Way Beyond Vintage: Clothing from 1373 BCE

It would be remarkable to open a grave and find well-preserved clothing from 600 years ago, but the wool blouse, string skirt, and belt of the “Egtved girl” found in Denmark are nearly 3400 years old!

image from Reddit  Posted by u/Alexaalexa97

There are many documentaries on YouTube about this wonderfully preserved clothing from 1373 BCE, with an actress wearing and demonstrating moving around in carefully recreated copies of the outfit.  [ Note: Some of the speculation about the original wearer’s life and travels has been re-evaluated as more scientific information becomes available. Apparently the soil samples used to trace her origins were based on samples from land contaminated by modern agriculture and modern chemical fertilizers. ]

But seeing these clothes being worn (and danced in) is marvelous.   https://en.natmus.dk/historical-knowledge/denmark/prehistoric-period-until-1050-ad/the-bronze-age/the-egtved-girl/  

Egtved girl in reproduced clothing, courtesy of Nationalmuseet i København

The outfit, including a decorative belt that wraps twice around her body and has a round shield/sun disk looks surprisingly modern in this era of cropped tops and very short skirts. See a recreation being worn here.

The “see through” wrap skirt is a recognizable descendant of skirts seen on pre-historic “Venus” statuettes. Elizabeth Barber has written about these “Venus’ girdles.”

If you want a close look at the way these clothes were reproduced by experimental archeologists, here are some YouTube videos:

Sally Pointer has posted many videos of her work on prehistoric textiles, including how to make string for cords, nets, and clothing from nettles (!) which are processed much like flax is processed to make linen. If you are interested in prehistoric textiles, subscribe to her YouTube channel. Her videos on reproducing the Egtved girl’s clothing are filled with good images of the historic clothing and her reproductions, being modeled by a modern young woman.  Here is a long list of her videos: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5zgizOgAtq211QucFDShmbK1CieFOClX

My own experience of stinging nettles comes from walks in England, and it’s inspiring to think pre-historic people used this seemingly unfriendly plant for textiles and food! Once archeologist Elizabeth Barber (in Women’s Work: The First 20,000 Years) pointed out that half the historic record was long ignored because textiles and wooden objects rarely survive, I became very conscious of the fact that we speak of “hunter-gatherers,” but we find much more evidence of hunting (stone arrowheads, bone fishing hooks) than we find of gathering — which includes baskets, ropes, fishnets, and clothing. If you’ve ever tried to carry ripe blackberries back to your campsite in your hands, you’ll appreciate that prehistoric people had to figure out a way to carry large quantities of fruits and grains! They also had to carry water, probably in leather bags or tightly woven baskets. And of course, they had to carry babies while keeping their hands free. I can’t imagine that pre-modern nomadic people didn’t take their painstakingly made stone tools with them while following herds and moving to summer or winter camps. [In fact, the man who lived about 5000 years ago and was found preserved in ice — now called Otzi — had a leather pouch on his belt. Penn Museum has an excellent article about him — and his clothing.] As important as spears and axes were needles, scrapers, and awls. An excavation in what is now Florida shows that Native American women were weaving textiles from palmetto fibers 7000 years ago. They were buried with their needles and other tools.

If you have time, this article from The Guardian explains how much we have underestimated the skills of pre-historic women. 

Experimental archeologist Ida Demant has also reproduced the skirt and  Emma Stockley shows you a quick pre-historic top. This top is not based on the Egtved girl, but on the top worn by an older woman buried at  Borum Eshoj, Denmark. The oak from which her coffin was made dates to about 1350 BCE. This blouse surprised me because it required a tool which could cut fabric, instead of using rectangular woven pieces stitched together. (And, yes, this video uses scissors and a sewing machine!)

Vintage News has lots of ads but some good photos.  The Egtved girl’s clothing was wonderfully well-preserved because she was buried in an oak coffin.  Only her hair and teeth remained; she is not a mummy. Her coffin and possessions are in the National Museum of Denmark.

1899 Doll Clothes for a Lady Doll

1899 Butterick suit pattern for a “lady doll.” Delineator magazine, November 1899, p 572.

Dolls and doll clothes patterns usually appeared in the November and December issues of magazines like Delineator. I have seen “Fashion Dolls” in museums, but the “Lady Doll” is new to me: an 1890’s version of Barbie —  a doll with an adult figure and a wardrobe of current fashions. Butterick patterns made for these dolls were close copies of Butterick patterns for women.

1899 Butterick pattern for a woman’s “tailor” suit. Delineator, December 1899 p 629.

Butterick Patterns for lady doll” clothes from November 1899, Delineator.

Making this in a doll size would be a challenge:

Doll’s suit pattern from Butterick, 1899.

