Author: kendra

Posted on

More Shopping!

I spent 4 days last week in New York, and I spent most of it at NYPL doing research on my robe à la polonaise/turque/circassienne research project — found some interesting sources!

But even better was that I went shopping for the first time ever in the NYC garment district!  Whoa, so many outstanding options — I tried not to break the bank, but it was tough.  Luckily I had Leia to show me around and she helped me bargain for some good deals.  I’m super excited about what I bought, and it’s making me excited about costuming again — YAY!

I was TRAUMATIZED to find out that Swatch, the Boston Terrier who works at Mood Fabrics, wasn’t in on Sunday.  SUCH SADNESS!!!!  I have two Boston Terriers myself, and I spend all of the shopping-at-Mood segments of Project Runway trying to spot Swatch (not enough Swatch in the recent All Stars season, btw).  I had a tiny consolation in that I got a Mood rewards card with a picture of Swatch on it, but that really wasn’t enough.  At all.

But on to the good news!  I found some FABULOUS fabric/trim for my Ultra Sekrit CoCo Gala dress — which is sekrit, so you don’t get to hear about it.  Luckily, I also found some other fabulous things which I can tell you about!

Silk/rayon duchesse satin from C&J

I went to C&J Fabrics as I knew they are one of the best sources for silk duchesse satin. Their’s is a blend with rayon, but that’s okay with me (rayon breathes and isn’t icky looking/feeling) — it makes it semi-affordable!  I had a hard time choosing, but finally bought this white and orchid duchesse satin to make a robe à la turque.  There’s a specific portrait that I’ve been eyeing for a while, but you’ll have to wait through some other projects to hear more about this!  I’m hoping I got enough — I was trying to be conservative because that stuff isn’t cheap — luckily I can always order more if I need to, because I grabbed some updated swatch cards (including silk faille – drool!).

Vintage rayon ribbon from Hyman Hendler

Next I went to Hyman Hendler, which I knew would have vintage ribbons. What I didn’t know was that it was where amazing vintage ribbons go to not-die — WHOA.  I literally could have bought one of everything.  It’s one of those stores that’s been around since ca. 1900 and is just stocked floor to ceiling with vintage ribbons.  Mostly rayon, some synthetics — didn’t see a lot of silk.  I splurged and bought 4 yards of vintage ribbon — the brown floral will be for a hat to go with the turque, the black & white I’m not sure, but how can you go wrong with black and white stripes?  You don’t want to know what this cost me — let’s say we’re in the $20-30/yd range here.

Gold trims from Tinsel Trading

Leia and I did a bunch of hole-in-the-wall store shopping, where we found my fabulous Sekrit Gala Project fabric.  Near the end of the day, we went over to Tinsel Trading.  I assumed everything there would be 1) fabulous 2) incredibly expensive 3) vintage.  I was right, but they also had some STUNNING modern trims that were a STEAL.  I’ve never put too much trim on my green Venetian because I’ve been waiting to find something I loved.  I bought 6 yards of the green and gold trim — I was about to buy 3 yards, but Leia pointed out it was only $1.50/yd, and was I crazy?  I also bought the narrow gold lace on the right for my upcoming 1550s Venetian (in blue, you’ve all convinced me!).

Tragically, I also bought 2 pieces of fabric at Mood — a sheer white on white stripe for an 18th c. Turkish outfit, and a pretty blue and white floral for a 1930s dress.  I say tragically, because somewhere between Tinsel Trading, Starbucks, and the Campbell Apartment bar, I left the bag somewhere.  I’ve tried calling all 3 places and none have found it, so apparently some random person has run off with my bag o’ cotton.  Luckily it was the bag filled with about $60 worth of fabric, not the one with about $300 worth of fabric, so I’m consoling myself with that.  Bastards.

Vintage gold lace for a Venetian stomacher

Not NYC-related, but shopping-related:  I’ve also meant to post a picture of this for forever, but I have been lazy.  I’ve been thinking about making one of those fancy stomachers that you sometimes see on Venetian Renaissance gowns.  Many of them look embroidered, but some look like lace laid on fabric (I’ll post some sources when I get organized).  I stalked Ebay for a while and finally found this gold metal thread lace, which I think will be perfect.  Not sure whether I’ll piece it so I can turn the motifs right side up.  Either way, I think this will work perfectly once I figure out what fabric to lay it on (right now it’s on my blue cutting mat).

Posted on

New Venetian Renaissance – Fabric Shopping!

If you’ve seen my desire to costume, please let me know!  I don’t know if I pinned a note to its shirt, but hopefully it knows where it lives and could be sent to me COD?

I am trying to overcome my TOTAL lack of enthusiasm for costuming.  I did get on a fabric buying spree a few months ago, so that’s something!  I’ve been wanting to make a new dress for Bella Donna, and been wanting red for a while, so about a year or so ago I finally found some that would work:

I still love the fabric, but one of the things I’ve been trying to do as Bella Donna costume maven is to get us to broaden up our color palette.  We originally started with only shades of red (everything from gold through red through burgundy).  It worked great for a common look, but I think non-costumers don’t distinguish as much as costumers do, so we got a lot of, “Why are you all wearing the same dress?”  Hence, my last Venetian was in green.

Well, we got together to talk fabric a few months ago, and I realized that suddenly everyone was going to be back in red shades. I think part of it is what fabrics people got excited about, but also that it’s HARD to find good silk damasks! So I thought I’d better walk the walk and shelve my red (for now) and see what else I could find.

