Fashion Historian & Historical Costume Maker
Specifically, an 18th century Turkish ensemble, consisting of gomlek (shirt), salvar (trousers), and entari (robe), based on 18th century paintings of French/English women in Turkish costume, Turkish illustrations of the period, and extant Turkish garments.
It was fun to make and comfy to wear, although I need bigger hair next time!
Read a little bit more about the project.
I had an absolute blast at Costume College this year, which has totally reinspired me to want to blog! It was so much fun to reconnect with everyone and get to spend quality time with friends, and to play dress up and talk shop!
The down side was the tickle in my throat on the day I packed developed into a full-blown cold, which meant I wasn’t sleeping much (from coughing) and progressively lost my voice so much that I couldn’t really talk at the gala!
On Friday, I taught one class — 18th century dress variations. I made my OWN eyes cross multiple times putting together the presentation, and the class did an admirable job keeping up with the numerous styles we discussed. I decided to focus it somehow by including only the dress styles that appear to have been popular — there are just so many, we would all need a lie down to talk about them all. I think I talked about at least 15 different styles… I was inspired and so wore my Pre-Raphaelite/Gothic Fitted Dress, and it felt fun to dress up for classes — in something that didn’t require a corset!
Friday night, we had our usual Pretty Pretty Princess Party, which was tons of fun! Lots of people in silly Pink Drink Commando uniforms, plus some people still in costume from the Ice Cream Social. I skipped the Social this year — last year it was so crowded that I just got overwhelmed and stressed out. I’m kind of bummed I missed seeing all the pretty costumes, but given that I was sick and my roomies were tired, it was probably good we conserved our energy for the party!
Saturday I taught two classes. The first, on 17th/18th c. beauty patches, had massive technical failures and I ended up not having a projector. Luckily I’d put lots of images in my handout, but they were cropped and black & white, so it just wasn’t the same. Thankfully it was a short class! I know they’d never fit all the classes in, but it would be so great to have a decent chunk of time between classes to set up. The instructor before me went over time, and then had a lot of stuff so it took her a while to pack up; meanwhile we’re tripping over each other as I’m trying to set up.
I had 30 min. before my next class so went out in the hall to try to get my projector to work, but no dice — I think it was a cord issue. Luckily Francis saved the day by bringing down his laptop and (importantly) projector cable, and I was able to have images for my Social History of Hair (18th c. – Regency) class — yay! I was pretty stressed out nonetheless, so didn’t enjoy teaching as much as I could have, although there were a lot of interesting questions and I enjoyed the discussion part.
Saturday afternoon I hung with the Bitchy Romans for a while — I didn’t have time OR anything in my stash to make anything, so I just admired them, then I was off for a nap (see again about not sleeping well) before it was time to start prepping for the gala.
I have been sewing up a storm, but like I’ve mentioned, had zero desire to blog about any of it, so that meant my cool Gala costume idea ended up being a secret project. A while ago Sarah, Trystan, and I were talking about doing something different than straight historical for the gala. They tried to sell me on 18th c. sea creatures, but I couldn’t get excited about it. I remembered someone I’d seen post on the LJ Vintage Hair community a while back who had done a 1920s black & white starlet costume for Halloween, where she’d done greyscale makeup as though you were watching her on screen. I thought it was a cool idea, and as I was fishing for something other than sea creatures for the gala, hit on the idea of doing a costume from the 1938 Marie Antoinette with Norma Shearer in greyscale. S&T liked the idea, even more so when I suggested that we didn’t all have to do the same movie, and plans were made! I enlisted Leia to help me shop for fabric in NYC, and she got excited about joining in, but doing a current 1930s starlet look. Sadly, life intervened for everyone, and they weren’t able to join me, which was a little sad because it’s always fun to do things like this with other people, but I’m glad they didn’t stress themselves out or wear something they weren’t excited about.
I’ve posted a write-up about the project here, but I’ll expand on it:
Being an 18th c. nut, I love the costumes in this movie — but it took me a while to like them! I only first saw the movie about two years ago, and while the wigs jumped up and hit me in the head with their fabulousness, all I saw with the costumes was the lack of historical accuracy. When I hit on this idea to do 18th c. thru the 1930s lens, suddenly I saw just how fab all the costumes were, and I had a hard time choosing. I almost went with a dress of the Duchess of Polignac’s that is covered in a gazillion ruches, but that seemed too similar to a real 18th c. dress, so I decided to go with something even LESS historically accurate: the piece de resistance from this movie, the so-called Rocket Dress!