“Dolly” would be wearing a suit very similar to this one for real women:

I had a hard time imagining a doll with the tiny waist, large bust, and rounded hips of that year’s corseted figure, but Butterick also sold patterns for the doll herself.

The doll on the left has a very adult figure, with narrow waist and long legs. The porcelain head would be purchased separately. The jointed rag doll on the right has a painted face.

Unlike the “lady dolls,” this 30″ rag doll with painted face was made to wear actual baby clothes.

A very large hand painted doll — but not a “lady doll.”

Lady dolls and fashion dolls, on the other hand, were not intentionally childlike. Like a 20th century doll with a stylized woman’s figure, the whole point of a lady doll was that girls could dress her in grown-up clothing, This fashion doll even wears a corset:

This fashion doll from the Barry Art Museum collection is also described as a lady doll. 17 inches tall, French, circa 1880-1885.

I have always been amazed by the details on Fashion Dolls, and the patterns Butterick sold for lady dolls would require painstaking craftsmanship, especially if the doll was only 16 inches tall!

Lady Doll patterns fit dolls from 16 to 28 inches in height (including head).

This fashion doll is just 17 inches tall. Look at the detail in her ruffles and lace!

French Fashion doll circa 1875, from Barry Art Museum Doll collection.

So I guess it’s not surprising that the clothing patterns for lady dolls assume considerable sewing skills to make such realistic outfits.

A “Yachting costume” for your lady doll. A yachting cap pattern was included.

Butterick doll pattern for cape, December 1899.

This doll cape pattern is very similar to a Butterick pattern that was available for women:

Woman’s “golf cape” with optional hood, Delineator, November 1899.

A similar cape pattern was available for Misses and girls:

A cape pattern in Misses’ and Girls’ sizes. December 1899, Delineator.

I was delighted to find that a lady doll could also wear a Cycling outfit:

Shirt-waist, Bloomers or Knickerbockers, and gaiters, for a lady doll, resembling the clothes a lady might wear while riding a bicycle.

They are very similar to these real patterns for cyclists:

Butterick pattern 3083 for women’s knickerbockers, Delineator, August 1899.

The knickerbockers would be worn under a cycling skirt. This one is for women:

Woman’s cycling outfit, Butterick 3131 from Delineator, Sept 1899. The skirt is shorter than a normal adult lady’s skirt and has a deep pleat at the back.

Cycling suit for ladies, Sept. 1899.

Because the skirt is shorter than a woman’s walking skirt, buttoned gaiters (here called leggings) prevented legs from being exposed — or splashed with mud.

Gaiters or Leggings covered the rider’s legs to the knee.

Bloomers (or Knickerbockers) and Leggings (or Gaiters.)

Can you imagine finding doll buttons that small, and making those doll-sized buttonholes? The lady doll’s cycling jacket is also rather elaborate:

Lady Dolls’ set no. 227 Consisting of a 3 piece Cycling Skirt, Eton Jacket, and a Tam 0′ Shanter cap. for Dolls 16 to 28 inches. December 1899, Delineator.

Of course, a lady doll’s complete wardrobe would include underwear, a nightgown, a robe, petticoats, etc.

For dolls 14 to 28 inches. Notice her tiny waist and generous bottom!

Lady doll’s nightgown, Delineator, December 1899.

Above, a doll’s robe or wrapper, to be made of flannel.

Lounging-Robe and petticoat, chemise, and drawers for a lady doll.

In 1899, evening and ball gowns often consisted of a separate bodice and skirt. For formal affairs, the neck and arms could be exposed; for  dinner parties or formal afternoon events, a separate guimpe was worn under the bodice and provided a high collar and long sleeves.

 

The combination of bodice (waist) and guimpe would supply 2 different formal looks for a lady (or a lady doll.) Butterick patterns from Delineator, December 1899.

Evening waist, Butterick, September 1899. (Talk about giving women an unrealistic body ideal! Also, those tiny tyrannosaurus hands and forearms are typical of fashion illustrations in the 1890s.)

In a series of articles about jobs for women, Delineator interviewed doll dress maker Ernestine Pomroy in December, 1899.  She makes it clear that lavish doll wardrobes were a high-priced luxury item for the children of the wealthy. Considering the details on the patterns above, it makes sense that this was a job for the professional seamstress, especially in an era when many women who could afford it also chose their own dress patterns and took them to a professional seamstress to have them made up. 

The Interview:  “Miss Ernestine Pomroy, looking around for some way whereby she might earn a living, was impressed with the expensiveness of dolls’ cloths [sic] as sold in the New York stores. She made several complete outfits, took them to one of the leading toy merchants and asked for orders. That was her beginning, just a little more than two years ago. To-day she employs four assistants regularly, and in the Autumn, before the holiday season, is forced to employ twelve additional ones for several weeks.