Cue months of fabric shopping, and I FINALLY came up with these, which are both in my hot little hands now:

Medium blue and bronze silk damask
Peach and gold silk damask, from Renaissance Fabrics

Okay, yes the peach is still in the red family, but at least it’s a lot lighter than red and it’s shiny!

So, now I have to figure out which one to use! For a while I was more excited about the peach just because it’s REALLY SHINY, but now I’m leaning more towards the blue — which is SUCH a coup, as finding blue silk damask that works for costuming?  Shockingly really hard!  And I don’t do baby blue, thank you very much.

I’m still planning to make this dress, including the weird gold shell/flower-y bits:

Veronese - Woman Holding Gloves, 1550-60 (via Realm of Venus)

I even found some butt-kickingly good gold lace that will work for the stomacher, which I’m REALLY excited about.

First up will be a new corset, basically a strapless version of my 1780s stays.  I even managed to cut it out and mark the boning channels on Sunday, which is a major accomplishment given my total lack of energy for costuming!  More on that soon.

Posted on

I Dressed Up & It Didn’t Kill Me!

I even SEWED — a teeny, tiny bit — and it didn’t kill me!

Just over a week ago was the GBACG Last Dinner on the Titanic. You’ve probably read all about it on other blogs, but just in case…

I wore a “this old thing” that had only been one worn once — my olive green 1910 Lady Maud evening dress. As costumes are wont to do, it had shrunk over the intervening years (I’m convinced there’s something about dark closets that shrink costumes), so I had to let it out a bit.  Of course, I decided to make it harder on myself but not just letting it out but also removing the lining from the overskirt — in my zeal to line everything, I felt like the whole dress hung too heavy for the era, so I took the lining off the overskirt for a hopefully lighter effect. Also, I needed a wider placket in back (that whole shrinking thing), and I had used all the fabric, so I took some fabric off of the underskirt (where it’s hidden under the overskirt) for placket-ing.  I didn’t LOVE altering it, but it didn’t kill me, so that’s something!

My Indian wedding jewelry showed up in plenty of time. Of course, one piece was broken, a drop pearl was missing, and one glass bit needed reglueing — oh, and the whole thing needed a serious wipe down — but that’s par for the course, as far as I’m concerned, when you buy cheap jewelry on ebay.  I have no expectations of perfection when I spend that little money!

I was inspired by the bandeau worn by Perdita Weeks in the recent (very meh) Titanic miniseries, and made one similar with three rows of olive green velvet ribbon. I wanted it to hold its shape without a ton of bobby pins messing up the line, so I sewed the ribbon to some lightweight wire; then I took apart the maang tika (forehead jewel) and used parts of it as decoration on each side of the bandeau.

I was super excited to have both Loren and Jenny-Rose fly in to go to the event! We got dressed at my place — I tried to do something similar to this hairstyle and it worked out relatively well, although the sides got flattened as soon as I put the bandeau on.

The event was at the Bellevue Club in Oakland, which has become my favorite venue and I now think all costume events should be held here.  Yes, it’s expensive, but I’ll pay up!  I have been costumign long enough that I am no longer excited just to get to dress up.  I need value add in the form of a fabulous venue and/or attempts to be in-character/in-period.

Luckily, I was sitting with a group of friends who share my desire to be in-period, so we all chose real people who were on the Titanic to play. I was Miss Madeleine Newell, returning from a trip to Egypt and Palestine with my younger sister Maud (played by Jenny-Rose). We were joined by Miss Edith Russell (a journalist), Lady Duff-Gordon (who designs women’s unmentionables), Mr. Cavendish (of the Devonshire Duchy family!) and his American wife, and two couples whose names I’ve forgotten, but the “wife” of one turned out to be his mistress (which I had no idea!).  Rather shocking!  Luckily, we all have a good time playing characters but are also mellow about it, so we sort of go in and out of character as the mood strikes us — nobody minds if you crack a joke or make a comment as your modern self.  The part that made my toes curl is that the three gentlemen at our table stood up whenever a lady stood, which SO works for me.

The fabulous Richard Man took formal photos, and as always, they turned out fabulous. I’ve heard he’s going to retire from photographing costuming events soon, and I am very sad!  Here’s the best shots he took of me:

(C) Richard Man www.rfman.com
(C) Richard Man www.rfman.com

Then there were cocktails in the beautiful Mural Lounge, which has 2 story high ceilings, antique furniture, pink walls, and looks like it stepped out of Versailles.  Dinner was in the main dining room, which is equally stunning and decorated in green. Here’s a shot of the dining room before we sat down to eat:

(C) Jenny-Rose White

The food was REALLY good, and they had a live band (a quartet I think?) playing music of the era during dinner. Some people got up to dance, but we mostly sat and socialized and ate and drank and laughed!

Here’s my table, minus Jenny-Rose who’s taking the picture!

(C) Jenny-Rose White

After dinner, there was more dancing, but we retired back to the Mural Lounge to lounge and chat and take photos. Everyone, not just our group, looked amazing — there were so many beautiful dresses (and themes! lots of women in green, and lots in pink/orange/peach) and the gentlemen looked REALLY good.  I’ll tell ya, guys look good in all sorts of historic costume when it’s done right, but NOTHING’s better than a man in a well-tailored suit.

"Our" sharp-dressed men; (C) Jenny-Rose White

I totally failed to bring my camera, but you can see more pictures here:

Posted on

Tons of New Digital Collections Resources

I’ve been posting tons of new links on the Digital Collections of Extant Clothing over the past few months. (Clearly, I haven’t been doing much sewing-wise!)

Here’s what’s new since the last time I called your attention the page: