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.

“German Rose” Cotton and Velvet Overdress

Medieval German dress

You can’t go wrong with simple, understated beauty. You can load yourself full of jewels, beads, and embellishment, but there really is something to be said for wearing something that has a simple shape and beautiful fabrics. We took a lot of the inspiration for this dress from history, which we feel allowed us to take a step back from our usual styles and instead look to making the most basic aspects perfect.

Most of the inspiration for this dress came from “The Crucifixion” oil painting, which was painted around 1540 by Anton Woesam. At the front of the painting, there is a figure kneeling, wearing the dress that we based our initial design on. In the original painting, the sleeves were shorter, but we still took the basic silhouette and square neckline from this as a starting point. Our design process from here was to look at other garments from the era and figure out how to engineer the dress in a way that looked fantastic but was still comfortable for our customers to wear.

This dress has the same flattering silhouette as the rest of the collection, giving you a high waist that allows the skirt to drape down below. This leads to a thin, dainty waist, adding grace to the overall silhouette, as well as making just about anyone appear tall and lithe. In order to get this gorgeous fitted bodice, we have lacing with eyelets up the back of the dress. The neckline of the dress matches the rest of the “German Rose” collection - it is square and quite low. In order to give the bodice of the dress a bit of rigidity, it is double layered. The hem for this dress is quite massive: 8-8.5m has been used to give volume to the skirt, which is tapered in with a number of perfect pleats around the waist.

The sleeves for this dress are NOT detachable as they are in the rest of the collection - instead, they are attached with strings but leave room to show whichever beautiful chemise or underdress you choose to wear underneath. The bottom of the sleeve is also open in a similar fashion. It includes two ornamental buttons with velvet strips coming down from the elbow and one functional button at the bottom. This provides another place to showcase your beautiful underdress. This dress is truly a new style for us, and we hope that you find it comfortable to wear as well as gorgeous.

The main body of the dress is made from cotton with a truly wonderful texture. It has a rich color and is soft but strong. The accent fabric we have used is a lovely velvet with a deep color, lining the square neckline, along with the stripes on the sleeves, and three accenting stripes at the bottom of the hem of the dress. We have used quality tailoring techniques on this whole dress, taking care to construct it in a way that is professional and strong. If you’re looking for similar clothing of the same style, take a look through the whole collection - you won't be disappointed.

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.

To check how to measure yourself please click here.

Please contact us if you have any additional questions.