The Anti-Dress Diary I: How I Learned To Stop Worrying And Love Tudor (Part 1 of 3)

Now, months after I announced my intention to commit these ideas to pixels.... Welcome to one of the strangest pieces of historic costume bloggery you may ever encounter; the "Anti-Dress Diary".

Before I launch into the first one, a little background is in order. 

The first thing that makes each of the "Anti-Dress Diaries" strange is that each of my Anti-Dress Diaries is like a trip in Mr. Peabody's Wayback Machine. It's not a chronicle of an on-going project. It's a reconstruction of a long-finished project--and two of them are about projects that were completed before the Internet, as most of us think of it today, existed.

The second thing that makes the Anti-Dress Diaries strange is the total absence of effort to craft things in "the period way."  That wasn't because I didn't care about creating a period garment; it was because I did not expect to be able to obtain good information about period sewing and apply them well enough to complete a complicated costuming project in time to be able to wear the garment for the purpose that inspired its creation.

Original costume concept
(minus the hat)

The third, and strangest thing about the Anti-Dress Diaries is that they reveal how little I enjoy sewing. I took up sewing when I was 15 because I wanted to wear historic costume, to feel what wearing such costumes was like, and I could not afford to pay other people to create my dream for me. I quickly learned that I find sewing to be physically frustrating and boring, but persisted because I was just barely able to achieve wearable results when applying what I had managed to learn to the forgiving lines of medieval costume. In other words, the Anti-Dress Diaries are about what happened when circumstances backed me into attempting to apply my primitive sewing skills to the more sophisticated historic costumes of eras later than, say, the Middle Ages.**

Now that I've set forth that background information, let's set the controls of the Wayback Machine to the year 1999. You remember 1999, don't you? Cell phones were the size of small bricks compared to the mobile phones of today, increasing numbers of people were acquiring Internet access and exploring the World Wide Web, and Bill Clinton was still president of the United States, despite having had impeachment proceedings conducted against him.

My inspiration image:
Anne Boleyn*

In 1999, my husband, Eric, spent a lot of time traveling to foreign lands, giving speeches about the advantages of "open source" software. He was in sufficient demand as a speaker that he could generally obtain a free airline ticket and lodgings wherever he wanted to go, just by suggesting to a Linux user group in the relevant community that he would be happy to speak to them in exchange for having his expenses paid.

My husband and I are science fiction fans, and one of our favorite leisure activities was, and is, attending science fiction conventions.  In 1999, the World Science Fiction Convention--a huge, 5-day event involving fans from all over the world that at the time was usually held on the first weekend of September***--was to be held in Melbourne, Australia, and Eric had managed to convince a local Linux user group to pay for an air ticket that would let him arrive in time for the convention, and let him do his public speaking gig for them afterward.

Catherine Parr ( to show the
 general shape of the "Boleyn" dress)*

Unfortunately, the LUG had no reason to pay for a plane ticket for me just so that I could tag along, and we couldn't afford to buy me a ticket so I could go to the Worldcon too.  So I began looking for I started looking for fun things to do with my Labor Day weekend without my husband.  A suitable event quickly presented itself in the form of a live-action role playing game (LARP) called "Ring of Fire, Ring of Light," based on fantasy themes and set in the 1530s CE in an alternate universe's Germany.

Originally, I figured that I could repurpose a previously purchased lace-up bodice and skirt (both in black) by making matching sleeves for them, and that could pass as a crude approximation of a German middle-class woman's dress of the period. But shortly after I made the sleeves, I learned that my character was noble, and French. This meant that she would be wearing a rounded hood-like headdress with a dark veil attached--what is called a "French hood" and a wide-skirted gown, open to show a section of underskirt of contrasting color/pattern, with wide, fur-trimmed sleeves and heavy ornamental undersleeves.  Think "Anne Boleyn" and you have the right general idea.

After that, I knew I had to try to make an "Anne Boleyn" dress and headdress. But how?  If I had to tackle such a project today, I would know exactly where to obtain suitable fabrics, and I even know of a few people who sell patterns for that type of dress on line. But back in 1999?

Join the next installment of ADD 1 (the initials are, in my case, especially appropriate) to find out how I proceeded to make a classic Tudor gown with minimal knowledge of dress patterns and a minimal budget!

*          Photographs of portraits of Anne Boleyn and Catherine Parr courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
**        Over time, I have learned enough about period-correct hand sewing techniques to enjoy hand sewing early period garments to some degree, though sewing is unlikely ever to become my favorite activity.
***     This date was originally chosen because the first Monday of September is a national holiday in the United States called "Labor Day", and timing the convention for this weekend permits a five-day event that most Americans can fit into the amount of vacation time they are allotted from their jobs.

    

The Anti-Dress Diaries

Today's topic is an idea I've been kicking around inside my head for over 10 years--the "anti-dress diary."*  To describe what I mean by that term, a little personal history is in order.

Other than my recent posts to this blog I have never kept a "dress diary"--a record of methods used, and problems encountered and solved--for any of my historical projects.  Part of the reason for this is that, despite a long personal history as a costumer, I have never enjoyed sewing.  As an adolescent, I induced my mother to introduce me to the rudiments of sewing on her elderly electric sewing machine.  But I did that purely because I had costumes in mind that, back in 1974, I  could not otherwise obtain, not because I had any passion to learn the dressmakers' craft.  (Mom was with me on that part, at least.  She worked in a dress factory, sewing buttons on garments and being paid by the piece.  To her, sewing was her job, not a labor of love.)

