Medieval Queens in the Family Tree - A costume for a school project

During first term the Year 8 students at the school attended by my grand-daughter learned about life in medieval England. Towards the end of term the students were taken by bus to Montsalvat where they had a dress-up day with the students dressing as different characters from medieval times. My grand-daughter was to dress as a medieval queen.

Due to her extremely busy schedule we had only one weekend to make the costume though I had previously planned how the project should be tackled. I made a list of the steps required including items we needed to purchase, items we already had that could be used plus a step by step guide as to what needed to be done.

The aim of our project was to make an outfit that might have been worn by a medieval queen or a lady of high status. Many fabrics available today were not available in medieval times when ladies in the court would have worn silk, wool,velvet and taffeta - cotton and synthetic fabrics were definitely not available. The garments were often elaborately embroidered. The colours of fabrics used in clothes were usually dark green red, dark blue, purple and gold.

We decided to utilise fabrics that were easy to sew but still looked approriate. The costume was to be an outfit for the queen to wear when she was outside the castle. We also needed to make an outfit that was easy to put on as 'the queen' on this occasion did not have a large staff to help her dress.

Researching websites provided an idea of what costumes possibly looked like. The royal ladies would have worn many layers of clothes but I decided that a full skirt and an over garment would work.

I found a long skirt that I had worn in the 1970s. It was dark green and made of a soft cotton fabric that looked like wool. There was a printed pattern of small cream flowers and squiggles on the fabric which, with imagination, could look like embroidery. In medieval times many ladies would have spent days embroidering patterns on fabric for the queen's wardrobe. This was to be used as the over garment after I removed the zip and opened up the seam.

We went shopping and purchased two metres of 'royal purple' poplin to make the gathered skirt. Some of the fabric was also used for the head-dress. We also purchased half a metre of white lawn for the wimple and some gold braid to decorate the head-dress. A white skivvy with cuffs removed completed the outfit.

There are a number of images of medieval queens on the internet but these images were usually representations made many years later of what the queens may have looked like. However they can be useful as a guide.

Some of the outfits have a bodice or bib which is narrow at the waist and wider at the top. This idea was used for making the outer garment for this costume using excess material from the skirt. It was also designed as something easy to put on and wear for the school project. 

The head-dress was based on some images of medieval royalty. A simple wimple was added to the head-dress – a full wimple would have extended under the neck of the wearer and would not have been as easy to put on without assistance. The head-dress itself was made from a circle of cardboard covered with layers of fabric. Another piece of fabric formed the top of the hat. Two rows of gold braid were stitched to the head-dress.

My grand-daughter and I shared the sewing, both machine and by hand, in this project. With more time we would have done some things differently but the costume we made worked on the day and, more importantly, my grand-daughter enjoyed wearing it and had an enjoyable Medieval Day at school. 

Some online references: 

Medieval wimples and head-dresses

Clothes in Medieval England

A very easy medieval head-dress

The cheats guide to medieval head-dresses

Medieval queens clothing

The medieval period covered hundreds of years and there would have been many fashion adaptions over the years.