The original dress is made in gold lame, but I really don’t think our modern crappy lame is the same thing — I think vintage lame must have had some silk or real metal in it. I just couldn’t see making this dress out of crappy materials — sure, it would be cheap, but it would look it, plus I hate wearing synthetics and didn’t want to sweat to death all night.
When I went shopping in NYC, I came across some silver silk duchesse satin for a really good price (can’t remember what it was, but it was seriously affordable), PLUS the same shop had embroidered silver tulle yardage also for a good price! Obviously duchesse satin is a totally different weight and look than the sheer, metallic look of the original fabric, so I immediately gave myself permission to make a dress that was very-heavily-inspired-by, but not a strict recreation. Also, I am no Norma Shearer figure-wise, and trying to look exactly like here was never going to happen.
Now that I’d found fab materials and a vision, I decided to make this as fast as I could while keeping it as nice as I could. That meant I ended up with a mixture of 18th century, Victorian, and modern techniques.
Again, I’m no Norma Shearer, so I’m wearing a Victorian corset underneath. The bodice is patterned in a Victorian style, with bust darts, and I tried to follow the lines of the original movie gown as much as possible. The back closure is an 18th century court approach, with the lacing built into the lining, and the silk layer separate and laid on top — but there are metal grommets and a placket in there! I tried to bag line the bodice for speed, but of course things didn’t line up perfectly, and I ended up having to set in the lining by hand. All the lace appliques are cut from the yardage and hand applied.
The skirt was draped using a ginormous rectangle and Katherine’s 18th c. court skirt tutorial, with some modifications for a different hoop shape. It’s all mounted to an underskirt of grey cotton, with two layers of silk satin on top.
I was originally going to try to stick to the swag drapery in the original dress, but apparently I have Teh Dumb when it comes to swags, because they refused to happen (the dress almost went to boarding school because of this). Luckily, I draped the lace yardage over the dress on my form when I went to bed, and I realized in the morning that the lace was beautiful enough on its own, so went for swags of lace instead. Also, I misread (visually) the top swags to think they were a separate layer, only to later realize they were yet more applied swags, but oh well, it all ended up fine!
Everything was covered in silver sequin star appliques, as in the original costume.
For makeup, initially I tried using Kryolan’s Aquacolor, of which I’d heard good things, but it seriously looked like calamine lotion when applied. I ended up using Supracolor, which is an oil-based makeup and SO much easier to apply. I used white mixed with a little bit of black for grey, covered with setting powder and finishing spray. The rest of my makeup I did with grey and black eyeshadows and eyeliners. Leia helped a lot with figuring out the makeup approach, and it was really good to have someone hold my hand! I didn’t get to 100% desaturated color on my skin, but I’m pleased enough with what I achieved, esp. given this was my first try at any stage makeup.
For the wig, I started with a long silver wig, to which I added wefts where needed to (mostly) cover my hairline. I always have problems having wigs fit, and this time I figured out that where I’m missing is along the hairline — the hairline itself just isn’t long enough to cover me from temple to temple. Since I’d had a hard time matching extra hair to the wig (you’d be surprised how many variations there are, even when you’re working with the same color #), and since I was too lazy to head back to the wig store for wefted hair, I worked with the loose hair I had and hauled out my hair weaving frame that they gave us when we took the 18th c. wig class at Colonial Williamsburg and hand-wove extra wefts. It actually went pretty quickly, since I only needed about 3′ of weft. I built out the wig base in front with netting, sewed the wefts to that, and then styled the wig itself over a wire frame with separate, glue-set rolls.
And now, back to the CoCo writeup! I was definitely dragging Saturday afternoon, but rallied and managed (with Leia’s help) to get makeup’ed, wigged, and dressed. And despite basically having lost my voice at that point, I had So Much Fun! We’d skipped the dinner, which we did last year, and which has actually worked out great because it means we show up during dinner and have no line in the photo room.
Once the gala opened up to us non-ticketed losers, we went in and got to see everyone’s costumes. I didn’t have a camera last year as my husband killed our’s with a water bottle, so I have only a few crappy iPhone photos to prove just how amazing everyone looked. There were tons of gorgeous 1930s bias gowns straight out of Anything Goes, tons of 18th c. fabulosity (including a few 18th c. Disney princesses!), Victorian fancy dress, bustle gowns, lots of 1910s evening elegance, and more more more. It was tons of fun to wander around the room checking everyone out, and then I joined my peeps for some cocktails and a lot of dancing!
