Deciphering Juan de Alcega’s Tailor’s Pattern book of 1589

Introduction

Juan de Alcega was a Master Tailor in Spain in the late 16th century. In 1589, after much struggle, his book of “The Practice of Tailoring, Measuring and Marking Out” was finally published (Alcega, p. 15). We know this book today as Juan de Alcega’s Tailors Pattern Book.

His goal was to provide a resource to journeyman and master tailors to reduce the hassle of knowing how much fabric they needed to have the customer purchase for their garments, and to provide to the tailors a guide to layout the pattern pieces in the most efficient way possible with minimal wastage of fabric.

The book is divided into three parts:
• First, there are conversion tables showing the equivalent lengths of different width fabrics, for instance 2 bara wide fabric converted into 2/3 bara wide fabric.
• Second, there are the patterns for men’s, women’s, and other garments, with different layouts that take the different fabric widths into consideration.
• Third, there are tables for different types of garments that show generally how much fabric is needed for a particular type of garment in a multitude of widths.

In the 1970’s, almost four hundred years after the original publication, Ruth Bean published a facsimile of the original manuscript with a translation. The costuming work owes her and her team of translators a huge debt for this invaluable resource. If one is creating costumes from Western Europe between 1560-1600, it is truly a must own resource.

Influence of Spanish Fashion

Due to Spain’s political and monetary might during the 16th century, Spain had a large influence over the look and shape of garments throughout Europe. In England, France, Germany, the Netherlands and some parts of Italy, we see the influence of the Spanish lines and shapes in men’s and women’s clothes.

Resources

Tailor’s Pattern Book 1589, by Juan de Alcega, translated by Jean Pain and Cecilia Bainton. ISBN 0896762343 Originally published by Ruth Bean Publishers, now published by Costume and Fashion Press ISBN 0896762343

Patterns of Fashion, The cut and construction of clothes for men and women c 1560-1620 by Janet Arnold, ISBN 0333382846 Published by Costume and Fashion Press, ISBN 0333382846 A detailed analysis of surviving garments with construction details, close-up pictures and other great little goodies. Several garments in this book are very close to garments in Alcega.

The Costume Technician’s Handbook by Rosemary Ingham and Liz Covey.

While not a technical handbook on how to draft patterns in a period fashion, it is a good resource on pattern drafting and tailoring basics.

Extant garments in museums similar to garments in Alcega

Besides the many garments in Patterns of Fashion, 1550-1620 that are very similar in style to the garments in Alcega’s Tailor’s Pattern Book:

Woman’s Brown voided velvet jerkin, ca. 1580; very similar to jerkin mentioned in f.65a – f.66a, except without sleeves.

Symbols and interpretation

While the translators use ell in the text instead of the Spanish term of bara, I have chosen to use bara to eliminate confusion with other measurements also known as ell, but which had different lengths.

b is the symbol used for the Castilian bara, 1 bara =33 inches. Bara are calculated just like Roman numerals, the numbers are written left to right, with smaller numerals subtracting or adding to the larger one (Alcega, p 20).

Example:
ob = 1 bara – 1/8 bara
bo = 1 bara + 1/8 bara
If the symbols are repeated, the amounts are added together.
Example:
ooo = 1/8 + 1/8 +1/8 = 3/8.

In the text, the symbol iii, may appear to be written as iij, and the symbol ii may look like an n.

We are told by Alcega (p.17) that Castilian bara are only divided into parts that are perfect fractions of the ell itself: such as twelfths, eighths, sixths, quarters, thirds and halves. It is not divided up into fifths, sevenths, ninths, since they are uneven numbers and do not have an exact half.

This table shows the symbols that Alcega uses in his pattern diagrams to represent measurements in Castilian bara.

Table 4: Symbols used in the diagrams for measurements in Castilian bara

Patterns by Gender and Type

Alcega often gives many different examples of the same style of garment, but with different widths of fabric, or with just a slightly longer length of skirt or body of the garment, both factors in calculating how much fabric was needed and changing the layout of the garment pieces on the fabric. What I have attempted with these tables is to categorize the different patterns available into groups based on garment name and identical pattern shapes and number of pieces.

I have also translated the original fabric amount given in Castilian bara into modern fabric widths and yards and added the original finished measurements to some of the garments.

The most common fabric widths given in Alcega are 2/3 bara, 1 1/3 bara, 1 1/2 bara, 1 2/3 bara, 1 3/4 bara and 2 bara widths.