"How I Learned...To Love Tudor"

The historical costumes that interested me the most as a girl were the long, flowing, and fitted gowns of the late medieval period. As my knowledge of costume history grew, and my impatience and frustration with the cutting, stitching, and finishing of garments mounted, I began to gravitate toward projects involving earlier periods, where fitting, if sought, was achieved through methods that, to me at least, were simpler and more comprehensible.

The Internet was a real boost to my costuming hobby. Suddenly, I was able to find photograph after photograph of wonderful, beautiful gowns crafted by other people (usually, though not always, women) who shared my love of historical costume! Many of them showcased their work in dress diaries, treating me to the daunting example of costumers who would spend many hours doing blackwork embroidery on an Elizabethan smock, gather yards of fine muslin into minute pleats to finish the neckline of a Renaissance chemise, or would wrestle with 15 yards of brocade and 5 yards of fake fur to make a proper houppelande. I admired these costumers greatly (and still do!), but back in the 1990s I lacked both the time and ambition to hone my skills to the point where such attempts, let alone achievements, might be possible for me. If I had attempted to emulate them, I would have had to give up any efforts at sewing in despair.

So I tried to stick to what I thought I knew--simple, early period tunics, coats and hoods based on simple geometric shapes, and told myself that I wasn't going to attempt any of those fancy, more modern creations.

Unfortunately, the beginning of my acquaintance with the Internet coincided with the flowering of my interest in live action roleplaying games ("LARPs"), a hobby which encourages participants to costume appropriately for their roles.  In the 1990s, about the time when I resumed serious reading and study about historic costume, there were a number of LARPs being conducted in my area, many of which were set during historical periods in which fitted, elaborate garments were essential.  So I began to plan historical costuming projects around the particular LARPs in which I was enrolled.  Since surprisingly few LARPs are set in the Dark Ages, the result was to drive me into attempting historical garments for periods as to which I was much less well acquainted.

Three of these "historical" LARP costumes in particular turned out to be adventures to create, requiring kluge after kluge and gobs of dogged determination to complete them on time for the games in which they were designed to be worn.

The first one of these was a 1530's Tudor dress, complete with a French hood.  I still have the records I kept (such as they are) of the cost of materials, since at the time I had little money available for sewing costumes at the time and was doing my best to make everything as cheaply as possible.  I made that gown in 1999, a few years before I had acquired  decent Internet connection (a factor which limited my ability to do quick research, as well as limiting my ability to find appropriate materials for the gown and headdress itself.  So the gown is cotton corduroy (I couldn't  afford velveteen), the forepart is a pink  cotton-blend furniture store damask that cost way too much and impresses too little, and the headdress is trimmed with a store-bought, crescent-shaped hunk of fake pearls manufactured for a do-it-yourself bridal headdress. I don't have a picture of myself wearing the gown, and I've no idea whether it still fits me, so for now you'll have to be content with a picture of the outfit laid out (more or less) flat; that picture appears above on the left.

"Six Years Before"

"Fear and Loathing"

The second gown I'd like to talk about is actually is the first one of the series that I made. It's a far-from-authentic early 17th century number whipped up hastily in the fall of 1993 after spending long days at the office drafting a killer legal brief. Complicating matters was the fact that I had to come up with a period costume for my husband, who was in the same LARP, while completing my own gown.  Nowadays, I could purchase one of several different patterns for such a gown.  Back then, I was on my own, with only Katherine Strand Holkebecker's "Patterns for Theatrical Costuming" as a rough guide to adding plausible sleeves to a Folkwear bodice.  A picture of the resulting gown, which was taken a few years later when I wore it at an office Christmas party, appears to the right.   (Straight bangs, or a fringe, as the British call them, aren't period for the 17th century either, but there were a natural part of my hair at the time, and it was easier just to tie my then shoulder-length pageboy into a ponytail and clip a long curly hairpiece over it than to try to find a combination of wig or hairpieces that would reproduce a true 17th century style.)  It appears on the right.

The third gown I have in mind made in 2005 for a LARP set in Venice in the early 16th century. It has been featured in Bella's Italian Showcase and, more recently, as part of the Historical Costume Inspiration Festival. Because I made it relatively recently (and had the Internet to consult for design ideas and for obtaining components) it is better designed and much more solidly sewn, but I took so long in the planning stages that it was, in the end, still a last-minute effort. However, it was still more successful than my actual role in the LARP that inspired it.  It appears on the left, directly opposite the "Six Years Before" gown.

All of this is a round-about way of asking; would you be interested in having me write up these "anti" dress diary ideas for this blog? I've been thinking of writing these costumes up so long for the Web that I'm not sure that the final result will be as interesting as what's been going on in my head, but it would at least be different from my standard blog fare, and perhaps more interesting. If you have strong feelings either way (about my writing these up, or not doing so) please either comment on this post, or respond to my poll (see the top left margin), or both.

EDIT:  If you read this post this morning, and notice that the last few paragraphs of this post read much differently now, that's because I was making a small typographical correction and lost the original text! The text as it appears now is an attempt to recreate the rough content, of what I originally wrote, but I can't recall the contents well enough to reproduce the exact language. If you have a cached copy of my original post, please paste it in an e-mail and send it to me so I can restore the original language.  Thanks.



*By saying "anti" dress diaries I don't mean to say that I'm against dress diaries! Not at all; I love reading them.  Nor do I mean any disrespect to the costumers who are skilled enough to write dress diaries that show historical details, or function as mini-tutorials; I respect their patience and skill greatly.  I just don't have the patience, or interest, to become one of them.  So I mean my proposed essays to be kind of a parody of the diary concept, applied to my early fumbling efforts at advanced historic costumery. The point of publishing such a parody is to show that it's possible  for even an ignorant person who loves historic costume to achieve something interesting and worthwhile even  having little or no experience, and that reporting about early efforts has merit and can inspire  greater, better efforts.