When visited in her work-rooms on East Ninth Street the other day, Miss Pomroy, speaking of her work, said: “Of course, I am not the first person who ever made doll clothes for the New York trade, but I believe I am the first person to make it a profession and devote one’s whole time to it. I began just as you have been told, by making a few gowns for children dolls, that is, dolls which are dressed like little girls eight or ten years old. Now, we make them for all ages, though I still prefer to make for dolls of that age.

“While most of my clothes are made to fill orders from the large toy dealers, I have many regular customers among children. They have parents who can afford to humor every whim, and their dolls are brought to me and the season’s outfit ordered,  just as its little mistress is taken to the tailor and modiste. In such instances our charges are proportionately large, as no two of the garments are alike, and often the mother of our little customer wishes exclusive designs and will pay for such privileges. This is, as a rule, the case only where the pet is a “lady doll.”  Then  the costumes of exclusive designs are wished for parties, dinners, weddings or some child’s entertainment. In these outfits we are expected to furnish every article of apparel from their shoes and stockings to their hats. The shoes we buy ready made, or, I should say import, for there is no factory for dolls’ shoes in America; but the hats are made by our milliner and copied after the latest French models.

“Doll’s gloves, rubber capes and mackintoshes are made by regular factories in this country, so I have nothing to do with them beyond supplying them to our customers, though in some instances I have designed them for the manufacturers.

“I think there is an opening for such a business as mine in every large city, and I have certainly found it remunerative. It requires, in my judgment, about the same qualities that make a good dressmaker; but I selected it because I found that while one field was over crowded the other was untouched. The result has been highly satisfactory, as my work is both pleasant and profitable.”

Barry Art Museum Doll Collection, “Parisienne” doll, back view, circa 1868.

If you are interested in dolls, I highly recommend a visit (online, unless you live nearby) to the Barry Art Museum in Norfolk, Virginia. On the campus of Old Dominion University, the Doll and Automata Collection is only one of the museum’s collections. Other departments include Fine Arts and Glass. If you can’t visit in person, visit the Doll Collection online here.

 

 

 

 

October Treats (Videos)

I didn’t intend this picture to look menacing. I just needed to balance the interesting curved stem with something, and my mother’s old knife was handy. Besides, it was fun to paint.

For those interested primarily in fashion, I recommend two YouTube videos to watch:

Doris Raymond (her store is The Way We Wore) shares close-up details of Paco Rabanne garments (and look-alikes) from her collection. She also has videos of some YSL for Dior pieces and many other designer pieces including jewelry and accessories. I didn’t know that Rabanne sold kits for those disc dresses!

The Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco have kindly put an 18 minute tour of the Frida Kahlo: Appearances Can Be Deceiving exhibit online.

Photograph of Frida Kahlo by Edward Weston, part of the FAMSF Kahlo exhibit.

Some rooms of Frieda Kahlo’s Blue House (La Casa Azul /Frida Kahlo Museum) were kept sealed until 50 years after her death. They contained thousands of photographs and much of her clothing, which has generously been on loan to the De Young Museum in San Francisco until February 7, 2021. COVID restrictions have been eased, and it is now possible to visit the exhibit. But, if you can’t travel to San Francisco, you can enjoy the virtual tour (and perhaps some museum publications.) Kahlo and Diego Rivera lived in San Francisco in the 1930s, and she was often photographed there.

Other YouTube Videos that have cheered me in October:

I’ve been interested in art for a long time, and because I physically can’t do many of the things that used to fill my days — like walking or research or writing — I’ve been watching three specific young artists on YouTube. Now that I’m no longer teaching or working in costume shops, I miss the company of people in their twenties.  Besides, it’s much easier (but not as satisfying) to watch other people painting for forty hours — especially when the painting process can be speeded up into a neat ten or twenty minutes!

So I began watching these three inspiring young men, whom I found by chance, and watching them in no particular order: Ten Hundred (aka TENHUN), SLEW, and STRUTHLESS.

Why would a seventy-five year old woman choose to spend hours and days with three guys who love graffiti, wear their baseball caps** backwards, and are lavishly tattooed?

Because they are very skilled, very serious about their work, incredibly hard-working, and good teachers.

SLEW (Samuel Lewis) dresses like he just jumped off a skateboard, and half his art doesn’t appeal to me at all — but the other half documents his progress in fine art drawing and oil painting. (You can skip the ads to see the videos.) He is very serious about improving his art. Also, like my other two recommendations, he is serious about making good videos — and like them, he understands that the ability to organize information is essential to a good teacher.

