They say confession is good for the soul.....

At the risk of shocking, horrifying, nay, even alienating some of you, I have a confession to make. I hate 16th century European fashion.

  

Notice anything? All my late period stuff is plain. And brown. And commoner class. Now think back to when the last time was that any of you actually saw me IN any of it.

Why? Because when I wear it, I feel like THIS:


I prefer the clean lines of a cotehardie. The Maker gave me little boobs and a pot belly, I was made for cotehardies.


When I want to be beautiful, I go Japanese:
 

If you want to look like Veronica Franco or a Cranach princess or Anne Boleyn or Viola De Lesseps, go right ahead. It's all good. It would be a very boring world if we all liked the same thing. 

Pardon me while I create an anachronism.

Score! Stone Mountain and Daughter had some nice thick plain white flannel for $4.50/yard. The Japanese certainly did not have white cotton flannel in our period, but dammit, I will have WARM tabi for Estrella. They also had some wonderful Asian/Japanese cotton prints, which are a bit expensive, but I got one yard of a lavender dragonfly print that will also be cute for tabi. While I haven't found evidence one way or another for patterned tabi for women, I see them (usually indigo, sometimes other colors) on men, particularly samurai.
I virtuously did NOT buy anything else.

And I FINALLY met the new tenant downstairs when I went out this morning. He was headed for the laundry closet - I hesitate to call it a laundry room. Steve seems nice. Says he travels a lot, which is why we hadn't bumped into each other before.