A La Mode – Part Eleven
Bliaut
For some unaccountable reason the middle ages has a romantic image. In truth, it must have been a brutal time in which to live but the popular image is of some damsel in distress with long tresses gazing out of the tower of a castle waiting for a knight on his trusty steed to snatch her away. If you look beyond the hair, invariably the maiden will be wearing a loose frock with long, elaborate sleeves. The bliaut, for that was what the garment was called, was all the rage, particularly in the 12th century.
One of the earliest pictorial representations of a woman wearing a loose garment with long sleeves, the principal characteristics of the bliaut, appears in the Bayeaux Tapestry. As the 12th century progressed, the shape of the look developed to one which emphasised the slimness of the waist, through the cut of the garment and the adoption of a garment and increasingly more eccentric and decorative sleeves.
Indeed, the sleeves were the most distinctive feature of the bliaut, usually fitted above the elbow and then widening dramatically below. Sometimes the sleeves would have elongated cuffs and often the lowest part would be square. Sleeves were often longer than the wearer’s arms and would dangle alongside the dress. They might be useful for secreting food or a weapon but often they were so impractical that the wearer would tie them back so at least they could use their arms without the unnecessary, albeit decorative, obstruction.
Beside the sleeves, other classic features of the bliaut include a tight fit around the torso. Depictions sometimes show a wrinkling effect which was almost certainly caused by the use of side lacing. Often a girdle was worn, sometimes wrapped twice around the body, with the ends hanging down at the front. The neck line could be round, V shaped or keyhole and was often highly decorated with embroidery or with woven braids of applied silk bands in contrasting colours. The choice of material for your bliaut would have been limited but if you were looking to make a splash of colour, then it would be made of fine wool or, if you could afford it, silk.
Early depictions of the bliaut show it as a one piece garment but from around 1130 to 1160 statues show a distinct change in style and the emergence of what was known as the bliaut girone. It consisted of two pieces, a fitted bodice (the cors) and a pleated skirt with a low waistband and vertical pleats (the girone). A girdle (ceinture) wrapped around the middle of the torso to emphasise the womb finished the costume off.
Because of its decorative and rather impractical nature, the bliaut was for more formal wear and often was to be seen in the courts of Europe. It is said to have originated in France and then spread across Europe. Marie de France, in a poem entitled Lanval dating to around 1160, wrote of “tightly laced dresses of dark purple” and the bliaut girone can be clearly seen in the seals of such eminences as Eleanor of Aquitaine and Agnes de Champagne.
But don’t think the bliaut was restricted to the ladies. Fashionable chaps also succumbed to the mediaeval fashion craze but their garments were more loosely fitting, one piece with gores, triangular-shaped fabric pieces, inserted to the skirt to give extra fullness and vertical folds. They must have looked bobby dazzlers!
But every fashion item has its day and by the middle of the 13th century the bliaut’s had well and truly gone.
