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BEHIND THE DESIGN
A person's clothing is essential to his or her culture, class, personality or even religion. Majestic Fashion Design recognizes the importance of understanding clothing sociologically, historically and artistically.
We provide unique, high quality, one-of-a-kind designs drawn from history, fantasy and folklore.
Our designs are timeless. From couture wedding gowns to period inspired or reconstructed theatrical creations we bring to life clothes you will be proud to own and wear for years to come.
Marti Miernik & Costuming
I have been designing and creating fashions for over seventeen years. Each piece is custom made. My creativity, attention to detail, and passion positively radiates from every design and assures clients the very finest results.
I concentrate on detail and on the fit. Every clothing piece constructed is designed from custom patterns fitted to you, always ensuring the best look. All external stitching is completed by hand thus ensuring the period look so highly prized by the wearer. All embroidery is researched extensively to ensure the correct period representation.
Other adventures
I'm the Co-Founder of Renaissance Productions and a co-producer of a series of most amazing themed events in California, where I serve as costume director. I have established two successful guilds on the circuit: Royal White Eagle (www.royalwhiteeagle.com) premier Polish Renaissance reenactment group, and Needles Eye, tailors guild that offers a glimpse to how clothes of the past were made. Im an actress and have played a series of key roles on the faire circuit including those of Queen Mary of Scotland and Anna Jagiellonka.
I have a passion for history, fencing and horses. I used to compete in endurance racing and I even made the Barcelona Team in 92. Currently, I am a proud owner for a black Percheron gelding named Knight.
I love seeing people succeed, and I enjoy having a hand in making good things happen making others dreams come true. That's my greatest virtue and vice. So be careful what you asked for you just might get it
More? Ask me. Have a design in mind? Contact me.
MFD is currently accepting commissions
Interested in Commissioning a Garment ?
I stand behind every piece of garment that leaves my workshop. All are signed with the MFD logo. As such quality of work if of #1 importance.
Everything starts with a consultation. If you contact me about a commission or costume idea you are by no way committing yourself to buy it. Share all the details possible, pictures, sketches, character name, if they are from an anime or TV show or manga etc. Be as explicit as possible. Include any detail that is important to you.
The consultation will determine your needs. What event is the costume for? What sort of material would you like? What is your budget? Once these and other questions are answered, you can expect to see a couple design sketches and fabric/trim swatches.
Pricing
Following an initial consultation, MFD will outline what work is involved, an approximate cost and time needed to make the costume. Cost is based on the price of the fabrics/trims chosen, plus the labor. As such each costume is priced individually and can range from $100.00 to $3,000.00 or more, depending on the amount of work involved. Materials and decoration are priced separately. Here are some examples of base line prices for Renaissance Garb:
Cotton shirt - $85.00 plain, $110.00 with blackwork embroidered cuffs and collar
Peasant ensamble (bodice & skirt) - $150.00 and up
Middle class outfit - $450 and up
Nobles - $800 and up
Leather doublet - $800 and up
Corset - $150 and up
The test run
MFD will then set to work on what is known as a "muslin" or a "toile." This is a test run made from cheap material to determine proper fit. Expect at least one fitting during this step, though depending on the complexity of the gown and its purpose, there may be multiple fittings.
Once the fit is perfect, the MFD will start on the "real" thing immediately.
The deliverable
If you decide to commission a garment, MFD will need 6-8 week for construction, unless otherwise stipulated during the consultation.
CONTACT ME
Marti _ majestic fashion design . com
408.506.6499
Majestic Fasion Designs is taking commissions for 2010 and 2011.
If you're interested in a closer examination of MFD work, please visit the Needle's Eye guild at the upcoming Valhalla Renaissance Faire, in South Lake Tahoe, CA. The designer will be on hand, just ask for Marti Miernik.
I also keep a blog on Facebook. If you'd like to keep current on what we're working on, please visit: MFD Facebook page
April 2010 - A MFD custom Wedding Gown featured in Renaissance Magazine!
In search of a perfect color RED: The Intro
Red has appealed to humans for ages:
It is one thing however to assign meaning to the color, another to create the color itself. For thousands of years artists met with disappointment as they tried to reproduce the flaming scarlets and deep crimsons. The best red these artists knew was ochre, the Cro - Mangnons pigment, which produced a color that was muddied with orange and brown.
