2. From watching the Shakespeare play, I went and visited a special Tudor event at an
old Tudor mansion.
There were over 150 people dressed up in Tudor clothing (both rich and poor) who
were all recreating the Tudor era and the roles certain people had.
I saw the lords and ladies of
the manner, who wore
embroidered cotton and silk
garments which were heavily
decorated and more
structured than the workers
who wore all wool.
3. Work Stations
There were a few work stations around the manner, where people would use
traditional Tudor working methods.
There were work stations such as dying yarns and felt making, which really caught
my eye.
4. Dying Yarns
For dying yarns, the women (of the time) used
natural substances such as plants and urine.
During the Tudor period, dyes for fabric were
organic or vegetable, which is very different to
the dyes we use today that are synthetic.
The more expensive dyes were the rich colours
such as bright red, purple and indigo. The
poorer people often wore brown, yellow and
blue, which are more natural earthy colours.
They managed to create quite a few bold
colours from the vegetable dyes.
5. They used madder for red, woad for blue, and
walnut for brown.
Madder Woad Walnut
6. Felt
Tudors happened to wear quite a bit of
felt as part of their outfits.
The women at the work station told me
that they would create felt hats for all
ages, as in Tudor times people had to
wear hats in case they catch lice and also
it’s in decent not to wear a hat of some
sort.
Felt was also used to make shoes for
infants, and also for monks if they ever
needed to cover their feet. I’m assuming
that felt is used for shoes for babies, as it
is a soft material.
7. Worker Man
I was mostly fascinated by the workers clothing,
as some of the people were dressed to suit their
role, even though their outfits are similar.
This man is an archer and therefore wears
certain garment accessories such as the bracer
(the leather arm band on his left arm) which is
used to protect the arm from being hit by the
string when an arrow is shot, and also the finger
guard on his right hand that protects his fingers
from drawing back the arrow.
Other then that, his clothing is very similar to
other working men; they’re practical and
completely made out of wool and linen.
8. Worker Woman
Working women in contrast, don’t
wear very practical clothing for work.
This is probably because women do
different job roles to men.
The working women’s clothing is
usually all the same with slight
differences: dresses that go past
their ankles and long sleeve shirts
underneath. I also noticed on quite a
few of the outfits, that some have a
corset like front.
Compared to the more wealthier
women, the clothes are plain and
more simple with not much
difference to other working women.
However, I found that not all of the
outfits were the same, as they had
different colours and slightly
different styles, suggesting that the
women liked to be slightly individual
(quite like the modern day woman).
