The Shirt

For purposes of clarity I'm refering to this garment as a shirt, there are other, lovely words for it in Farsi or Arabic, but call it a shirt, chemise or kamiz it's still worn the same way.

The bottom (or part of the bottom with the pants) layer for a 16th century Persian nobelwoman's dress, the shirt is either the same length or shorter than the top layers as it does not poke out from under the hem in illustrations. Some seem to be scandalously open in the front, sealed at the throat by a single button or broach. This may seem odd for a people who proscribed modesty in dress, however it seems that breasts were not the taboo items they are to our modern culture.

There is one known extant shirt dated as 14th century¹; it was never worn as the neck hole has not been cut. The decoration is embroidery (black silk thread in chain and running stitches and the fabric is lightweight cotton gauze. Note the lady pictured above seems to have some sort of trim or embroidery around the neck of her shirt as well, this seems a common motif in illumination, a line of darker or contrasting color along the neck opening).

The gathering at the sides of the extant shirt is of particular interest: an inventive solution to the problem of creating an undergarment that is full enough for freedom of movement and yet does not have too much fabric bunching under the arm. I’ve not been able to find any evidence of similar gathering in over-garments. When I attempted to re-create this garment I found that strangely enough sewing the neck last worked well with the order of sewing the seams, the lack of an opening made the garment more stable and less likely to tangle. The question remains; was this an unusual shirt or a typical pattern? The pattern of the garment does rely heavily on the rectangle; the shape of the woven cloth, and is therefore generates very little waste fabric. To me; lack of waste is always a good indicator of a correct pattern.

There are several images of the under-sleeve poking out from the coat that may be the shirt sleeve (or the sleeve of an inner coat.) While men's shirts seem to be universally white, women's shirts come in a range of colors including black.

In my attempt to re-create the extant shirt, I found that the gathered fabric on the sides of the gown caused the rectangular pieces under the arm to droop unattractively in the center. To correct for this I made certain in my next draft that the sleeves were cut at an angle to the very edge, resulting in the center of the rectangular piece being raised slightly and therefore straight when worn. I debated the length of sleeves; the under-coat and over-coat sleeves seem to be scrunched at the wrist indicating they are longer than the arm. However as the chemise is not depicted as hanging out farther than the over-coat or under-coat sleeve, I decided to keep its sleeve shorter or equal to the over-coat’s; ending just after wrist length thus keeping it from adding bulk at the wrist; the ideal of beauty for this time seems to lean toward willowy arms.

The pictorial evidence does not indicate the layer showing when hems are raised enough to show the legs. To me this means either that the lady’s shirt is tucked into the pants or short enough not to show. Calf-length is a typical length for European chemises of the time, and probably a safe bet for the correct length.