Looking for a servant girl or maid outfit...
feldarzt
Posts: 144
Hey guys!
As usual, it's a little trickier than you could have thought after reading the title :)
So I'm looking for an outfit that could pass for the everyday attire of a servant girl (or a maid, or whatever you call it) who works for a wealthy enough family in a fantasy world that is close to its version of the Industrial Revolution. It's still swords and sorcery with knights and dragons, but the steam machine has been invented already; it's just semi-secret for now and available to a minimal circle of secretive organizations. In short, the world is somewhat close to that shown in Thief 2: The Metal Age.
The outfit I'm looking for has to be "still medieval enough", i.e. not too modern. It has to be not "slutty" per se but more open than your typical "peasant dress" with its floor-long skirt and totally closed upper part; at the same time, your typical DAZ/RE "maid" outfit with a skirt that ends somewhere around her ears is a no-go either. I want something in between.
"Still medieval-ish" or something like that; medium-long skirt (about knee-length, give or take a bit), maybe slit, maybe not; the upper part with a cleavage or other way of flashing a bit of breast; not too "princessy" and not too "bar/tavern wench". Ideally, it would have a set of morphs (not dForce stuff) that would allow raising/opening the shirt and skirt to make that "occasional accidental flashing" easier.
Do you think you could direct me to one or two such outfits? Unfortunately, even DAZ's current catalog is way too vast, not to speak of other sites, and I'm just getting lost in it.
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Comments
It's hard to answer this with no indication of what generation you need it for (and trying to autofit it is going to completely break some of the morphs/posing you want it to have).
What I'll suggest though is that you can probably adapt how fancy something is with texturing.
To take Esha's G3F Fairytail Princess dress as an example, it looks very different with different texture sets:
It would help if you had examples of what the servant's employer/owners are going to be wearing, as there should be at least some similarity in the cuts and type of fabrics that would be used. For the time period and setting that you're discussing that sounds like we would be talking about relatively basic fabrics like linens, leathers, basic cottons, etc.
Beyond that, there are basically three ways in which servant clothes are created in the real world. First, there is the concept of using the cheapest materials available, often recycling old cast-offs. This is typically found on servants who perform menial and manual labor, aka the drudge or scutwork, kitchen assistants, laundry duties and stable-hands, etc., where anything worn is likely to get heavily stained or damaged during the course of doing one's regular duties. This can range from outright rags and old cuttoffs to items with heavy added protection... and, of course, the Roman's often simply kept their slaves naked, which is the ultimare economy. The flip approach is that servants are often used by many employers as a status symbol, and are thus used as way a display of the owners wealth. This where one typically finds butlers, carriage drivers, ladies maids, seamstresses, as well as the classic "French" maid, all of whom wear outfits that are designed to impress upon the viewer how rich the employer is rather than serve any practical function, with things like elaborate hats, heavy braiding, gold ornamentation, brass buttons, and high jack boots on the men, while female servants my find themselves in exagerated footwear, rigid corsetts, gowns with cuttout areas to expose a female servant's cleavage or other bodyparts, and restrictive collars. Finally, between the two, there are the functional outfits that fit between the two extremes, usually less fancy variations on what the employers themselves wear to give a good impression, but to overall tend to fade into the background when not specifically summoned... this is where you'll tend to find tutors, governesses, nursemaids, footmen, men-at-arms, as well as the basic level of tutors. Also, as far as working in DAZ goes, even though it may not seem period acurate to some situations, don't forget that it's MUCH easier to pose dresses that end just above or below the knees. So, put all the above together in the manner that you feel best fits your project and the theorhetical aims of your "emplyers" re their servants, and a lot of it comes to get on it's own.
And that said, the Fairytale dress mentioned above is a good starting place, but here are a few variations on that theme:
https://www.daz3d.com/peasant-dress-for-genesis-8-female-s https://www.daz3d.com/dforce-peasant-dress-for-genesis-8-females https://www.daz3d.com/dforce-dutch-milkmaid-outfit-for-genesis-8-and-81-females https://www.daz3d.com/dforce-medieval-barmaid-for-genesis-8-female https://www.daz3d.com/ud-expansion-3-victorian-maid
I'm working with G8, so ideally it should be for G8F. But G3F ones would work fine too. At least, so far I haven't experienced any big issues when autofitting 3's clothing to 8 characters. Shoes are a different story, but shoes could be replaced. Retexturing some outfit may be a good idea. I'll probably try looking through the DAZ catalog from the beginning with retexturing in mind. Thanks!
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:D Well, that is a lot of text! I think that, reading my vague description of what I'm looking for, you realized I'm looking for the "third" of the options you described. The "between the two", functional but good looking. As for the "what would her employers wear", it's a bit tricky, as they, being fantasy residents and heroes, will most likely wear armors. It's a little over the top, but their role isn't that significant, they are more like background characters that go for a quest in the morning and return with loot in the evening. But in general I'd say that people's clothing in that fantasy world is somewhat alike to Baldur's Gate 3's Astarion's camp clothing and Jaheira's initial green dress. Give or take an occasional short skirt or a slit here and there. So nothing too extreme like in anime fantasy or Korean MMORPGs.
I have no idea if it was done historically, but I've read a number of fantasy novels, where it was customary for servants to be given old (read: last year's style) clothing by their employers. So fancier garments are possible, especially for an off-duty scene.
I think that was true, but only of the senior, personal servants rather than in genral - though servants did often receive an annual new uniform as part of their pay
and the stuff the senior staff got given went down to the lesser ranksas soon as it started to look too shabby...
Of course it depends also on the historic period, in which the fantasy is set. Wouldn't be really logical to have a french maid costume (as used in many manga) getting used in a early medieval setting, where knights in full tin-can armor run around. Still there's many games/comics in which something like that happens
Well, I kind of mentioned the historical period and general way of clothing for people "in general" in my opening post.
As well as some requirements for the servant's outfit. But it saddens me to say it feels like most of those who replied here haven't read further than the title :(
I'm still looking forward to reading some specific recommendations, though :)
Well, as You seem to have some quite concrete ideas about what You want, I guess going through the different shops looking for fits those ideas is all what is left for You. Good luck
Ah, but the important part is WHY do they wear armors? Generally speaking, Armor isn't very comfortable and often greatly impedes movement, so in the real world someone would only wear a full suit of armor when there was a specific need for it. If there is, in fact, a reason that they need to wear armor, it is highy likely that their servants might have a need to wear some abreviated elements of that armor rather than simply a garment made of cloth. Form follows function, and a servant is generally considered to be both an asset and a monetary investment that needs a certain amount of protection... therefore, irather than the dresses that have been recommended thus far, it might be more logical to use something like this https://www.daz3d.com/dforce-steampunk-outfit-for-genesis-8-females or https://www.daz3d.com/dforce-vernea-fae-outfit-for-genesis-8-females
The reason for armors is two-fold: first, it's basically a fantasy trope, and second, they're questing heroically (i.e. killing goblins in a nearby forest or saving a duke's daughter from a vampire or whatever, you know the drill).
Since the servant is not accompanying them on those quests, it is quite logical for her to have a cloth outfit.
BTW, those steampunk ones are "in tune", so thanks a lot! I'll think about using them if I don't find something even better in the next day or two.