Of course, being sick, I hit the wall around midnight and while some of my roomies were off socializing until 2am or so, I attempted to sleep… I didn’t have anything scheduled Sunday, but was planning to A) sleep, B) hit the dealer’s room, C) maybe attend some classes, and D) socialize… but when I woke up Sunday morning (after a semi-decent sleep-in), I realized I wasn’t good for any of that. I could barely talk, and I was so tired, that all I was honestly going to do was lounge/sleep in my room. My husband threw out the idea that I could fly home early, which suddenly sounded enticing, given how useless I was and the fact that my roomie had to leave that day and so I had to pay for the room on my own. When I mentioned this to Sarah & Francis, who I was supposed to drive home with, they realized that they’d had a blast and while staying would be nice, they also wouldn’t mind leaving that day — so we hustled, packed in 1 hour, and were off, texting goodbye to our friends. I always love the mellow hangout fun of Sunday night, but I was really not up for it, so leaving was the better option, altho I wish I could have said real goodbyes.
So, now I’m home, and inspired, even if I’ve spent the past 2 days on the couch blowing my nose and sleeping! I have lots of costumes to catch you up on, so I’ll be doing a lot of posting over the next few days.
Hopefully I’ll get some nice photos out of the official photographers, plus many friends still haven’t posted their pics, but for now, here are some shots of my Marie Antoinette costume:
I’ve been meaning to write this for a while, and finally got organized!
When I went to make my handsewn 1780s stays, I was trying to be as historically accurate as possible, and that brought up the question of boning — what to use? Obviously in the period whalebone was the desired boning, but we can’t get it today and even if we could, I don’t believe in killing endangered species for my hobby/research (sorry, please don’t start telling me about Inuits — THEY’RE AN ENDANGERED SPECIES! Whales, that is).
Most modern costumers who are trying to be as historically accurate as possible use cane/reed. I’ve got an issue with this, and while I posted briefly about boning here, but I realized that I had most of the discussion on LJ.
Here’s my logic: in the period, whalebone was THE preferred boning. Yes, cane/reed were used, but they were considered a substandard material and generally used on homemade (ie not professionally made) stays. Ask anyone who’s made a corset with reed/cane and had it break on them why!
I’m not just talking out of my you-know-what, here’s the research:
The best source is: Dorsey, S.. “For neatness, true fitting, shape and fashion”: The craft and consumption of stays in eighteenth century America. M.A. diss., University of Delaware. Anyone with access to a university library can get a PDF copy of this thesis from the database ProQuest Dissertations & Theses.
Dorsey writes: “The most important part, however, were the “stays” themselves: the garments’ main structural support. The rigid inserts were made from a variety of materials such as wood, thread, and whalebone. Whalebone, otherwise known as baleen, was the most common material and the most expensive. Cheaper alternatives included the use of split wood, steel, pack-thread, and pasteboard.(100) Of those, most pairs of surviving American non-baleen stays are boned with wood. The wooden inserts appear to be made out of riven hardwoods (Figures 21 a and b). Wood is also particularly susceptible to fluctuations in humidity and stress. Over time wood becomes brittle and snaps in two at the stress points, usually on the curve of stay tabs. For this reason it was not an ideal material to use and is typically seen on stays made by an amateur.(101) “Packthread” stays are seen in American stay maker advertisements, where they are also noted to have been imported to America. Packthread is a strong cord or twine made of coarse flax or hemp plied together. Baldwin and Hyer, for example, wrote “that they make Stays with Whale-Bone, which are far preferable for Ease and Genteelness, to those imported from England, that are made of Packthread.”(102) Indeed, whalebone was seen as the superior material in stay making.(103)
(100) Rushes are known to have been used in seventeenth-century stays and were likely used in the eighteenth century. However, in the survey of American stays conducted for this thesis, no pairs were found to exhibit them. Some historians note that bone and ivory were used, but as Mark Hutter pointed out, they would have been too rigid and brittle to function as anything else other than busks. Mark Hutter, email with author, 24 March 2008.
