Final Exhibition Oct 16-17

After the photo-shoot, it seems almost like a let-down to write a post about the exhibition. However, it WAS a major event in the life of us as costume students, so for the record...

It was also lots of fun. Many people came - family and friends, people in the theatre industry, passing tourists off the street. There was much oohing and aahing, many compliments, a great deal of interest and amazement.

First of all, we transformed the sewing studio from this:

into this:

Alex: funky as always

Emily: lots of bows and other detail

Jess: quiet elegance

Alice: splashes of colour

Kaz: lots of sparkle and pizzaz

Sofia: understated excellence

Minnie: lots of information on process

It was interesting to see how each display confirmed the person whom we had gotten to know during the 15 weeks.

Once the displays were up, and we were all dressed in our 30s gowns (both to add the the festive air, and because there aren't enough mannequins for everyone to have four), Pauline broke out the champagne for a toast to our success. I was delighted that Wendy and David Brooks, my landlady and landlord for fifteen weeks, were able to come:

My display was heavy on information, particularly about process - "working with velvet", "why pouf pants are poufy", "how much steel goes into a corset", that kind of thing. A number of visitors remarked positively on that aspect, and many asked questions.

In addition, taped across my window was the huge map of Canada Pauline had bought because two of us were from Canada this year:

I figured people would notice my accent and ask - which indeed they did. Interest in Canada was high among the visitors; those who had been, or had connections, enjoyed locating on that big map places they knew of. All marvelled at the size of the country. A few lingered, imagining with some longing that kind of space, asking about the geography. As I remain a Canadian geography enthusiast, it's likely that I generated a number of future tourist visits!

At the end of the exhibition, Saturday at 4:30, we packed up and restored the studio to readiness for the next course, which starts in January. Many hands made light work, it took about an hour. And I'm pleased to report that all my costumes fit into my duffle bag, no problem.

The Results - Photos!!

Since I put in my final photo-shoot stitch at 5:24 p.m. a week ago Saturday, it's been a whirlwind: the shoot, the duffle bag, preparing for and hosting the two-day exhibition (separate post), packing everything up, taking leave of the people I've spent so much time with. Now I have almost two days before I take the overnight bus to Heathrow for the trip home. It's been an amazing four months.

The photographer shot front and back views of individual costumes, as well as each period in a group. I will do separate posts for each period with everyone's costumes (still have to ask their permission, though, didn't think to do that) so those who are interested can check out the fine and imaginative work by the whole class in greater detail. I feel very privileged to have worked with these talented young women!

In the order of the making, then: Tudor modelled by James, 1880s bustle modelled by moi, 1930s Madeleine Vionnet bias cut (again modelled by moi).  Venues for the shoot: York's 15th-century Guildhall for the older costumes (York Guildhall), for the Vionnet gowns the art deco Belmont Room in the renowned Betty's Tea Room (the Belmont Room is a1937 copy of the stateroom in the Queen Mary, which made her maiden voyage in 1936: Betty's in York). Doesn't everyone look FINE!!!

First the Tudor:

Next the late 1880s bustle gown:

Finally the 1930s Vionnet:

The photographer also took a picture of me photographing James and showing him the results. They're nice shots - and they show how tired I was... but goodness, it was all worth it!

Duffle Bag

The logistical problem of getting my costumes home has been occupying (read: worrying) me for some time. It's a question of both weight and volume as well as expeditious navigation of Canadian customs.  For awhile it wasn't clear how to tackle that combination.

Researching the shipping options and getting a better handle on what had to be transported led me to decide that the best option would be the biggest allowable duffle bag, paid for as extra bag on the flight home. A duffle bag is sufficiently lightweight that it doesn't take up weight on its own, and sufficiently expandable that bulky items can more easily be fit in.

Next problem: getting such a duffle bag. Of the ones available to me here, some were too small, some were too big, some were too heavy - and all were too expensive. So on a whim I decided to try to make one, exactly to airline checked baggage specs (so: no more than 62" as the sum of length, width, height) and cheaper and lighter than anything I could purchase. The result:

It's actually just a little over 60" (30+15+15: best to err on the side of caution), and cost exactly 6 pounds 65 pence or approximately $14 dollars. Materials: small tarp, 2 meters rip-stop nylon, 1 zipper, two back-pack clips, one bit of velcro. I'm pretty pleased with it!

Oh, and on weight - my landlady lent me a nifty mechanical luggage scale, an old-fashioned "hook with pulley and scale" type of thing. So for several days I went around weighing things. My Tudor trunk hose and doublet weigh just over 4.5 lbs - while Kaz's trunk hose alone weigh over 6 lbs! We knew it was heavier, but goodness, that's a LOT heavier. The next heaviest costume item for me is my bustle gown skirt, also 4.5 lbs. So costumes are no longer an issue. There ARE of course the 10 meters of Irish linen I bought myself as a birthday present...

