Beginning Landsknecht – Blue Trossfrau

Trossfrau sketch

In January of 2013, I decided to branch out from my usual early period research and crafts.  I have several friends who do Landknecht really well and I though it would be interesting to give it a shot.

To start, I spend a lot of time looking at images of landknecht reenactors on Pinterest and on the Internet and came up with a drawing which I showed my friends and asked for critique.  A couple of things to keep in mind.  Almost all of the photos taken of this project were from with my cell phone camera.  I apologize in advance for the terrible quality of the photos.  The other thing to keep in mind is that at the time I started this project, I knew next to nothing about the clothing of the time period.

The style of dress I picked out is a landsknecht trossfrau, often called kampfrau in the reenactor community.  Kampfrau is a made up word, I am told.

The feedback I received on my sketch is as follows:

• Generally,  guard slashing is only found on dresses when there is also a bodice with a square neckline.
• It is much more common for the main part of the sleeves to match the gown fabric.
• The slashed rolled fabric embellishment I added to the guards on the dress and the bodice isn’t really seen on dresses at all, or if it is it’s on the sleeves.

One of my goals was to use fabric from my stash.  The cloth pictured with the sketch ended up all wrong for a couple of reasons.  The blue is too light-weight.  The red is the wrong tone and weight and the yellow, while a great color, is synthetic. I had planned to use it under the slashes.  When the slashes went, so did the lining fabric.

Dress materials

Here is the cloth I eventually used.

• Starting on the left, tabby-woven light-weight linen in bleached white for the hemd (chemise or underdress).  Purchased from Mill End Store.
• Tabby-woven medium-weight linen in yellow for the bodice and sleeve lining.  I’m not sure where I bought this.
• Basket-woven medium-weight wool in rust used for the dress guarding and contrasting sleeve panes.  Purchased from Mill End Store.
• Twill-woven medium weight wool in blue used for the dress, bodice and sleeves.  Purchased from Pastiche Books, one of my favorite SCA merchants.
• On the right is the wool/goat hair inter-lining.  It is used as a stiffener, to give the bodice a smoother appearance.  This is “hair canvas”, all natural fiber inter-liner which was very difficult to find. It was purchased from Renaissance Fabrics.

The belt blank was purchased from Tandy Leather Factory, as was the brass belt buckle, however, I ended up using a buckle from Raymond’s  Quiet Press (B-80 –
1 3/8″ by 2 1/8″ Belt buckle for 1″ strap.

The ring is for a ring pouch accessory that has yet to be made.

Tags: costume, landsknecht, projects