Ten Hundred (Peter Robinson) is a muralist, but also an entrepreneur. He paints, he teaches, he sells a line of merchandise,  he makes well-produced videos, and, by working very hard, he is making a living as an artist. Besides, I do enjoy his use of color — his murals have a joyful quality not always found in street art. The line between graffiti and urban art is sometimes a little blurry — but I learned (from his European mural painting tour) ( get past the ads….) that there is an organization (Global Street Art) which seeks to find legitimate places for outdoor art, where the murals are wanted and appreciated; it also connects muralists so they can collaborate on public pieces. Anyone who thinks being an artist doesn’t require “real” work or self-discipline should watch Ten Hun painting a commissioned mural or seeing how hard he worked to earn an extra $5000 to pay a medical bill: “90+ Art Pieces in 4 Days.”

Ten Hun and SLEW collaborated on a joint portrait mural here.

STRUTHLESS (Campbell Walker) is an Aussie cartoonist and — perhaps oddly — his videos are more about self-improvement than his own art process, although his series of cartoon characters drawn in the styles of ten different artists are quite amusing. He is a born teacher — producing  well thought out videos, sharing good advice about art and life with candor and a sense of humor. One video (“The drawing advice that changed my life”) convinced this white-haired old lady that I could learn a lot from this under-thirty guy in the ball cap and colorful tattoos. Any writer or creative artist should watch this video. (Besides, have you ever heard of a  “bin chicken?”) If you find that your perfectionism or procrastination keep you from starting to write or draw, STRUTHLESS gives very good advice. Really serious advice, given with tremendous honesty but no self-pity, can be found in “The Five Questions the Changed My Life.” (Trigger warning for abuse survivors like STRUTHLESS….) This is a human being trying to help others, and I admire him very much. Plus, he is entertaining….

I spent many hours over the past week watching these three very young men (SLEW is 24) giving advice, sharing what they’ve learned, working very hard, using exceptional self-discipline to carve out a living by making the art they want to make.

It was only by chance, as I watched video after video, that I realized: at least two of these admirable young men are recovering addicts. They turned their lives around.  They are doing good and doing well.

EDIT Oct.31, 2020: I forgot to include a link to How Art Saved My Life.

If you’re feeling desperate for good news, maybe spending time with them will cheer you up as it did me.

**STRUTHLESS wears his cap with the bill in front. He humorously explains why in “How to Go Bald in Your Twenties.”

Viewing Recommendation: Craft in America

“Portrait of a Textile Worker;” art quilt by Terese Agnew. Image from tardart.com

One of my favorite, most relaxing series to watch is Craft in America, a PBS show that visits four different artists/craftpersons in each episode. To my delight (and heaven knows why) many episodes are currently available on YouTube!

I just watched (for the third or fourth time in several years) the episode “Craft in America: THREADS.” A feast for the eyes and food for the brain: artist Faith Ringgold’s quilt/paintings ( I see new details every time,  and she is an extraordinary teacher with stories to share;) weaver Randall Darwell and his partner Brian Murphy (the colors! the textures! the partnership!) fiber artist Consuelo Jiminez Underwood (weaving with safety pins, and wire, and a message for our times;) and quilter Terese Agnew, whose “Portrait of a Textile Worker” I wrote about here.  Agnew uses a traditional form (quilting, piecing and embroidery) to make beautiful textile art with thought-provoking content. (In one quilt, cedar waxwings congregating in a parking lot were the inspiration — but the employees crossing the parking lot have pink slips in their pockets, because that’s what happened to them while she was making the quilt.)

I was one of the thousands who sent Agnew an envelope full of clothing labels…

… which she stitched together to make “Portrait of a Textile Worker;” the finished quilt measures 98 by 110 inches. This photo gives you an idea of its size:

Terese Agnew with “Portrait of a Textile Worker;” from an article about the Craft in America series, at SFgate.com

I’ve been sheltering in place for over a month now; armchair travel, beautiful, hand crafted things, and inspiring conversation come to me via Craft in America.

Even episodes featuring crafts that don’t usually excite me (like furniture making or wrought iron making) are a trip out of myself — something different, something new, and something inspiring.

Did I mention beauty?  The work of  Chugach Aleut jewelry artist Denise Wallace is a good example of where Craft in America may take you. Wallace is featured in Craft in America: COMMUNITY.  Find a complete list of episodes at Craft in America or, for episodes you can watch  on YouTube, here.

Note: I do wish the episode titles gave more detail about content (Is Terese Agnew in THREADS or in QUILT? — Is Denise Wallace in LANDSCAPE or ORIGINS or COMMUNITY? but that’s a quibble.)

