Bliaut pattern for medieval wedding dress

The bliaut is a great choice for your medieval wedding dress. It's a sumptuous overgown, which was worn from the 11th right through to the 14th century. It had long, flowing sleeves, and was usually decorated at neck and hem with embroidery or braid. The sleeves were usually tight at the upper arm and very long and full below the elbow. It was tight in the body, and very, very full in the skirt.

The bliaut was laced down the sides – actually, from the hips, right up the body and through the underarm to the upper arm – that's how they got such a tight fit through the body and upper arm. Over time, as people laced it tighter and tighter, it caused a distinctive wrinkling around the body (in a lot of pictures you can see lots of little 'pleats' horizontally around the stomach, under the breast but above the hips) and the upper arm (you can often also see the same kind of wrinkling bands around the upper arm). There's no actual pleating, this is a totally natural result of pulling those side laces so tight. As this became fashionable, the bliaut was cut longer than necessary in the stomach, to create even more wrinkling!

There's an interesting but controversial idea about the way the bliaut was worn during the 12th century. Some people believe that at this time a contrasting girdle was worn around the stomach and hips, tied tightly by a scarf or belt. (If you're familiar with Japanese clothes, a bit like an obi and obi-cord.) I've not yet seen any evidence which has completely convinced me that this is authentic – it just bears no relation to anything else in medieval fashion – but it is a really interesting style, and allows you to play with contrasting colours.

The bliaut was usually made of very fine silk – fine enough to create those little wrinkles. That's because it originally evolved from the fine silk gowns that the crusaders brought back from the east.

Here's a sketch of a pattern for the bliaut. Like the basic kirtle pattern, which it evolved out of, it's cut from rectangles and triangles as much as possible – it's simple and economical to cut that way.

The slit at the centre (and back) front is to insert another triangular gore for extra fullness.

I haven't tried to draw this pattern to scale, because you can adjust the proportions to taste – for example, if you want the little wrinkles across the body and upper arm, then cut the body and upper arm twice as long as they need to be. If you want a train, cut the back and sides very long.

The dotted line shows where the gown laces up the sides – put little lacing holes closely spaced (1-2cm apart) all along that line. Medieval lacing holes weren't cut and edged in metal like modern ones are – instead, they poked a hole between threads which they then widened, and sewed all around it to keep it open.

For this pattern to look right, you'll need to wear it over a close-fitting kirtle in a contrasting colour. If you don't want the extra layer, you can cheat and get the same effect by stitching a pair of tight sleeves into the bliaut's sleeves, and putting some kind of placket under the lacing strips.

I've put a wide round neckline on this pattern, but of course you can have a v-neck instead, or a t-shape edged in braid. If you're using braid on the neckline, it was common to put braid around the upper arms and hem, too.