Canvas Patterns

We usually draft a garment on a roll of paper, but I can't trace that back before Randle Holme in 1688.[1] Most garments were probably drafted directly on the cloth, either freehand or by tracing parts of an old garment.[2] But from the 14th century onwards, we hear of workers making "patrons" of garments from canvas or toile (linen or hemp cloth as contrasted with woolen or worsted drap). These "patrons" seem to be 'mockups' which could be copied in more expensive materials or used to test the fit of a garment without the wearer being present. I have seven sources with this practice from England, Scotland, and France in the 14th, 15th, and 16th century:

• Stella Mary Newton, Fashion in the Age of the Black Prince, p. 55

  in John of Newbury's account of 1361 are six gounes of sanguine-coloured cloth in grain ... the king's younger sister was given a goune too; four ells of murrey mixed cloth in grain were used to make it, ... Slipped in, as it were, after this entry, is a note of eight ells of 'canabis' to make a pattern for a long goune for the king, which may mean either that it was still an unfamiliar garment to some workers at the great wardrobe or that the king himself was still a little nervous of the new fashion and wished to approve the pattern before the goune was made up.

• In 1387, the French argenterie made a payment "for three ells of fine linen of Rheims ... for making a pattern for a little pourpoint for monsieur (Louis) the duke of Touraine for sending into Germany to make and forge a pair of plates of steel for his body."

  A lui, pour IIJ aulnes de fine toille de Reins (...) pour faire un patron à un petit pourpoint, pour monseigneur le duc de Thouraine, pour envoier en Allemaigne, pour faire et forger unes plates d'acier pour son corps

• veniel-costume-medieval-1320-1480 p. 94 "à Namur, Cornille du Cellier achète 'un certain drap noir ... pour faire l'essay d'un chapperon d'estrange façon' (Archives Départementales du Nord, B 1966, f. 234v.) ou encore, en 1440 et 1441, Colin Claissone achète du drap noir pour réaliser les patrons des paletots des archers (Archives Départementales du Nord, B 1966, f. 332v.)." This is presumably fulled woolen cloth. See further http://www.atilf.fr/dmf/definition/essai
• A luy pour XV aulnes et demye de grosse toille brun ... pour faire ung patron d'un habillement nommé une cloche longue jusques aux pieds (Argenterie of Charles VIII of France, Archives Nationales, KK 71, fols, 49, 135 (1490, transcribed in van Buren p. 299) "Fifteen and a half ells of coarse brown linen to make a patron of a long cloak" (this linen must have been rather narrow)

• Hayward, Dress at the Court of Henry VIII, pp. 346, 347

  There were very few references to patterns or toiles being made within the Great Wardrobe in the early and mid Tudor period. ... However, there were exceptions, such as the patterns used for making the king's coronation robes. This may reflect that coronation robes were not made very frequently. Henry VII's coronation accounts include a payment to Thomas Windwood, mercer of London, for 4 yards of crimson cloth 'for a patron for the kinges gown' costing 13s. 4d. Twenty-three years later, on 1 June 1509, Elizabeth Swayne supplied 118 1/2 ells of canvas for 'patterns for robes of coronation, long gowns, glawdekins, riding coates and jackets' costing 41 s. 11 1/2 d." ... On 26 February 1545 John Malt received 20d. for making a pattern of canvas for a coat of mail or tunica de maile. Royal patterns could be disseminated in various forms and stored in unlikely places. On the fourth shelf of the little study next to the king's old bed chamber at Whitehall were 'diuerse plattes and paternes of gownes'and 'a booke of parchement conteyning dyuerse paternes.'

• Melanie Schuessler Bond, Dressing the Scottish Court, pp. 150, 229 (source [626]) "Item tobe þe patroun(e) of ane dowblet to remane with my lord governouris tailȝeo^(u)r v quarteris of canves price of þe elne iiij Summa - v s"

• Janet Arnold, Patterns of Fashion Vol. 3 p. 4

  "There are many examples of these pattern toiles among the accounts of the Wardrobe of Robes in the third quarter of the 16th century. ... Two examples, 'for making of a pattron for a Gowne of buckeram for being sent into Fraunce' in 1577 and 'for making of Two pattrones of buckeram thone for a frenche gowne thother for a Petycote sent into Franuce' in 1580.

  She cites Alcega and Eliza Ann Cory's The Art of Dressmaking (1849: Google Books) as saying that beginners often lay an old garment on the fabric to draft a new one.

Does anyone know of other examples? Some of the dictionaries I checked are:

• DMF 'patron 2'
• MED 'patron, patrone'
• AND 'patron'
• A Dictionary of the Older Scots Tongue 'patroune n. 1'

Edits

2021-11-18: Added note to Crabb

2022-08-02: Added citaton to Hayward

2024-02-29: Added headers

2024-03-25: Fixed formatting error and typo

2024-04-15: Added Veniel

2024-05-22: Added argenterie of Charles VIII of France

Footnotes

[1] Apparently Joy Spanabel Emery has a book on the introduction of mass-produced paper patterns for Bloomsbury Academic. The citation from 1688 is on page 97 of Randle Holme's book "Terms used by a Seamster. Patterns, Paper cut in fashions according as the Work is to be made."

[2] Ann Crabb, The Merchant of Prato's Wife (University of Michigan Press: Ann Arbour, 2015) p. 49 “Also, Margherita at one point describes herself as a large woman, although not as large as the woman who was using her dress as a pattern.” See the letters from Margherita to Francesco Datini dated 27, 28, 29 October 1397 in Valeria Rosati ed., Le Lettere di Margherita Datini quoted on Tailor's Tools

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created and copyrighted on 2021-07-18 by S. Manning ~ last updated 2024-06-01