 

 

Pattern Pieces for Side Drapes (“Cascades”) circa 1922

The side panels of this skirt were called “cascades.” Butterick 3601 from March, 1922; Delineator.

Cascades were created in several different ways in the Nineteen Twenties. Using the pattern archive at CoPA to better understand the options, I found a considerable variety of pattern shapes. Some cascades were basically rectangles, others were shaped, and sometimes the solution was really simple: essentially a piece of fabric wrapped around the body, with one side seam sewn several inches inside the edge of the cascade, which jutted out. (See Pattern 1408, below….)

In 1980, a Twenties’ dress with two cascades like that green one was one of my early experiments in draping.  Think of the skirt as a very big pillowslip with an opening in the top seam a few inches from each side seam. That opening is gathered and attached to the bodice at the waist.  I used a fairly light silk, so the bulk of the seam at each side wasn’t a problem. It looked fine, but this week I learned that it probably was not the way cascades were done in the early 1920s.

If I had had CoPA for research, I would have noticed that there was usually only one layer of fabric in the cascade.

Butterick 3545 has a cascade at each side.

Pattern envelope scanned from CoPA. . “LADIES’ SLIP-OVER DRESS, closed at left underarm, with Detachable Cape, Two-Piece Skirt Attached at Low Waistline, with or without long body lining.”

Detachable Cape on Butterick 3545.

Butterick 3545 pattern layout from CoPA.

The skirt pattern pieces for Butterick 3545, 1922. Notches show where the cascades would be inserted into the side seams. This construction is very simple and logical to a 21st century stitcher.

A closer view of the skirt; Butterick 3545, 1922.

In that case, the cascade was a separate pattern piece. It was also separate in this LHJ pattern, but this cascade was shaped to taper at the bottom. And it was NOT inserted in a side seam.

The full image from CoPA of LHJ pattern 3616. A triangle of dots usually means “place on fold,” but in this case it’s hard to interpret.  Notch K in the bodice front matches notch K in the skirt. The separate side panel (did it hang free?) adds to the confusion. The dress drawing does not show a center back seam.

In Ladies’ Home Journal pattern 3616, the cascade is shaped, and it has a pleat (“plait”) at the point where it is attached to the skirt waist. But the cascade does not appear to be inserted into a seam.

The right-angled point of the cascade (I called it A) hangs free, but the other side is apparently sewn to the side front of the skirt. LHJ pattern 3616.

I don’t know how the straight, raw edge of the cascade would be handled, since it doesn’t appear to be inserted in a seam, but …. (I may be misreading this one! Perhaps those five dots on the skirt are a cutting line?)

Butterick 3417, from 1921, can teach us many things.

Butterick 3417 from 1921.

Bodice, cape, and lining of Butterick 3417.

The blouson shape can be held in place by the bodice lining and the waist stay, in addition to the built-in belt we see. The cape is not just a square; the little jag at the point of attachment will affect the way the cape falls. The cascade is cut in one with the skirt front.

Skirt pieces for Butterick 3417.

This cascade is cut in one with the skirt front; the jog at the bottom allows about three inches for the skirt hem to be turned up. (The cascades apparently have a narrow hem.) The pale lavender line is my guess at the seam placement.

Butterick 3417 (1921) makes sense once you realize that the three-dot triangle means “place on fold of fabric.” I circled the small dots which mark the place where the side seams need to go. The “tube” part of the dress has a hem allowance of about 3 inches. The cascade would be narrow-hemmed, or picot hemmed, if chiffon. Yes, the back side of the fabric would be seen — no problem with georgette or reversible satin….

This Syndicate pattern, No. 1789 from 1923 has just five pieces. A seamstress would have to know about facing for the belt, which apparently buttons at one or both sides. How are the sleeves and cascades finished? How about a neck facing? Is the bodice fully lined? All up to the seamstress.

Syndicate dress 1789 from 1923.

The aerial view of this dress as it would look before the sides were sewn is very informative!

The cascades apparently hang free, outside the side seams, which probably fall vertically from the side waist And that bodice is quite intriguing. what happens when you raise your arms? Definitely wear with a slip!

Pictorial Review pattern 1408 also makes the cascade part of the skirt front:

Pictorial Review pattern 1408 from 1922. The cascade is cut in one with the skirt front.

The skirt front is seamed to the skirt back at one side (see double notches.)

There appears to be a seam line where the left side of the skirt back wraps around to the front and tucks under the cascade.

Once you match the skirt front to skirt back at one side, the entire skirt wraps around and is stitched to the front, allowing the cascade to hang free.