Sometime before the 5th century B.C. painters in Asia discovered a more satisfactory red, which could be made from the mineral cinnabar, or mercuric sulfide, a compound also known as vermillion and minimum. Cinnabar however was very expansive. Yet because it was by far the most brilliant red paint available, cinnabar continued to be used for more than a thousand years.
Red Cloth
Exclusive, expansive, and invested with powerful symbolism, red cloth became the prize possession of the wealthy. Before the invention of artificial dyes in 19th c. it could be obtained only from exotic substances and secret techniques that few dyers ever mastered.
It was big news, then, when Spains conquistadors found the Aztecs selling an extraordinary red dyestuff in Mexico, in 1529. Calling the dyestuff grana cochinilla or cochineal, it produced the brightest, strongest red Old World) has ever seen. According to a prominent English chemist Robert Boyle, cochineal yielded a perfect Scarlet. Cochineal became Europes premier red dyestuff and Spain made a fortunate selling it to dyers around the globe.
Spanish lucrative monopoly did not sit well with the rest of Europe. They kept the secret of cochineal under wraps that no one even knew whether it even animal or vegetable extract. The search for cochineal became a national crusade for England, Netherlands and even Spain.
800 years ago Lucca (city in Tuscany) was a power to be reckoned with: its luminous silks, dyed in jewel-like tones were the wonders of 13th century. No one on the continent equaled them. Lucchese silks included smooth taffetas, intricate damasks, and elaborate brocades. They were sold only by Europes most exclusive merchants.
During the feuds that erupted in early 1300s, many of the Luccas dyers and silk workers fled to Venice. They where greeted with open arms. They were hoping to learn the trade secrets of Luccas citizens harbored. Those who accepted put themselves in danger. Luccas guild laws prescribed death for any Lucchesse practicing the silk trade outside the city. According to statue, the men were to be strangled, the women burned.
Luccas draconian guild laws were the sign of the times. Textiles were a matter of life and death in the Renaissance Europe.
Textile transformation begun after 1350s with aristocrats who survived the Black Death. They had money to spend, to showcase their dominance. They tried to outdo each other, insisted on wardrobes far larger and fancier than those of their grandparents. Textile industry grew, created new markets and trade networks. They inspired the invention of new technologies, new types of spinning machines, methods for bleaching, etc.
Textiles were a lifeline for many communities. By 15c. 100,000s of Europeans from shepherds to great merchants made a living from textiles. Because of each step in the cloth-making process was handled by different craftsmen, more than a dozen people could be involved in fashioning a single piece of fabric.
Textile industry was a crowded and competitive field. Those who produced low-grade cloth faced the most competition, made smaller profits and were most likely to loose their jobs.
•England was primarily exported wool and plain cloth was considered backward in medieval times
•Holland was famous for its high-quality linen
•Flanders were famous for their woolens
•All envied Italian states where cities like Lucca and Venice produced exquisite satins, brocades, in a multitude of rich hues
Wealthy Europeans were willing to pay astronomical prices for those dazzling Italian textiles, which they wore as badges of rank, not least because of their color.
Process of making silk and wool in the Renaissance
Silk Making - Silk workers of Lucca included in their ranks a host of specialized workers:
Wool Making - The most common fiber in Europe required even more specialization:
Wool then had to be finished
o Many walkers trampled the mixture into the cloth with their bare feet, but prosperous fullers kept their boots on and used a millwheel and hammers instead
o The soaking-wet cloth was then hung out on wooden frames called tenters
o Tenterhooks held the fabric fast and stretched it to the right dimensions as it dried.
o While still damp the cloth would be brushed and sheared several times for a finer softer nap
Colors - evolution & the law
To the people of the Renaissance Europe, gray and beige were the colors of poverty: only the poorest of the poor and lowly priests, monks and nuns wore undistinguished garb. More prosperous peasants, craftsmen, and other middling folk dressed in muted clothing colored with cheap, domestic dyes. Although such dyes could sometimes yield strong blues, yellows, oranges and greens, the fabrics tended to fade quickly, especially if the wearer worked outdoors.