The conversion process to modern fabric widths and lengths is two fold, first you must convert the width to the modern width, and then the bara to the yard

To covert 3 1/2 bara length of 2/3 bara wide fabric to 45″ wide fabric
1 bara =33″
3.5/2 = 1.75 (To convert it into a similar width of fabric)
1.75* 33 = 57.75 (To get the number of inches of fabric)
57.75/36 (To convert it into yards)
= 1.6041666666666666666666666666667 which I round to
1.625 or 1 5/8
Formula version, where X is number of bara in 2/3 b width
X/2*33/36

Formulas for widths
2/3b to 45″ wide = ((X/2)*33)/36
2/3b to 58″ wide = ((X/2.625)*33)/36
2b width to 45″ wide = ((X*1.44)*33)/36
2b width to 58″ wide = ((X*1.14)*33)/36

Hopefully these tables will assist you in understanding what types of patterns are covered by Alcega and a general idea of how much fabric is needed.

Table 1: Women’s Garments

Table 2: Men’s Garments

Table 3: Special Garments

Understanding the Pattern Diagrams

The pattern layout diagrams are quite easy to figure out, once you know the secret.

Here in Diagram 1 we have a redrawing of f.58: Kirtle of silk for a woman. It is marked with small letters to indicate the measurements, and large capital letters, A and B, to indicate where there will be piecings needed. The piecings are also marked with an A or a B so that you know which one goes with which. But notice, that there are no measurement marks for the piecings , that’s because Alcega gives the measurements for the whole pattern piece and leaves it up to the tailor to figure out how much they need to piece depending on fabric width.

	Diagram 1: Re-drawing of the original pattern layout for f.58: Kirtle of silk for a woman
	Diagram 2: Re-drawing with piecing added. Using tracing paper, I traced over the pattern lines, then moved the paper to match the piecing marked B with the line marked B on the main skirt. Then I did the same thing for A.

Diagram 3: Finished pattern layout for f.58: Kirtle of silk for a woman Here I have re-drawn diagram 2 to have smoother lines. The lines aren’t to scale.

Worksheet for f.58: Kirtle of silk for a woman

Diagram 4: Re-drawn pattern layout for f.58: Kirtle of silk for a woman
Skirt Front:
bm – along front center- 49 1/2″
t – at waist- 11″
sb – at hem – 27 1/2″

Skirt Back:
bm – at back center – 49.5″
m – at waist – 16 1/2″
b – at hem – 33″

All of the skirt pieces are cut on the fold, we have to double the width measurements to get the finished size.
f.58 -Skirt waist: Front 22″ + Back 33″ = Total skirt waist 55″
f.58 -Skirt hem: Front 55″ + Back 66″ = Total skirt hem 121″

Division of skirt waist between front and back
f.58 -Skirt waist : Front 22″ + Back 33″ = Total skirt waist 55″
% in Front: 22/55 = 0.4
% in Back: 33/55 = 0.6

Division of skirt hem between front and back
f.58 – Skirt hem: Front 55″ + Back 66″ = Total skirt hem 121″
% in Front: 55/121 = 0.45
% in Back: 66/121 = 0.55

There is no recommended waist size for this kirtle, but upon comparing it to the kirtle f59a – Kirtle and low cut bodice of silk, I notice that the kirtle measurements are the same. So I have used the bodice measurements from 59a to calculate what the original waist measurement was for 58.
f. 59a- Waist: Front 16.5″ + Back 11″ = Total waist 27.5″

To adjust the pattern to the right measurements, we calculate the multiplier factor between the bodice waist, skirt waist and skirt hem.
Skirt waist/Waist: 55 / 27.5 = 2
Skirt hem/Waist: 121 / 27.5 = 4.4

Your waist measurement: _____________ (A)
Length of skirt: _____________ (L )
Your skirt total waist measurement: A * 2 =___________ (B)
Your skirt front waist measurement: B* 0.4 = ___________ / 2 = ____________ (FW)
Your skirt back waist measurement: B* 0.6 = ____________ / 2 = ___________ (BW)
Your skirt total hem measurement: A * 4.4 = __________ (C)
Your skirt front hem measurement: C * 0.45 = ____________ /2 = _____________ (FH)
Your skirt back hem measurement: C * 0.55 = _____________ / 2 = _____________ (BH)

Diagram 5: Kirtle made to your measure.

Originally a class handout, May 2005. Webbed April 2007. Updated 2009