Category: travel

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!

If you were planning a trip to England in summer 2009, and you wanted to go to some out of the way costume museums (and/or out of London costume museums — I’ve been to the V&A, Museum of London, and Bath multiple times), where would you go? I’m particularly interested in any museums with strong 18th century collections. Any advice would be appreciated!

First, an update on the end of my trip! We spent the weekend with Bess and Edmund in Suffolk, going to nearby Melford Hall in bustle era costume. It was great fun — we had a picnic, toured the house, and then took lots of photos in the gardens (sadly, no photos inside). Made good friends with a Texan tour group, even the guy who marched up to me and said, “You’re from California, aren’t you?” Apparently I’m going to be in his Christmas card this year.

So here are my photos!

Miscellaneous costume-related photos (museum trawls, mostly)

Versailles non-invasion, in which we try to conquer Versailles but are instead conquered

Bustles at Melford Hall

Okay, now I really need to start on Costume College sewing!

And distracting! My trip has been going well, with about 1.5 weeks in France — aday and a half in Paris, then a walking tour in the Dordogne/Perigord, then another day and a half in Paris. Now I’m in London – home on Tuesday.

But on to the costume content! Last Sunday I met Marion, Becca, Delphine, and Chloe for our trip to Versailles. I hauled my polonaise around with me (which wasn’t too bad – it all amazingly fit into a daypack, including my flat straw hat). As I predicted, the cotton packed well. The night before I set my hair in sponge rollers, which I slept in; got up early to get dressed and do hair in my tiny hotel room. I met the others at my hotel and then we took the train out to Versailles. Long story short, we got to Versailles and they wouldn’t let us in in costume. razzrrarrrazzzzarr!! So we ended up at a nearby park (which was originally part of Versailles) with a big lake, where we had our picnic and took a bunch of photos. Then we changed (literally on the side of the road!) and tried to go into Versailles, but there were various hassles with the luggage storage being miles away and us totally exhausted and with lots of stuff to carry. So we accepted our defeat and headed back to Paris. Oh well, it was still lots of fun to meet everyone and to play dress up at what was technically Versailles1 Next time I’ll get into the palace!

Tuesday night we had dinner with Bess, Edmund, and Kate which was lovely. Today Kate and I headed out to Bath to see the costume museum and Jane Austen centre. The costume museum is being redisplayed, much more extensively than their website led us to believe, so there wasn’t a lot to see — although what was out was very nice. A small mish mash of different eras plus a nice exhibit on pockets. The JA centre was pretty hokey; luckily they had an exhibit of dresses from the recent ITV production of Persuasion costumed by Andrea Galer, as well as a few dresses from her work on the feature film Mansfield Park. Oh well, obviously I need to go to Chawton on my next trip to get my Austen fix! None of the dresses were terribly exciting, although they did have relatively nice cuts and evidence of hand stitching.

This weekend is the bustle costume activity with Edmund, Bess, and Valina – details forthcoming! I’ll post photos from all of these activities, as well as my museum trawls, as soon as I get back.

So in about a week I am headed off for three weeks in Europe! I’ll be spending the first week with my mother in France — we are going on a walking tour in the Dordogne region, with about 1.5 days in Paris on either side of that trip. Unfortunately all of the Parisian costume museums are showing modern couturiers in their exhibitions (like Gaultier), so I’m planning to return to the Musee Carnavalet to track down the Marie Antoinette things there that I missed last time, and then spend some time wandering the Louvre and a few other museums that I’ve seen before, but skipped last time. Most exciting is that I’m going to be meeting a few other costumers for the day at Versailles that I mentioned a few posts ago!

Then it’s over for a week in London, where I plan to wander the V&A (spending some time OUTSIDE of the costume rooms for once! Edited to add: and I’m planning to study that caraco jacket that was giving me such grief!), National Gallery, National Portrait Gallery, Museum of London, and the Tate Britain. I’m going to do a day trip to Bath, to see the Museum of Costume and the Jane Austen Centre (which will be showing some costumes from the recent ITV production of Persuasion). I’ll be spending my final weekend near Colchester with Kentwellians Edmund and Bess; we’re going to do something costumey but we haven’t quite narrowed it down (probably a trip to a National Trust house with a picnic etc. in costume).

The trick is getting costumes over there. For the Versailles trip, I need to just bring this with me. I am thinking my cotton polonaise will pack best, but I’m going to need to also bring shift, stays, bumpad, underpetticoat, petticoat, stockings, and shoes. Plus I can’t imagine wandering around all day without shade — I’d love to bring my big capote, but I think it’s going to have to be the low crown straw hat that I wore to Let Them Drink Wine (although I need to figure out a better way to attach it to my head — I just used one hatpin last time, and it kept blowing up plus sat at a really annoying angle). Does anyone have any advice on how to make those hats bend up in back? I think that would help… I guess I’ll bring foam rollers to sleep in so I can have some semblance of interesting hair — I can’t be taking pictures at VERSAILLES with bad hair, for god’s sake!

For the England trip, I’m not 100% sure what era we’re doing. I may rewear my polonaise, or bring my courtesan dress. We were talking bustle until I realized how badly my red/white stripey would pack. This costume packs easier as there’s no hat. I may ship this one over, or stick my poor husband with shlepping it in a suitcase and leaving it at left luggage. All getting-it-there options suck!