Without her, autumn came and trees became austere,
And after that the time grew quickly, year by year by year.
Still, I listen for whispers of that song I could have known,
And look to my garden, gnarled and my flowers overgrown.
I tell myself, as winter comes, if I could just have her here,
She would be my finest rose.

Renaissance Dress “German Rose”

German Renaissance overdress with asymmetric hem

There is something to be said for understated beauty. Sure, you can wear as many jewels as you’d like, and adorn your dresses with shiny trim… everyone has their own personal standards of aesthetics. In this collection, we chose to instead look inward, allowing the stunning design of the dress, fine finishes, and quality textiles to speak for themselves. We feel that these aspects end up singing far louder than even the brightest and most decorative trims!

This dress is historically inspired, heavily based on a figure in “The Crucifixion”, an oil painting by Anton Woesam circa 1540. In the foreground a woman knees piously, wearing a short-sleeved overdress with a square neckline. Once we knew what we wanted this dress to look like, we got to work looking at other historical sources to understand how a German medieval clothing like this may have been put together and then worked on it further to apply modern tailoring techniques. Applying our expertise to historical garments means that we can still make them appear historical, but add aspects that make them more comfortable for modern wearers.

This dress probably would have been worn by a woman with servants or a handmaid, as there is lacing up the back that can be difficult to secure yourself. Not to say that it is impossible to do yourself - we just wouldn’t recommend it for your comfort. Thus, the wearer would likely have been higher socioeconomic standing than your average person.

The German women's dress itself has a fitted silhouette, giving you a dainty waist and high bust, with the voluminous skirt falling in fabulous pleats. This means that you end up with a very high waist, which was quite fashionable at the time, and makes people of all statures tall and graceful. As previously mentioned, we achieve this fitted look with the help of back lacing, which will help you get a good fit while the dress remains comfortable. The bodice of the dress is lined with fine natural linen. The neckline is low and square, which looks lovely when combined with our pleated chemise.

The sleeves of this dress are short but a bit billowy, secured at the top of your shoulder with a cord. This exposes the lining underneath, giving some contrast to your outfit. The hem of this dress is very interesting - it measures 9 meters around, which is a huge amount of fabric! To compensate for this, there are pleats at the waist to make sure it falls in the most flattering way possible. The hem is also asymmetric, so it at the front it falls to just below your knees, giving you room to kneel and move. At the back, though, it trails out behind you slightly in a magnificent way.

Here at ArmStreet, we love fine finishing. We apply all of our expertise to each and every item to make sure we’re finishing our seams in ways that are robust and look great. One way we have gone above and beyond with this dress is by applying linen tape to the bottom of the hem, which reinforces it and makes sure it sits correctly. We think that this dress looks perfect with our fitted kirtle dress and matching chemise - take a look and fall in love with the whole collection!

Because of the fitted nature of this dress, please ensure you measure yourself correctly, over any additional garments you wish to wear with it.

To check how to measure yourself please click here.

Please contact us if you have any additional questions.