift.

I really like the look of a shift that is folded to look like a collar, so that is the look I will go for. The Catherine of Braganza-shift is also unusual because it hasn’t triangular gores to give it width, but squares that are cartridge-pleated at the top. It would be fun to make a new pattern!

Note: In a try to be more consistent, I have tried to only use English picture sources and in case not, I will tell. However, the time frame is 1640s-1660s. I know that this will mean both puritans and Restoration, but I feel that the fashion didn’t change too dramatically under that period. Many of the paintings don’t have a more exact date than the decade. Also, if anyone wants to see the whole picture of one of my cropped ones, just tell me and I will post it.