Still, it looks like I will be able to get my stuff home. I'll breathe a sigh of relief once it actually is, though.

Sprint to the Finish

Monday, 8:15 a.m., we are to report for photo-shoot activities.

A fair bit of chaos and many long hours of work are preceding this much anticipated event:

I myself put in my final pre-photo-shoot stitch at 5:24 today, hurray!!! and that after 70+ hours last week, six solid and long days this week. Probably not my final stitch ever, as it is inevitable that wearing the outfits during the shoot will reveal snags and insufficiences requiring repair before the exhibit next Friday/Saturday.

Just for fun, here's a picture of the little bustle-gown model I made weeks ago, out of a pop bottle, so I could try draping:

3D Body Scan Dressforms

OK, this has to be the coolest development yet - a dressform made EXACTLY to measure by a 3-D printer!!! check out the company working on this at "DittoForms". The technology is available only in Washington (DC) at the moment, but efforts are being made at making it more widely accessible. Almost worth travelling to DC for...

Why is this so exciting? 3D technology will make a dressform exactly like the person - the slope of the shoulder, the slight differences between the slope of the shoulders, the size of the armhole, the natural asymmetry of the body, the curve of the back - the list goes on and on. Not even the very best and most expensive dressform fits any real person perfectly. Enter 3D... wow!

Only one of the many things I learned at Costume College today - for this, thanks to my fellow student Alex.

When in danger, when in doubt...

"When in danger
when in doubt
run in circles,
scream and shout!"

This little rhyme came to me - and amused my fellow students - when I ran into a snag with my lace trim.

Unnoticed by me, the shop sold me the trim in two pieces stapled together. One piece was about 20", the other almost 10 yards. Oh well, I thought, looking at them: I can use the small piece for the sleeves...

It also seemed logical to use the small piece to work out the velvet scallops on the gown's trim band, over which the gold lace was then to go...

You can see where this is going - yup! after I had done all the careful measuring, pattern making, cutting, adhering, trimming, and went to apply the five yards of gold lace, to my dismay I discovered that actually the weave of the short piece, and of the longer one, was not identical:

Top: shorter piece; bottom: longer piece

Darn double darn!!! Fortunately the weave of the short piece was just a bit smaller (rather than larger), so it became a matter of working the extra onto the just-a-bit-too-small pattern already laid out. Not what I had intended, but as our guest tutor Rose had wisely said: costume making is problem solving.

Now the gold lace stands out a bit (in a 3-D way) - "design choice"!

Sewing with Velvet

Ooh la la!

One of my goals with this course was to learn to sew with velvet - a tricky fabric if there ever was one. My limited previous experiences had not been exactly rewarding...  Velvet has a definite 'nap', which means that little minute 'fluffies' stand up (my own technical term - probably more accurate, from Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velvet: 'a type of woven tufted fabric in which the cut threads are evenly distributed, with a short dense pile').

For my bustle gown I chose to make the trim parts - sleeves, collar, peplum, gown trim band (i.e. the trickiest parts) - all out of velvet.

Most important lesson learned: buy the most expensive velvet possible, with a good amount of silk. Probably what you can afford isn't 100% silk, but a combination of silk and rayon. Even this blend, however, 'acts' differently than (cheaper) polyester substitutes - if you treat it respectfully, it cooperates beautifully, whereas polyester velvet fights you every step of the way no matter how much attention you give it. Memo to self: never buy polyester velvet again.

Other lessons learned:

• always sew WITH the nap, never against it. Even during hand sewing, stitching against the nap causes little nap fluffies to adhere to the thread and make it tangle. Sew with the nap, however, and 'bob's your uncle'. 
• pressing velvet is an art, because if you do press it even a little bit too much, the nap lies down flat, never to stand straight again (sort of like wheat that falls over in the field). Techniques: use a needle board (but take care: the needles can leave an imprint); sacrifice a piece of the velvet as press board, using it under the piece you are pressing; above all, press VERY lightly, minimally. Interestingly enough, silk/rayon velvet needs little pressing.
• baste seams, and pin on either side, to minimize 'seam traveling' (the nap causing the seam to slide about).
• loosen tension on your sewing machine to accommodate the looser weave of the velvet
• back cut pieces with organza to ensure they keep their shape (because silk velvet is almost like water, it slips and slides and slithers). That means cutting out the organza first, then the velvet.
• cutting it out: a whole operation (see pictures below).

To cut out velvet:

First of all, decide on which way you want the nap to run, up or down - because the colours can be quite different! 