This beautiful 1922 dress, Ladies’ Home Journal pattern 3701, has only four pattern pieces:

LHJ pattern 3701, from 1922. (The “whole skirt” length does not seem to be to scale, since the skirt is one piece, wrapping around the body and and folding up in horizontal tucks (“plaits”) at the waist.)

I said “only four pattern pieces;” the seamstress would have to make her own bias bindings and figure out how to face the long sleeves and neckline…. (I would line the entire bodice with contrasting Chinese silk.)

Butterick 4025 makes the cascade part of its one-piece skirt.

Center, Butterick 4025, Delineator, December 1922.

Butterick 4025 pattern envelope from CoPA.

The cascade is part of the one-piece skirt. (How could the black cascade have a white reverse side, as illustrated? More dressmaker ingenuity needed….)

More often, the cascade was a separate pattern piece. In this 1923 pattern (Ladies’ Home Journal pattern 3961) the cascade on this side-closing surplice dress is cut with one curved side, for a more graceful “fall.” (“Fall, waterfall, cascade….”)

A surplice closing creates this wrap dress. Ladies’ Home Journal pattern 3961, from 1923.

Skirt pattern pieces for LHJ 3961. One-piece skirt, possibly cut on the fold at center back. (See the Three dot triangle.)

Complete pattern pieces from LHJ 3961, scanned from CoPA.

Obviously, there’s more than one way to cut a cascade. I’ve spent a lot of my life looking at old paintings and photographs and illustrations, trying to figure out how those those garments were constructed (and what the backs looked like.)  One rule of the costume shop is: “Never assume.” Knowing how modern clothes are made — what “makes sense” to us — isn’t always the key to an authentic replica. CoPA, the Commercial Pattern Archive — started by theatrical costumers — is an absolute treasure. Spread the word!

Personal experience: Around 1985, I was designer and cutter for a production of Mozart’s Marriage of Figaro. One of my stitchers had been trained as a tailor in Germany. She was so unhappy with the way my men’s sleeves (patterned from Norah Waugh’s Cut of Men’s Clothes : 1600-1900) needed gathering at the back of the sleeve head that I revised my patterns for them several times. Two years later I visited the Costume Collection at the Victoria and Albert Museum, where some 18th c. men’s clothing was displayed in a case that I could walk around. Finally, I could see the back seams of the coats I had been drafting! Guess what? There were visible gathers at the back of the sleeve heads. And I had gone without sleep to get rid of them in my patterns!  (P.S. That’s also why I always want to see the backs at museum exhibits! Maybe a photo? Or a mirror behind the mannequin?)

Balenciaga at the V & A : Museum Exhibitions Online

Design by Cristobal Balenciaga, 1965. Image courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum.

The Vintage Traveler recently shared an FIT symposium on museum exhibitions of fashion.
That reminded me of some extraordinary videos that were part of “Balenciaga: Shaping Fashion” at the Victoria and Albert Museum.
The exhibition closed in February, 2018, but the V&A has generously posted the videos made for the exhibit online, so we can all enjoy them. [Note to other museums: Go, thou, and do likewise! Once the exhibition closes, put the videos online!] Unfortunately, the still photos from the exhibition are under copyright, as are most other museum pictures of Balenciagas — so please click on the links.

I didn’t see the exhibition in London, but it appears to have used technology to very good purpose. I’ve whiled away hours watching the V&A’s exemplary videos.
This link will take you to the V&A website, where you can read about Balenciaga and watch three marvelous videos illustrating exactly how his minimalist but extraordinary patterns come together into “Balenciagas.” Click here for Secrets of Balenciaga’s Construction

The museum took X-Ray photos of some of the Balenciagas on exhibit. This link includes another fascinating video. You can see hidden weights controlling the drape, and, occasionally, a straight pin!

A V&A video about the custom beading on a glittering evening coat is found here.

In “Learning from the Master: Deconstructing Balenciaga,” the Museum invited a group of advanced design students from the London College of Fashion to create patterns and toiles from Balenciaga gowns in the museum’s collection. If you sew or drape, this is for you! ( I’m thinking of you, Fifty Dresses….)

“Shaping Fashion: Balenciaga” is another well-done video from the V&A. You can watch designs by Balenciaga morph into designs by other famous couturiers. (I just wish all the V&A’s videos were together in one place online!)

A preview of the entire exhibit can be found in the AP Archives: click here.

Until I started searching museum collections for Balenciaga designs, I hadn’t appreciated how much he influenced my wardrobe in the late 1950s/60s. Not that I ever wore couture (ha!) but because the inexpensive clothes I did wear and saw worn everywhere were inspired by his work. My first wool suit (home-made) was a distant echo of this one. Party and prom dresses worn by my friends owed a debt to this simple & elegant flowered dress. (Note the shape of the skirt.) The shape of this coat was everywhere, and I bought a long formal in green brocade with soft pleats at the waist (circa 1964,) reminiscent of the dress under it.

