The Caftan, Part III

*random cussing and pulling of hair*

I am officially changing this caftan's working title from "The Green Striped Caftan" to "Beelzebub's Caftan." I swear this has been the most irritating project I have ever undertaken. The whole thing is currently sitting in pieces in a box next to me, waiting to be completely resewn! After staring at it for another two weeks and thinking there was just something I didn't like about it, I decided it was the sleeves.

Thanks to a book I checked out from the library, Suleyman the Magnificent and the Ottoman Empire by Miriam Greenblatt, I am in love with the idea of a sleeveless caftan. In the book there is a miniature of Roxelana in the harem with six musicians, two dancers (presumably female), two acrobats and the Chief Black Eunuch. In the picture, Roxelana is wearing a green, sleeveless caftan with brown trim over a pink entari.

(Click to view a larger version)

You can clearly see Roxelana seated under the canopy in the center and you can see the caftan in question. My only issue with the picture is that a couple of the women appear to be wearing turban-like headdresses, something I have always been told is inaccurate. While it is entirely likely that this miniature was painted by someone who had never been in the harem, I don't know why they would have painted a woman wearing a turban if that was not a practice of the time.

I have posted these questions and a few others to the SCA_Turkish_Personas_Moderated list in the hopes that someone will have more information about the picture. I will update this post when/if I get any replies.

In the meantime, I guess I'll work on putting the darned thing back together... Or maybe it would be more constructive to work on that entari... I hate SCA-ADD...

EDIT: I received two replies to my post about the picture, but I didn't care for either of the answers. lol

Both Asim and Urtatim placed the picture in the 17th century or later, thus ruling out everything I mentioned. Asim drew my attention to the U-shaped necklines on some of the women, which I can't believe I overlooked! That alone should have told me the picture was out of period, but I guess I was just so excited about the caftan that I ignored them. For those who don't know, what I am calling a U-shaped neckline is not the actual shape of the neckline. It is a normal V-neck that is left unbuttoned to under the bust. The jacket is so tight that it makes a "U" shape. This is where the idea of the underbust neckline comes from with the ghawazee coats. Definitely out of period.

Both replies corrected my sleeveless claim, instead pointing out the possibility of capped sleeves. Since I have not yet seen capped sleeves on extant garments, I'm going to stick with the sleeveless idea for now. If I decide to add cap sleeves later, I will just add them to the coat as-is. I think a sleeveless caftan is necessary in the Ansteorran summers and why make a beautiful entari if I can't show of at least a bit of it?! I still plan on doing faux sleeves for the winter.

Asim says that the dancers are female and Urtatim says they might be male. But I was under the impression that "attached" males were not allowed to even look upon the harem women? Perhaps that is a part of the fantasy I have taken from books. Urtatim also says that the acrobats are probably dwarves and male.

This has taught me that I have a very long way to go in recognizing period miniatures. It's a good thing I always ask for opinions before proceeding, even though I feel like a heel doing so because I don't want people thinking I'm riding their coattails into an A&S competition. For the record, I'm nowhere near entering garb into A&S and when I am I will be basing it off of miniatures that I knew to be period previously.

I have spent this week slowly putting it back together. I expect it to be finished by this Saturday, sans buttons/frogging. My frogging tests haven't turned out like I wanted, so I will continue experimenting until I get it right. My caftan will be fine without buttons for now.

The Caftan, Part II

I was hoping to be completely finished with this piece by last Friday, but, alas, it has taken on a life of its own. The original plan, as outlined in my previous installment on the subject, was to make an unlined "summer" caftan. Then I considered putting in just facings. Then I decided to line it with a brown/copper lining fabric with facings out of the same fabric. Then I settled on lining it sans facings, stating that it would be "good enough for now." Everything was going well with that until this afternoon when my brain kind of snapped and I realized that "good enough for now" wasn't really good enough and I needed to have a piece that really popped and showed off my burgeoning abilities.

So here I am, blogging at 2:01 am because that damned caftan was hanging on the back of the bedroom door taunting me and I couldn't fall asleep for obsessing over it. Thus, I have decided to take the lining out of it, face it with orange or yellow satin and put the copper lining back in. In my head, the overall look is similar to what is seen in this picture by Dick Osseman. My research has often stated that caftans were lined in a complimenting color with a different color of facing, hence the orange or yellow that I plan to put in. Now if I could just decide which one... any votes?

Also, the caftan's shape just isn't right and I think it's because I put the side gores in too high. Right now they are at my waistline when I believe they should be more toward my hips, perhaps even an inch or two below. I think when I measured and cut them I was trying to make the skirt fuller, but I wound up taking shape out of my midsection in the process. Using Mistress Agnes' ensemble as a guide, it appears that her gores start just at her hips, allowing her to tailor the midsection into a more fitted garment. I'm not sure this is completely agreeable with me since my midsection is not so svelte as hers, but I think it will help to give me some illusion of a figure since the caftan in its present state does not.