Peasants sometimes appear brightly dressed in medieval and Renaissance works of art. This is less a reflection of peasant wardrobes than the fact that wealthy patrons could afford precious pigments and expected their artists to use them. Although some people in the lower ranks may have worn colorful clothes from time to time, particularly for special occasions, most of the vivid hues commonly worn by the wealthy were beyond their reach.
Bright clothing was a mark of high status, a code for power that even illiterate could read at a glance. The association of color and rank was reinforced by the sumptuary laws that decreed what each level of society was allowed to eat, drink and wear.
o Yeomen could however wear cat fur w.o penalty
Laws also regulated color.
As centuries passed, bright fabrics became more widely available. In 1583 an Elizabethan commentator complained that "now there is such a confuse mingle of apparel that it is verie hard to know who is noble, who is worshipfull, who is gentleman and who is not. Peasants still in major part could not afford the best and the brightest. According to another Elizabethan writer, they dressed instead in a dull tweed called medley and graye and russet, never dyde."
Dyers Lot - Part two
Dyers had to spend many years apprenticed to a master learning the trade. Usual work days were long: started before dawn and ended after sunset. Their job was exacting, exhausting and dangerous.
Before the invention of artificial dyes in 19c. most dyes came from plants and there was ho rhyme and reason to colors they yelded:
To make things even more complicated, the dye in some plants was found in their flowers, while others had it in their leaves or roots. Nor was the amount of dye consistent. Also, some dyes were naturally fast while others required addition of chemical binding agents such as tannin, cream of tartar, alum, iron and chrome knows as mordants because they helped dyes bite into the cloth.
Mordants, while necessary presented more problems. Each produced different colors from the same dyestuff. The temperature of the dyebath = the mixture of water, dyestuffs and other ingredients was often crucial to the color, as was the amount of time the cloth remained in the dyepot. Even the dyepot itself could affect the color of the cloth, if its metal reacted with the dye. Nor were the dyepots the only tools that dyers needed.
In 1394 when two Tuscan dyers fell into debt and their show was inventoried, the list ran to nearly a hundred items, including vats, washboards, winches, scales, tubs, shovels and a small sieve for fishing the wool out of the boilers. Their equipment was worth over 400 gold florins, with dyestuff worth another 200 florins. In the age when 20 florins sufficed to buy a small farm, this was a substantial sum, which may explain why the dyers were in debt in the first place.
Although best dyers produced colors of rare beauty that people would pay a kings ransom, they themselves ranked very low on the social ladder.
Dyers and guilds
Dyers took advantage of their new power and organized themselves into guilds or trade associations. Their chiedf aim was to prevent rivals from driving prices and quality down. Also they established working hours, conditions and wages, all of which varied from city to city. To keep competition down they also set up systems of apprenticeship which limited entry into the profession.
When dyers had trouble establishing their own guilds, they became minor members of larger guilds ran by wool merchants or weavers who often ruled with iron hand
Guild of the Arte di Calimala in Florence burned any cloth not dyed to standard and fined the dyer. If they dyer could not pay the fine Arte si Calimala chopped off of their hands instead.
Guilds prospered and helped raise members to new heights of respectability. In London the dyers guild was even allowed to rare privilege of keeping swans on the Thames, a privilege once reserved solely for royalty.
Over time dyers guilds became specialized. Dyers who worked with different fabrics often belonged to different guilds as did dyers who worked on different colors.
A dyer caught using colors outside his chosen specialty could be fined and thrown out of his guild.
Depending on dyestuffs they employed, dyers were also categorized as either plain dyers or high dyers.
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EXAMPLE
Every dyers guild was in a sense a secret society that protected its arts from outsiders. Members who violated the rule were punished, expelled from the guilds, even outlawed from the city.
Guilds also established standards for their members, discouraged taking shortcuts, and prohibited the substitution of cheap ingredients for expansive ones.
Arte di Calimala decreed that any member who used cheap red dyestuffs thus compromising the citys reputation for quality of goods would be fined 100 lire or loose their right hand.
This regulation was no coincidence. Though other cities and countries produced red fabric, Luccas scarlet silk was famous. The techniques for making this fabric was therefore most valuable.
Majestic Fashion Design
Unique creations for
fashion conscious
Wedding Couture*Period & Fantasy
Beading&Embroidery*Romantic Coursetry