More Online About this Exhibition

Many who visited the exhibition posted images or videos on YouTube; here are a few blogs or videos about it.

At 12 minutes long, this video from Stitchless TV gives a good idea of how well-thought-out this exhibition apparently was. Click here for a “walk through” that includes much besides the videos posted more clearly at the V&A site. It shows the “upstairs” part of the exhibit, which features designers who trained with or were inspired by “The Master.”

This video by Natalie (at Time with Natalie) gives a good “walk through” (starting at one minute in.)

Betty Raen at The London List captures some photos that show more of the exhibit.

For a quick taste, try Fashion Expedition’s report.

The Arcadia online blog previews the exhibit (with illustrations, of course.) Many designs by students of “the Master” are shown.

This link includes a photo of the pink “Tulip Dress” which is magically reconstructed in a V&A video.

As the late Anthony Bourdain said, “I’m still hungry for more.”

More Balenciaga exhibitions:

“Balenciaga and His Legacy:” was presented at the Meadows Museum in Dallas, Texas on February 3, 2007 by the Texas Fashion Collection. Click here. This video is not too dark, unlike others; but it’s not really in focus, either…. However — you won’t see the same creations featured elsewhere. Worth a taste.

When you have had your fill of evening gowns, this video from the Museo Cristobal Balenciaga shows superb construction on wool suits and other daytime clothing. Some of the images are too dark, but other close-ups are superb.

If you still want more Balenciaga, this 2011 exhibition, “Balenciaga and Spain,” from The DeYoung museum in San Francisco is 17 minutes long and traces Balenciaga’s development and early influences  …. sadly, the lighting and photo quality are not good. Films of his showroom are good.

This short video of “Balenciaga: Spanish Master” exhibition from New York is different and definitely worth watching.

Also creative and interesting: this video from ICONIC.

When you have time to relax, pour yourself a cup of your favorite beverage, put your feet up, and enjoy these videos and blogs.

Patterns of Fashion Book Series Continues!

Cover image from Barnes & Noble website.

Very welcome news to costumers is that the great Patterns of Fashion book series begun by Janet Arnold, who died in 1998,  is being continued. Arnold wrote three gridded pattern books, (Patterns of Fashion 1660 to 1860, Patterns of Fashion 1860 to 1940, and Patterns of Fashion 1560 to 1620, and I just received information from the Costumers’ Alliance about a British source that is continuing her work.

Jenny Tiramani, principal of the School of Historical Dress in London said:

“Please tell people that we have decided not to use a distributor or to put the book for sale on Amazon. They take too much money and we need the funds to keep the school going and to publish Patterns of Fashion 6 & 7 which are both already in the pipeline!

We will be selling the book ourselves from our School of Historical Dress webshop and will try to give a good price for those people buying the book in countries far flung from the UK.

[Patterns of Fashion] 5 is in China being printed next week and published 31st October. …We need all the publicity we can get as the publisher of all future volumes of the series!”
Please support this incredibly rare and precious resource, the School of Historical Dress!! Here is where you can find their web site.

Click here to find out about current and upcoming volumes of Patterns of Fashion, plus other relevant publications.

Mantua, Late 17th century, Collection of the Metropolitan Museum.

Other books include Seventeenth Century Women’s Dress Patterns (Vols. 1 & 2), and Waistcoats from the Hopkins Collection c. 1720-1950 “The waistcoats are shown with close-up details of its shape, construction and decoration, alongside images of people wearing similar styles from the same time period.” Janet Arnold’s other books are also available.

(One virtue of the Patterns of Fashion Series — aside from the meticulous research — is their large format: printed on extra wide paper, the scaled patterns are easy to refer to while you are working.)

Patterns of Fashion 4 covers body linens 1540 to 1660 — “the linen clothes that covered the body from the skin outwards. It contains 420 full colour portraits and photographs of details of garments in the explanatory section as well as scale patterns for linen clothing ranging from men’s shirts and women’s smocks, ruffs and bands to boot-hose and children’s stomachers.

 

Exhibit of Brian Stonehouse Fashion Illustrations for Vogue

I’d never heard of illustrator and artist Brian Stonehouse until I saw this image in an ad for the exhibit, but if you are lucky enough to be in London between October 19 and December 22, 2017, you might want to visit the Abbott and Holder Gallery at 30 Museum Street for “the final group of works from the Artist’s Estate painted during his New York, American Vogue years.” Click here for a view of many fashion illustrations from the fifties and sixties, thanks to the Guardian newspaper’s Fashion section.
An eye-catching ad in the London Review of Books encapsulates the life of Brian Stonehouse, M.B.E. (1918 – 1998) this way:

“WW II SOE Agent, Concentration Camp Survivor and American Vogue Illustrator 1952-1963.”