Left: nap running up; right: nap down

Normally the nap runs down on a garment because of the way things wear, but in my case I chose to run the nap up because I loved the darker chocolate shade. Whatever you choose, though: the key is to cut out all pattern pieces with the nap running the same way! This takes extra yardage, of course.

Next, ensure straight grain for this slippery fabric throughout the cutting process. First pin a base of muslin squared to your cutting table. Then, pin the velvet squared to the muslin:

Next, pin the pieces to the velvet, only in the seam allowances of course (because pins mar the nap): 

Check the two pieces on the left hand side - they're the same, so I'm actually cutting four instead of the two I need. Why? well, with velvet there's a dilemma: grain versus nap. Normally you adhere to the grain line when cutting (grain line: straight grain runs parallel to the selvage edge), but for velvet that can throw off the nap. So, given that the pieces were small, I cut out two options: one runs with the grain, the other with the nap. When I sew them together on Monday, it will become clear which is the better option.

Cutting into velvet causes lots of the little fluffies to come loose. I thought the resulting 'shadow pattern' on the muslin was kind of cool:

Finally - basting and hand sewing are part of the price to pay for velvet. Since I was going to be doing almost five yards, I made myself comfortable!

Fabric Shopping - London's Gold Hawk Road

Bustle gowns need fabric - LOTS of fabric, to the tune of 10-15 meters - so off we went to London to the stores on Gold Hawk Road. If you know Toronto's Queen Street, or Hamilton's Ottawa Street fabric area, you've already got an idea of it. The same except much bigger - and of course in London! I liked London, by the way - the city has an energy that reminded me of Amsterdam, or Berlin.

We did also go to The Museum of London where the curator gave us a first-hand look at a number of fascinating historical bustle gowns from about 1850-1890. He had included several interesting bustle cages, including one with nifty ties to control the span at the back. The gowns presented construction puzzles, as the historic original was obviously there but sometimes altered by subsequent wearers of a different size and for another purpose. No pictures - we were under strict order not to publish any of the photos we were allowed to take for our own purposes. Sorry!

After a night at a hostel (I know... I'm getting a little old for hostels, but at London accommodation prices...) we took the tube to Gold Hawk Road. What fun! loads of little shops, all crammed into one manageable block.  A few images:

Sofia and Jess debating strategy... 

The goods: everything except quilting cottons!

Velvets...

Dupioni silks...

Polyesters gridded with tucks...

"Shot" (i.e. two-tone) polys

For notions - here called, elegantly, 'haberdashery' - it's best to go to a stall in the adjoining Shepherd's Bush Market:

Our teacher Pauline and the stall keeper discussing colour

Shepherd's Bush Market

Sadly - precisely what drew us to this area is slated for demolition. The cubby-hole stores and restaurants will be bulldozed, the buildings behind renovated for (high-end) condos (well - are there any condos in London that aren't high end, by definition?).

We all got fabric to our liking, mostly within budget. It's an art to get it all done in six hours - so many possibilities, so many choices! It takes imagination to look beyond the fabric on the roll to the fabric made up into a gown. Below is mine: first on the roll(s), then in the bag. The gold lace is the icing that's going to make the cake (I hope):

Draping on the Stand (II)

Draping the bodice - or upper body - to obtain a pattern is also an interesting process. The essence of draping: moulding a flat piece of fabric to a curved body.

Take a substantial piece of muslin and start by pinning a straight-grain fold exactly on the centre front, with necessary excess at the top. Then smooth it to the neck and shoulder seam and pin there - for a fitted garment, make sure it's as smooth as it could possibly be. Let it hang "where it will" from the shoulder down - that, too, is (should be) a straight grain. Pin that straight grain to the side seam. Take away the inevitable excess in front by shaping darts, in part as the fabric wants to fold and in part how you want the fabric to fold. This is the result:

On the back I used the same process to produce a side panel rather than darts (so the back will be in three pieces: centre back and two side panels):

While the resulting muslin can be used directly as a pattern, a number of us chose to transfer the pattern from the muslin to paper by tracing lines using a tracing wheel, then drawing on the paper. Paper has the advantage of not being in any danger of stretching and can be more easily and accurately cut:

New to me, but a good idea: use black tape to simulate details, both to evaluate their desirability and for placement. If you look closely, you can see how long the muslin bodice is, providing lots of scope for length options:

Then use the pattern to make up the bodice you've decided on, using colour "just to see" what a plan looks like in execution (oh, the sleeve - drafted it using the block pattern method):

And the the acid test: will it fit ME rather than the mannequin? Turns out it was all pretty accurate, although there are inevitably a few alterations since a mannequin only ever approximates a person.