Fashion Historian & Historical Costume Maker
New to me, anyway! The Fashion Institute of Technology’s E-Museum has been added to the Digital Collections of Extant Costume directory. (See how excitingly easy it is to make updates to the new directory, rather than having to wait 6 months for me to link all the individual garments? Yay!)
Not sure if this link will work, but I am loving this red damask robe a l’anglaise — I think it’s the whole tone-on-tone damask thing I’ve had going on lately.
This is going to be an interesting year for me, because I am not teaching at Costume College! Not because I don’t love CoCo, or love teaching, but because I need a break. I’ve been teaching there for a number of years, and while I started with one class per year, I went off the deep end and have been teaching generally about three classes for the past few years. Not only is it a huge amount of work to prep a class, but then if it’s a demo or hands on you have to source and haul all the materials. But what’s hardest is when you teach multiple classes, they invariably conflict with any class you want to take! So while I really enjoy teaching, and will I’m sure return to it next year (maybe at a lower roar), this year my schedule is wide open and I actually have a shot at taking a few classes that I’m excited about! This will be very novel. I also plan to sleep in and generally be more relaxed. (I was starting to think I’d take fewer costumes this year, too, just to be more relaxed, but then I started counting the Friday night 18th c. ice cream social, the gala, the Sunday tea…).
So, I’m putting in for the following limited classes: Janea Whitacre’s fly fringe class (will have to skip the tea if I get in — but DUDE, how cool would it be to learn how to make 18th c. fly fringe???), Mela Hoyt-Heydon’s hat class (not terribly thrilled about early Victorian, but I would like to learn the techniques of wire framed hats to repurpose for other eras, and Mela is an immensely talented and experienced costumer), and Lisa Vandenberghe’s silk ribbon embroidery (she’s studied as Lesage in Paris! And the pieces she’s made are really gorgeous).
Who knows which classes I’ll get into — if I get into the fly fringe and/or the hat class, I’ll be really happy.
West Coast costumers take note — a spot has opened up in Burnley & Trowbridge’s Brunswick workshop, May 28-30 in Vallejo. I’m going to be taking this workshop, and I highly recommend that anyone interested in 18th costume grab this spot! It will be taught by Janea Whitacre, who is Milliner and Mantua-Maker at Colonial Williamsburg. She taught the sacque draping workshop that I took a few years back, and I was incredibly impressed by how much detailed knowledge she has about 18th century dressmaking. Even if you’re not thrilled with the Brunswick style itself, this is an amazing opportunity to learn 18th century dressmaking techniques, which could be applied to any number of garments.
Or, many balls in the air!
So, in about 3 weeks, providing volcanos and other acts of nature cooperate, I’m going to England! Woot! A group of friends are renting a 16th c. house in the countryside, and playing dress up for three days straight. Following that, it’s off to Cornwall, Dorset, and Devon to see historic houses and costume museums (Blaise Castle and Killerton) for me; seaside Victoriana, anything miniature, and steam strains for the husband.
So I’ve been sewing a lot in preparation, but jumping among projects, which is making posting seem hard! The costume wardrobe plans are: the Gothic Fitted/Pre-Raphaelite dress, Michael’s 1560s outfit, the green Venetian, and a 1770s polonaise (yet to chronicled). I’m sewing madly to get everything finished in time, and then it’ll be on to figuring out how to pack it all!
Books that have cover images that are about 400 years off — see “The Stolen Crown.” Look, it’s the 18th century! No wait, it’s set during the Wars of the Roses!
*Huffs off muttering to herself*