Beach 2023 (or 1523)

 As I am heading off for Medieval Week in Visby again I realized that I needed something for bathing. The beach in Visby is honestly not a bathing beach, but it's the water and it's nice to go down and wash off. It's very public, so something to wear is essential. Last year I simply had a bikini, and when going down and up I pulled one of my regular shift over it to cover up, and look a bit more historical. 

Bathing shift were a thing in the Middle Ages, it's easy to google and find a lot of examples of them. Now most of them looks to be fairly tight around the bust, and from quite a sheer fabric. I decided to draw inspiration from them, but make a modern version.

I wanted to be able to pull the shift both down and up, so for that reason the shift is quite loose around the top, so I can pull it down over my bottom and hips. The straps have snaps, so when I want to get changed to what I'm going to wear I can undo the straps, pull the regular shift over me, and then remove the bathing shift by pulling it down. 

It's also quite a bit shorter than the images of the medieval bathing shifts, they were shorter, but not that short. I would say this is not historically accurate, but I can move around in the camp in it, and I can leave it to dry when we have the camp open for visitors. It is also totally machine sewn, since it wasn't a plan to make it historically accurate.

The top has a draw string as well as straps.

The straps are fastened with very modern snaps.

The pattern is really just a tube of fabric, and I have added a front and back gore to make it wider over the hips.