As a British spy working with the French Resistance during WW II, Stonehouse was captured and sent to a concentration camp. After he was liberated, he moved to New York and did a series of lovely illustrations for Vogue.

If you can’t make a visit in person, you can page through the gallery’s full color exhibition catalog by clicking here.

 

Remembering Costume Designer Willa Kim

Years ago, I was lucky to be a “fly on the wall” when Willa Kim was in town, designing dance costumes. I didn’t deal with her directly, but I watched her interacting with the costume shop, and I heard stories….

Willa Kim was so completely focused on her work that her age (80-ish) seemed irrelevant — except when you remembered that she won her first Tony award for Costume Design when she was in her sixties and her second, for Will Rogers Follies, in 1991 — ten years later. She was completely professional, she was funny, she loved dance and theatre and the people who worked there, and she really knew her stuff. (I heard that, when a lighting designer tried putting intense red light on dance costumes that were white, red and green, the metaphorical fur flew. Red light makes green appear black, and white appear red, which would have destroyed her designs; although petite, Willa could be very assertive when necessary!)

In fact, although I knew how famous she was, and had looked her up in Pecktal’s Costume Design: Techniques of Modern Masters, I learned a lot from reading her obituaries, because Willa Kim lived in the present — being much more interested in her current projects than in past glories. In 2003, Willa did a half-hour interview for the Women in Theater Project — in which she explains how she came to be the first costumer to make dance costumes out of Lycra stretch fabric, among other things. Click here to watch the interview, via Playbill magazine online. (And watch her reaction when asked about lighting design….)

Click here for her full obituary, as printed in The Seattle Times. She said her costume designs for the opera Turandot, at Santa Fe Opera (2005,) were the most interesting of her career. You can see a slide show of those, plus her deliciously witty design sketches for other projects, by clicking here, where there is a slide show from a curated exhibit honoring her work.

The book Designs of Willa Kim is available through Amazon.

Fashion Plates (for Men and Women) from the Met Costume Institute

1921 fashion plate from the Metropolitan Museum collection. Click here to see it in larger versions.

The Metropolitan Museum continues its generous policy of sharing images online; “Fashion plates from the collections of the Costume Institute and the Irene Lewisohn Costume Reference Library at The Metropolitan Museum of Art” are now available (and searchable) at http://libmma.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/landingpage/collection/p15324coll12

Click here, and scroll down for a lengthy list of sub-collections of fashion plates: menswear, children, wedding, women, headgear, etc., organized by date or range of dates.

What really excited me is the large number of men’s fashion plates, many dated very precisely, like these tennis outfits from 1905-06.

Men’s tennis outfits, 1905-1906; Metropolitan Museum Fashion Plates Collection. Plate 029. For full image, click here.

If you need to skim through a year or a decade of men’s fashion, this is a great place! It’s also going to be very helpful to collectors who are trying to date specific items of men’s clothing. Sometimes the date range given is very narrow (e.g., 1905-06) and sometimes it’s rather broad (e.g., 1896 to 1913) but menswear is neglected by many costume collections, so this is a terrific resource.

Vintage evening vests for men. Undated. Details like the lapels, the shape of the waist, the depth of the opening, the buttons, etc., will help the collector to date them from reference materials.

In addition to full outfits, like these evening clothes …

Evening dress for men, 1909-1910. Met Museum Costume Plate.

… individual items like vests can also be found:

Men’s vests; fashion plate from the Met Museum fashion plate collection category “1900-1919 men.” The vests on the left have five buttons.

Undated vintage vests. Both have high necklines, but one has seven buttons and one has six. You could probably date them from the Met’s Fashion Plate Collection.

From “Men 1896 to 1899.” The red one reminds us that vests (aka weskits) sometimes had sleeves. The red one with vertical stripes may be a footman’s or other servant’s vest. This plate is dated February 1898.

Of course, fashion plates that have been separated from their descriptions in text are less useful than a complete magazine or catalog. Nevertheless, I’m grateful for the chance to see these rare collections, especially because the men are not forgotten.

This delightful plate reminds me of an Edward Gorey vamp — like the ones dancing through the credits on Mystery on Public Television.

A long evening gown from the House of Worth, 1921. Met Museum Costume Institute Fashion Plate.

I’ll add a link to the collection to my “Sites with Great Information” sidebar. (There are other treasures to explore there….)