Tudors Day Out

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.

Work StationsThere 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.

Dying YarnsFor 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.

They used madder for red, woad for blue, and walnut for brown.

Madder Woad Walnut

FeltTudors 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.

Worker ManI 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.

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).