JAYPLAY
entertainment news
Thursday, September 21, 2000
For comments, contact BriAnne Hess at 864-4810 or email joyplay@kansan.com
the cup runneth over
Renaissance-style fashions draw spectators' stares
Story by Meghan Bainum Photo by Brad Dreier
A woman stands by her booth at the Kansas City Renaissance Festival, selling beer stains and smiling at the passing crowd. When she sees a frowning face she yells: "Smile, don't make me lean over!"
Murrell is proud of the effect her long black skirt and tight, low-cut leather corset has on male — and female — visitors.
Usually, the visitor smiles because when Theresa Murrell, a bawdy wench with an overstuffed bodice, leans over - people notice.
"He'll grin, then he'll notice his wife watching," she said. "He'll stop grinning, and she'll start to laugh — then he'll start grinning again."
Murrell happily showed how the corset caused large eyes and guilty grins. She "fluffed" her breasts up in the corset, higher and higher, until a shelf of cleavage
"I could pull my breasts up until I couldn't put my head down," she said.
Thanks to the corset's four layers of leather and several metal plates, Murrell was confident everything would stay in place.
"I could pull my breasts up until I couldn't put my head down."
At the Renaissance Festival, 20th century garb such as jeans and T-shirts, seem centuries out of style. And, in a way, it is — about 400 years out of style, in fact.
Thesauri Murrell on the low-cut leather corset she wears at the Renaissance Festival
Merchants and performers used clothing to convince the Saturday crowd to let loose and imagine themselves in a distant land, where Henry VIII is king and real men
Renaissance Festival
Trinity Wright, who plays Lady Catherine
Some of the Renaissance fashions — such as those worn by the noblewomen in the festival — are slightly less comfortable.
Where: Bonner Springs;
adjacent to
Sandstone
Amphitheatre
"Modern clothing is designed more for convenience," he said. "And I think period clothing was designed more for comfort and function."
Cost: Students, $12.50;
adults, $13.95.
When: 10 a.m. to 6:30 p.m.
weekends through
Oct. 15.
Tomorrow and Saturday Might Scottish Games
wear tights.
He demonstrated how the pointed leather boots, cotton tights, brocade cloth doublet and soft cotton sleeves moved with him as he gestured, unlike the suit jackets and tight pants of today.
Sept. 30 and Oct. 1 Carnivale de France
Spanish Armada
Oct. 14 and 15 Oktoberfest Celebration
Willouby.
When Preston Lawton,
who plays Private Scott
Wyatt, finished wrestling
for the king, he stopped
to pick hay out of his
sleek black tights.
Though the day was hot
and Lawton had just
rolled in the hay, he said
the tights didn't bother
him at all.
ers—almost."
However, some of the male visitors to the festival, including Dustin Parks of Abilene, weren't ready to experience the freedom of wearing tights.
"For the most part, they are very cool," he said. "That's what keeps us cool on a hot day."
Though wearing tights is all in a days work for Lawton, there was one thing he had to get used to: Underwear doesn't fit under tights.
"That's odd at first," Lawton said. "But it's just almost like a pair of box-
"I wouldn't be caught dead in them," Parks said.
T'gallen Stone, a clothing merchant, said people who were not willing to try the Renaissance style were missing out.
Stone has made Renaissance-style clothing for 30 years and said he actually preferred the older styles to contemporary looks.
a lady-in-waiting to the queen, said she had to wear eight or nine layers of clothing to correctly dress in Renaissance style.
She had to think for a
moment before rattling off all the layers.
"Bloomers, chemise, corset, hoop skirt, underskirt, overskirt, bodice and sleeves," Wright said.
Though the clothing could make her hot, she said it was worth it to see the look in kids' eyes when they saw her in her bejeweled, red velvet dress.
Kelley Gorman, a child from Pleasant Hill, Mo., was transfixed by the glamorous look.
"I like those big poofy dresses," Kelley said. "They are the coolest."
Though women's Renaissance fashion included many layers of clothes, Murrell said it wasn't all that hot. She said the corsets she wore were more comfortable than modern clothes.
As she "fluffed" her breasts up in her corset, Murrell extolled the comfort of corset wearing.
"It's significantly more comfortable than an underwire bra," she said.
With her cleavage at its fully "fluffed" position, Murrell carefully balances one of her larger wooden steins on the top of her breasts — a benefit when drinking or selling her steins.
"If I pull them up I can fit a seven-cup stein up here," she said.
Just try to do that with a pair of tights.
Edited by Amy Randolph
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