Luckily, the question of the side gores is easy enough to fix. I just have to pick them out, drop them down a few inches and resew them in place. The fact that I have to do this on both the coat and lining is what leaves me more than I little annoyed. But in the end having a beautiful coat that I am proud to wear and show off makes it worth any irritation.

I have also decided that this caftan will have short sleeves, but detachable long sleeves that I can button in during the cold months. This is a perfecly period practice and one that will help me get more mileage out of the coat. A fun, period feature is the inclusion of gauntlet sleeves that will form dramatic points on the backs of my hands (think Morticia Addams).

Lastly, it has occurred to me (not without some embarrassment) that I should have made the frogging and buttons prior to putting the lining in. My fiance, always trying to be helpful, suggested I just sew the frogging on through the lining, but because the caftan will probably be worn open from neck to bustline, the stitching would show, so I had to reformulate my plan on that aspect. I'm still not happy with my fingerloop weaving ability, so I'm trying to decide between inkle weaving them or using flat kumihimo braids. I do a lot of kumihimo, but I would have to use several strands of each color to get the right thickness and I'm afraid that would take away from the braid's flatness. Obviously, this requires some experimentation, but I am still leaning more toward the kumihimo because of the ability to make uniform loops with them.

Before I go, I wanted to share a small site I just found that shows pictures of extant caftans. What sets the Cevat Kanig website apart from, say, Dick Osseman's website is that many of the coats are labeled with the name of the sultan who owned them. And since I have decided to be a member of Sultan Suleiman's court, I can't help but be excited to see pictures of clothes he actually wore!

The Caftan, Part I

I went ahead and put the gomlek to the side for tonight and started working on my caftan. Don't worry, I will get back to the gomlek tomorrow (it's almost finished!!), but I couldn't wait to start working on my green striped caftan.

Caftan Overview:
The caftan is basically a slightly larger version of the entari, worn as an overcoat. According to Neefa bint Durr, caftans were usually made of silks or brocades and lined with cotton in a contrasting color with silk facings (unless it was a summer caftan in which case it would not be lined, but would still have the facing). Winter caftan were often lined with fur.

Caftans could be made with or without a standing collar or were the same as an entari -- small and round or very slightly v-necked. They had large gores on both sides and in the front.

From the pictures of extant caftan I have seen, the sleeves were usually short, but some have detachable sleeves. The short sleeves often had a crescent-shaped cutout in front for ease of bending the arm (you can see this quite well in the picture above). In some cases it appears there was a gusset in the underarm, but I don't believe it was always done this way.

Closures consisted of long bands, known as "frogging," across the chest. In her article Making a 16th Century Turkish Coat, Neefa bint Durr states that buttonholes through the fabric were not used. She also says that the frogging was made with the same general colors of the fabric (but usually no more than three different colors), sometimes with geometric designs which were made by either fingerloop weaving or card/tablet weaving. Frogging went from the neck to waist, loops on left, buttons on right. (To see these closures in excellent detail, please visit the Sackler website, choose "View the Robes in Detail" and click on the fourth thumbnail from the bottom. Moving your cursor over the picture will allow you to explore an extant caftan!)

My Caftan:
About a year ago I acquired this beautiful green striped curtain fabric (on the right in the picture) at a sewing party. My friend Adena had it but didn't know what she would use it for, so I purchased the whole bolt from her for $15. I think I came away with 6 or 7 yards, so I feel like I got a great deal. Had I bought it from a store it would have been at least twice that.

The instant this fabric met my hands it whispered to me that it wanted to be a caftan. Always one to listen to my fabrics, I held off on cutting it until I really understood the process. I used the aforementioned article Making a 16th Century Turkish Coat by Neefa bint Durr to work out the measurements. (I would love to link you to her article, but you must be a member of SCA_Turkish_Personas_Moderated to view it. If you join, look in the Files section for Turkish Coats PDF.pdf.)

Now, according to many, many sources on the web, striped fabrics were favored for children's clothing and clothing for the poor because they were easily made and, therefore, cheap. Living in the harem my persona probably would not have worn stripes, but I must make a concession for this particular fabric as the mundane me loves stripes and wears them often.

I have cut the fabric with the stripes going vertically down the body piece, diagonally on the gores and horizontally on the sleeves. This may sound hideous, but it will all come together, I assure you. Due to the fact that coats were often cut without regard to pattern continuation, I'm not too worried about the stripe directions.

I don't think I will line the coat as the fabric is already going to be rather warm, but I will use a contrasting facing (if I can figure out just how to do that).

I will not be using a collar, but instead a slight v-shaped neckline.

My fingerloop braiding skills aren't good enough for making the frogging, so I will use either thin tablet woven bands or kumihimo braids. I will be doing thread covered wooden beads for the buttons.

Anyway, check back often as this project is about to kick into high gear!!


Other Links of Interest with Regard to Kaftans:
Hurayrah's Passably-Period Caftan (instructions begin on page 9)
Dick Osseman's website

Photo Credits:
- Orange/red caftan belonging to Selim I, circa 16th century: Topkapi Palace Museum
- Fabrics: Me