Month: June 2012

What I Learned at Dress U 2012

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Events

Some of us who re-enact the lower sort had to go to a party like this:
But before that, I learned a lot.
The Basics

  1. I am a better seamstress than I think I am
  2. There are some classes I could teach
  3. I’m going to need another hip replacement
  4. I need to learn to have fun!

The most important statements are probably the first and the last; I do actually know what I’m doing, more or less, enough to know that I learned a few other important things.

The Fine Print

  1. My 1790-1810 stays need to be re-done completely; they’re too long.
  2. I need a new 1750-1770 short gown pattern
  3. My black bonnet rocks
  4. I want a shiny party dress
  5. O.M.G., I met Sharon Burnston!! She was fantastic and I so enjoyed both of her classes. I learned the most in both of them.

Those stays have been troublesome since I began, what with tossing out the very first pair I attempted, and the wriggling and riding up with wear of the second pair. It was in Jenny LaFleur’s Fitting Yourself class that I figured out (slow, I know) that I should put my pair next to Dana’s. Dana is long-waisted, I am  not. Dana’s stays and mine were the same length. Light dawned: If our stays are the same length, mine are too long.

Sigh. Starting over… Oh, well. New stays will fit without irritating me, I can get the cup right and the busk will stop trying to meet new people, and when they’re done, I can make lovely dresses that will fit and that I will not fuss with.

I could even make something like this, and have a real party dress for the next time I go away.

Vogue for the Lower Sorts

On By kittycalashIn Clothing, Reenacting

How does a reenactor know what to wear? There’s a wide range of choices for any decade, so how do you know what’s right?

Well, you don’t, not without documentation. This is where it can be nice to be a soldier. There’s griping in my house about “plain old white linen grumble frocks grumble waistcoat grumble” but really, the man and boy know who they are and what to put on. (Doesn’t stop them wanting regimentals, and I know they’re casting sidelong covetous glances at British coats.)

What about the women? The range is vast, from Mr. and Mrs. Ralph Izard

to the  Oyster Seller.

Both are ca. 1775, though the original Oyster Seller was probably earlier, but here’s the thing: how differently would she have dressed in 1775 than she would have in 1765?

It’s a point taken up, to a degree, in The Dress of the People, which I devoured in the orthopedist’s waiting room yesterday.

So if you know you’re not Alice Delancey Izard, but you’re not really an oyster seller, either, what do you do?

You check the ads.

I search runaway ads for Rhode Island to check my choices. That’s how I came to make a blue wool cloak, because I found Lucy, who ran away in December 1776 in a “blue Baize cloak.” There was Polly Young, who ran away in June, 1777, in a “black skirt petticoat and a short calico gown with long sleeves.” What did that short gown look like? I wish I knew. But it does place short gowns in Rhode Island (Lucy wore a short striped Dark Flannel gown when she ran away). Now, if only we knew what “short gown” meant in New England.