Photos for guidance only. Please contact me directly to order to discuss time-frame, your preferred colour and posting, particularly if you are overseas.
Think of this shop as more like a shop window from which you can place an order.
*Important information on Shipping/Insurance: due to the deceptively light weight of silk you may not wish to risk inadequate shipping/insurance for higher priced objects like girdle belts and hairnets. Please contact me and I can research the best and most cost-effective options.

Silk Tablet-woven Girdle belt or 'Corse' - approx. 136cm long, +/- 4cm width. Ends are braided to protect them ahead of any buckle and strap end fittings Woven from vintage 20/2 fuchsia red silk. Monochrome Girdles can be made in custom widths and lengths and to your chosen colour palate; please contact me for personal commissions.

Example Prices:

• (per 30cm) = £75 for a 4+cm width girdle

Provenance: based on the chequerboard twist patterns which appear between brocaded sections on the belt of Philip of Swabia (German 12-13th century) Historisches Museum der Pfalz

Collingwood, P. The Techniques of Tabletweaving. Faber and Faber, London 1982. p155/Plate 75

as well as being a pattern which continues into the 15th century as seen in van der Weyden's painting of The Magdalene Reading https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/rogie...

*Additional note on aiglets and belt fittings: when working on commissions, what I do is to supply the silkwork but on request, I can also make aiglets of copper alloy, or send a period accurate buckle and strap-end from a reputable UK maker - at cost - ready for fitting with rivets.

Although we know that silkwomen made various types of braids, girdles and ‘corses’ (belts); we don’t have evidence as to whether these came as finished items (with aiglets, buckles and strap-ends) or whether the purchaser had to take them to a girdler to have these fitted. And there was a Girdler’s Guild. In St Eligius in His Workshop https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/45... (also known as The Goldsmith and the Young Couple) by Petrus Christus (Flemish, 1449: Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York) a sample short-section of wide girdle can be seen - look at the shelf in the goldsmith's shop, with a buckle, strap-end and three decorative mounts. A sumptuous red girdle lies across the counter spilling into the viewer’s space, and seems to be waiting its fittings.