From: Gretchen Miller Date: Wed, 17 Nov 1993 18:10:49 -0500 (EST) Subject: H-Costume-Digest #1, 11/17/93 The Historic Costume List Digest, Issue 1, November 17, 1993 Send items for the list to h-costume@andrew.cmu.edu (or reply to this message). Send subscription/deletion requests and inquiries to h-costume-request@andrew.cmu.edu Note: This is the first digest I've ever produced, so it'll be a few days before the format stabilizes. Please bear with me until then. Thanks and Enjoy! --------------------------------------------------------------------- Topics: Test messages Janet Arnold's American Tour (Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlocked) Elegance/Elegant recreation Cleaning costumes Foreign (English and Austratilian) reproduction patterns Biographies of List members The Trouble with Folkware --------------------------------------------------------------------- From: close@lunch.asd.sgi.com (Diane Barlow Close) Subject: Test Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1993 10:35:27 -0800 (PST) Just testing things to see if they are up and running! Ooo, this is getting exciting! ;-) -- Diane Barlow Close now: close@lunch.asd.sgi.com (note domain name change) ^^^ I'm at lunch today. :-) -------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 15 Nov 1993 19:00:24 -0500 (EST) From: Gretchen Miller Subject: Janet Arnold's american tour Did anyone hear Janet Arnold, the doyenne of English Costume, lecture when she was on the East Coast of the US in September/Oct? Can you give highlights? Thanks! toodles, gretchen (grm@andrew.cmu.edu) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- From: sclark@epas.utoronto.ca (Susan Clark) Subject: Janet Arnold.... Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1993 15:27:10 -0500 (EST) Hello all.... I caught Miss Arnold in Toronto back in September. The lecture she did here was the "Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe" one--the material presented complimented, rather than duplicated that in Arnold's huge and expensive and wonderful book of the same name. Terrific slides, which were such an intregal part of the lecture that I took few notes. She provided some fascinating looks at the evolution of particular pieces (such as the Coronation and Parliament robes) within the wardrobe, as well as attempting to identify extant pieces with those mentioned in the accounts. The lecture really sharpened my observational skills when it comes to depictions of costume--I now know a few things to look for.... Cheers! Susan Carroll-Clark University of Toronto Department of History --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subject: Re: Janet Arnold's american tour Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1993 16:38:53 -0500 From: Elizabeth Lear Newman I saw her here in Boston, giving her "Queen Elizabeth's Wardrobe Unlocked" lecture. The lecture and slideshow were facinating! She had access to the journals of the people who cared for the Queen's clothing, and has managed to correlate entries in there with the clothing Elizabeth I was wearing in certain portraits hanging all over England. The journals also had the most detailed information imaginable. "Given to Her Majesty by Geoffrey, Earl of Colchester, four ells of amethyst silk embroidered with poppies, roses, irises and vines of silk-wrapped wire", etc. It was easy for her to trace gifts like this to clothing that was made and recorded on the lists, and sometimes to a portrait. She even showed slides of the same detachable sleeves being used with two different dresses. She also had records detailing the cleaning processes for the gowns, and it would sometimes take as long as creating a new gown from whole cloth. Imagine having to detach the net cover from the sleeves, take off the jewels, remove the gold braid from the net, clean the braid and the net, then re-fasten the braid and jewels on the sleeves! The detail in the portraits is incredible, and it came through on the slides. Elizabeth would usually dress a Lady-in-Waiting in her gown and have her pose for the sketches, then the painter would have the gown and jewels on loan to get all the details down. Sometimes Elizabeth would herself sit for a short while for the painter, but more often the face details were filled in from one of several prepared painted "faces" the painter had to copy. That explained one thing that always amazed me - there are so many portraits of Elizabeth that she would never have had time to do anything else if she posed for every one! The unfortunate ending was that King James gave away all of her clothing after she died - nearly nothing was saved. One of the most interesting slides that Arnold finished up with was a ~1630 portrait of a foreign noblewoman wearing a skirt that was clearly made from an embroidered cloak listed in Elizabeth's wardrobe in ~15XX. If I ever have the chance, I will definitely attend Arnold's lectures again. I have a friend who managed to catch three of her four stops in New England, and I don't blame her for going out of her way to do it. I'd love to see this lecture again, too! I would like to get the accompanying book, but it's $150. :( ...eliz ------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: close@lunch.asd.sgi.com (Diane Barlow Close) Subject: Re: Test Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1993 09:11:42 -0800 (PST) > Meanwhile, back to the comment I had yesterday re: the historical costume > list. I must agree with Aryk re: elegance. Elegance is nice, but there's > a lot more out there than that and many of the folk I know who want to do > costuming are as interested in the peasant/slave dress as in that of > royalty. Perhaps his/her message hasn't gotten through yet, but I haven't seen anything by any "Aryk" yet. As to what this list is about, it's about the ART and CRAFT of historical costuming of all eras, not just SCA (as is mentioned in both the announcement and the welcome messages). The word "elegance" is just a buzz word for the arty side of historical costume making and is not meant to be confused with "royalty" etc. I put a lot of thought into the wording of the announcement and even borrowed a couple of the phrases from commercial literature describing historical costume. This is meant to be a serious discussion list, and I feel elegance gets that impression across immediately. I'm not willing to change the description so soon. Wait and see how this list develops and then we can talk. -- Diane Barlow Close close@lunch.asd.sgi.com I'm at lunch today. :-) --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1993 15:32:19 -0600 (CST) From: "Donna Holsten" Subject: cleaning costumes (was: Janet Arnold) > She also had records detailing the cleaning processes for the gowns, > and it would sometimes take as long as creating a new gown from whole > cloth. Imagine having to detach the net cover from the sleeves, take > off the jewels, remove the gold braid from the net, clean the braid > and the net, then re-fasten the braid and jewels on the sleeves! > Well, that makes me feel better. I'm doing a Tudor dress out of cotton velveteen (I know, I know, cotton velveteen isn't period, but I like it anyway). Cotton velveteen comes out of the dryer softer and more beautiful than just about any other fabric I know. The problem is, I'm doing trim with couched gold thread on taffeta, on the bodice, sleeves, and skirt. (And I won't even think about how the gold thread would come out of the washer and dryer...it makes me shudder!) I've been trying to figure out how to attatch the trim so that it is easy to remove while the dress is being washed, and so it's not difficult to reattatch afterwards. I guess I won't complain, when I think about how much trouble it would be to remove the "pretties" on one of Elizabeth's dresses. Any suggestions for me? Donna (who is in the SCA, but is interested in costuming/millinery from all times and places) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Tue, 16 Nov 93 18:53:15 PST From: aterry@Teknowledge.COM (Allan Terry) Subject: Foreign reproduction patterns Does anyone know of any sized British or Australian reproduction patterns, for any period, comparable to the ones from Past Patterns and similar companies? Or for that matter, any European patterns usable by English-only speakers? (I'm not talking about the more scholarly scale patterns published by Arnold, Waugh, Hunnisett, and various museums.) I've always figured there must be some patterns from other countries, but I've never seen any. Any info will be much appreciated. Fran Grimble ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: close@lunch.asd.sgi.com (Diane Barlow Close) Subject: My biography, of sorts. Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1993 10:20:50 -0800 (PST) I think it would be nice if we all knew a bit about each other, where it concerns historic costume. I've been (machine) sewing since I was 9 years old, when I "inherited" my Grandmother's treadle sewing machine. I don't have a lot of patience for hand sewing, and though I will use it to achieve fine effects I'd much rather "do it by machine" if I can. :-) I've always loved historical clothing and used to love going to the Royal Ontario Museum, when I lived in Canada, to oogle all the fine clothing -- especially their collection of Queens' dresses and knights-in-armor stuff. I've been most interested in the 1920's for a while, now, with side interests in Edwardian, WW1 and early 1930's clothing too. I love to create currently-wearable historic clothing, as well as recreate authentic pieces for the exploration of technique and for show. I have a few genuine pieces from the Gibson girl era that I'd like to recreate, if I can figure out how they did all that fine boning! I joined the vintage clothing mailing list to get hints and tips on collecting and repairing old clothing and decided to create this mailing list when I realized that I was dying to discuss *creating* that type of clothing and had no real place to go for discussion! I hope the discussions on this list will spur everyone on to create the historic costume of their dreams! -- Diane Barlow Close close@lunch.asd.sgi.com I'm at lunch today. :-) ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: close@lunch.asd.sgi.com (Diane Barlow Close) Subject: My pet peeve: Folkwear patterns Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1993 09:30:44 -0800 (PST) Since we seem to be up and running here, let me kick off a discussion about my pet peeve: Folkwear patterns! I love designs featured by this line of patterns, but I hate the construction techniques with a passion! They always seem to be doing things the hard way! I wasn't under the impression that they were trying to follow old, obsolete techniques of any kind in order to be "authentic", but I get the impression that these patterns aren't created by anyone with any real sewing background and things are put together in a haphazard manner. I recently put together the Armistice Blouse and wish I had gone through the instructions completely, from start to finish, and re-did a number of steps. Next time I do this pattern I'm going to completely "reinvent" it as there are many, many places were it could be made more efficient and provide longer-wearing if changed or adapted! Has anyone bought any of the new "Museum" line of patterns they are now reproducing? Since these are created by a completely different set of designers, I'm assuming that they will be better in technique? Am I assuming the wrong thing here? Are they as bad as the originals? Will I have to spend $26 (the cost of one pattern!) to find out? :-) -- Diane Barlow Close close@lunch.asd.sgi.com I'm at lunch today. :-)