(101) There are no advertisements for wooden stays, it is more likely that they were made by persons who could not afford whalebone (baleen) or the services of a professional stay-maker. Haughland, “Common Cotton,” 3.
(102) Baldwin and Hyer, New York Mercury (New York, NY) 20 May 1765.
(103) Sorge-English, ’29 Doz and 11 Best Cutt Hone’, 30.”
(Bolding is mine)
*************
Norah Waugh in Corsets & Crinolines goes far less into this topic, but she does say briefly, in her appendix on whalebone: “When stiffened bodies and farthingales appeared in the sixteenth century it could not have been long before the superiority of whalebone over wood and cane supports brought it into use wherever available” (168).
*************
Lynne Sorge-English has two articles that are related & interesting. She mentions that whalebone was by far the most popular boning in the 18th c. in: Lynne Sorge-English, “’29 Doz and II Best Cutt Bone’: The Trade in Whalebone and Stays in Eighteenth-Century London.” Textile History v. 36 no. 1 (may 2005): 20-45. The other article, which doesn’t go into this topic but is still very interesting, is: Lynn Sorge, “Eighteenth-Century Stays: Their Origins and Creators.” Costume 32 (1998): 18-32. She’s now come out with a book that I haven’t yet read, but is on my wishlist: Stays and Body Image in London: The Staymaking Trade, 1680-1810 (The Body, Gender and Culture)
**************
So to my logic, yes reed/cane is an historically accurate material that we can still get, while whalebone is not something we can get ethically or practically. Since I was trying to make a pair of stays appropriate to an upper class woman, I needed an equivalent to whalebone, not the boning material that would have been used in substandard stays. The properties of whalebone that made it so popular for corsetry was the fact that you could cut it to any width/length/thickness, and the fact that it molds to the body over time.
Now, we come to our modern boning products, most of which are accurate to the Edwardian era or sometime in the 20th century. For a good rundown, I recommend Sarah’s “Various Boning Options for Historical Corsetry” and Jenny-Rose’s “A Word on Boning.”
The main boning type that neither of them discuss is the plastic boning made by Wissner, a German company and so hence often called “German plastic boning.” I had heard good things about this boning material — that it is very comparable to whalebone in terms of support and its ability to mold to the figure — so I decided to try it out, and used it on the handsewn (green) version of my stays.
So, the report!
In the past I have used spring steel (aka white steel), spiral steel, and the crappy plastic boning sold at Joann’s (don’t even get me started). I haven’t used cable ties or cane/reed or any of the other strange and wonderful things you can use as boning! Now that I’ve made up my stays and worn them for over a a year, I can say that the German plastic gives you way more support than the crappy Joann’s plastic, more support than the spiral, and a little bit less support (but not much) than spring steel. In my stays I decided to reinforce things with spring steel at the CF and CB, as well as at 3 points throughout the front piece. I’m currently working on a corset (more on that soon) and just tried it out with only spring steel at the CF and CB, and I felt like I did want one or two more spring steel bones in front.
The best part about the German plastic is it DOES mold to your form. Here’s one half of my 1780s stays laid flat on my cutting table. You can see how the tabs have formed themselves to the shape of my hips:
In addition to its support qualities, you can buy German plastic boning in a number of widths. It’s sold in thicknesses from 13 to 5 millimeters (1/2″, .4″, 1/4″, and 3/8″) at the place I buy from (more on this in a sec). This means you can make corsets with finer boning channels, like this gorgeous pair of stays made by The Staymaker. Here’s a photo of some of the boning I have on hand:
It is a bit thicker than spring steel, so you’ll want to add a little bit (maybe 1/8″?) to your boning channels to accomodate this.
The German plastic comes in rolls, which means you can cut it to size, and unlike steel you don’t have to use complex tools or dip the ends to cut it (a pair of scissors works just fine).
In terms of where to buy it, the main source in the US (and where I order from) is Vogue Fabrics. They sell all the various widths, and you can buy in rolls of 25 meters or 100 meters. Farthingale’s Canada also sells it, but their website is so annoying I’ve never bothered to figure out if it’s more/less expensive. In the UK, you can buy it from Vena Cava Designs.
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!
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!).
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.
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.
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).
Possibly old news to you, but the Victoria & Albert Museum’s Fashion department has recently-ish revamped their website and added a lot of interesting content — mostly articles, some videos. You can get to the main hub here, but here are some specific items of interest: