Spanish Chopines

While I was making the venetian chopines I talked to our lovely Baroness, Mistress Isabel Maria del Aguila, and discussed the fact that Venetians weren't the only folk to make chopines. I didn't know the Spanish had done that too but that's the beauty of the SCA, you learn something new every day. Obviously then, I was keen to explore them further and since I knew such a well dressed Spanish lady my next steps were obvious, research the Spanish version of the chopine and make a pair for Her Excellency. There were several examples of extant Spanish chopines available online and the more I looked at art from the period the more examples I came across.
In period cork was the preferred  material for chopine bodies but I was unable to obtain any at a reasonable price so I used pine bored out to reduce the weight. The shape is more complex than it appears at first appearance and took several attempts to get right.
I made the vamps from leather and covered them in the fabric I'd chosen to cover the chopines. The vamps and covering were then sewn to the leather sole which was in turn glued to the wooden body.


I then tacked the covering to the bottom of the body and stitched up the back seam.






The bottom sole was then glued to the body and then stitched through the wood to bind both the sole and the cover.




This left a nearly finished chopine which looked thus. I added eyelets and laces and presented them to Her Excellency.

However, Her Excellency, being a member of the Order of the Laurel for her accomplishments in the Sartorial arts could hardly be expected to leave things there, so, with a little judicious application of some appropriate decoration, this are the finished chopines in all their glory.

Chopines continued

Once I'd finished my first pair of chopines I got a few admiring comments from some of the local ladies, so since I wasnt really going to make any for myself I thought I'd make a few more pairs to try to improve my technique.

This pair I made for the Honorable Lady Elizabetta Foscari and as luck would have it she was in the midst of putting on a series of classes on Italian garb.
I kept the style the same so I could work on making them more efficiently and getting my upholstery a bit more tidy.

This pair were for Lady Lucia Anastasia da Curzola who, though frequently appearing to be one of the Golden Horde is actually a cultivated Venetian lady.
I also made a pair for Ginevra Isabella di Serafino Visconti.
I think I managed to get more consistency in my work and have got a handle on the basics of these shoes. I made a few changes to the original pattern I was using to account for my style of stitching and I think when I do more I'll be a bit more efficient.

Elevated Footwear - Chopines

   
A couple of years ago I had the pleasure of meeting Queen Cassandra of Caid when she and King Sven attended Canterbury Faire in our fair Barony. I decided to make her a pair of chopines for her to wear with her lovely venetian outfits and set about researching how to make and decorate them.
I spent a fair bit of time over this and during my search found a great site run by Francis Classe at
http://aands.org/raisedheels/ . I found his work really informative and Francis himself very helpful.

Following my research and some helpful hints from Francis I produced my first pair of chopines.
I began by roughing out laminated pine boards with a band saw and attached a marine ply base to act as the sole.
The next step was to complete the shaping of the body of the chopines with rasps, gouges and a belt sander to prepare them for upholstering.
Once the shaping was done i cut and tooled a leather sole and vamps.
I added a little Caidan Cross in honor of Her Majesty.

I managed to get hold of some nice light blue velvet and silver trim and upholstered the chopines using a four piece pattern I'd seen on the raised heels site. The finished product ended up thusly, which I thought was a nice amalgam of the two extant examples below. All in all I was reasonably happy with my first effort.