Resource Feature: Historical Threads

History.org has launched a new online exhibit of historical and recreation clothing from the 1600s through the early 1900s. This is a digital documentation of a Colonial Williamsburg museum exhibit. Currently it focuses on formal wear and accessories but the site promises informal, work, and leisure clothing to come.

While the selection of items on display so far is painfully limited, the photos are of good quality with informed, helpful descriptions clearly describing the national pedigree of the style, the year it was worn, materials and methods, and general style rules of the period. Although the images are not quite as high-resolution as the amazing online painting gallery I mentioned in my last resource feature, there is a pan-and-zoom option, allowing for better high-def detail than most sites. Some of the smaller accessories such as the shoes could be zoomed in enough to look at what kind of stitching was used, which is exciting.

Sadly, the exhibit covers no earlier than 1600, so it's of no use to SCA folks, but for those interested in Colonial fashion and beyond, it's a great site.

This is Not Period.

I was surfing the web today looking for some cast skull buttons, and the internet led me to piratemerch.com. My interest piqued, I stumbled upon the typical monstrosities of costume, but some additions that are just horrifying. The one that immediately caught my eye was this one:

Not only is this a $45 cotton tunic, which is pretty extortionate, but it's also an excellent example of 12th century French fashion. Which, in case you were paying attention, is five CENTURIES off from how it's being described here. The text includes the boast, "you'll be the sharpest pirate this side of the Black Plague" but what they fail to mention is that this is actually on the OTHER side.

They also describe this atrocity as an "authentic" Anne Bonney:

For comparison, a more contemporary depiction of Anne:

Nary a frill to be found. And faux velvet? Not so much. And what about authenticity for the gents? Just as bad. This one is described as an "authentic" Davey Jones:

I'm assuming Davey Jones is the DJ at that new goth club, because this fashion is circa 1990. 1980 at BEST. Davy Jones is a *mythical* figure. An "authentic" misspelling of a mythic personage? Really? It would actually be MORE believable to claim an "authentic" Captain Hook, because at least that's a trademarked character.

What annoys me is that this site has a section for "fantasy" pirate costumes, and these aren't in it.

New Page! Harlequin Haberdashery

The tricorn I made for the party last weekend was a cheater, using weird guesswork construction, but I've learned how to make hats properly and since then I've made a few more tiny hats using proper hatmaking techniques. I'm interested in making big hats, but I'm not sure what I'd use to mold the felt. I have something that might work but it's more round than head-shaped. I could experiment.

After my black & red tricorn, I molded a red crown thinking I'd make a red tricorn, but then I realized I didn't have enough red, so I ended up with red & green. So I went all-out Christmasy.

After my failure to plan, I checked out what colors and quantities of felt I had, and what stood out to me was orange and yellow, which reminded me of a jack-o-lantern.

I opted for a tophat because it gave me a chance to try out an asymetrical tophat and the stovepipe would give me plenty of space for a cute jack-o-lantern face. I ended up liking black instead of yellow for the inside. I tried a couple different bows with the satin ribbon, but although they were cute, the ends of the bows were just a little visible from the front, which I thought distracted from the overall shape.

I love the face, but I think my favorite is the stem star at the top. I considered a few different versions of it, and ended up making the hat without it, but it looked less like a pumpkin and more like an orange hat in an inexplicably goofy mood. I think the green ties it in a little better.

I've picked up a little more felt and I have plans for a tiny bowler, which threatens to be glittery. I also grabbed some rainbow tye-dye felt. I'm thinking that might end up as a bowler too. There's definitely going to be some more tricorns as well, and I'm going to experiment with different scales of "tiny" hat.

Roman Slave Research

In preparation for next month's Roman party, a friend of mine has asked for help putting together his Roman garb. Having just lost an impressive amount of weight, my friend is eager to show off his muscular legs, so I've suggested a Roman slave's garb. From what I've seen in researching my own outfit, slaves generally wore short tunics, giving him ample opportunity to show off his gams.

Pro Tip: absolutely DO NOT search for "Roman slave outfit" with safe search off. Yikes.

Though my initial web search was not entirely helpful, I dug up my copy of Peacock's The Chronicle of Western Fashion and nabbed shots of a couple of his illustrations of ancient Roman servants. This text was originally published in America in the early 1990s, at the height of political correctness, and based on my other research, it's fair to assume they wrote "servant" when they meant "slave.":

The examples show fairly similar styles. The garments are white or offwhite, short sleeved, in a single layer. Each garment is a loose tunic-like garment, generally with a belt, falling above the knees (sometimes considerably above the knees). One example I found from period sources shows a sleeveless tunic which, rather than being belted, has been knotted at the crotch. Several examples show trim as with a higher-ranking man, two parallel lines running vertically along the front (and presumably back) at the shoulder. However, freemen are typically shown with red trim, whereas the slaves are shown with black.

I like the style of the tunic shown on the baker in the second example, but I'm not sure my friend wants to show off quite that much leg. Instead I think I'll go with the light brown one-shoulder tunic on the left. Nobody else is wearing an asymmetrical style, so it'll add some variety.

I've already taken my friend's measurements, and I've already made a Roman tunica for myself, so this will be a very easy process. My friend measures 25" across at the shoulders and 50" from shoulder to knee. In order to properly pattern, I'll also need his chest measurement, but he'll be stopping by tomorrow afternoon for that.

Basically the pattern will be two rectangles, each 50 inches long and probably about 40 inches wide. I might even do a 50x50 square. I'll sew the fabric from bottom to top on one side and from bottom to a little more than halfway up on the other. On the open side (the high side), I'll stitch and gather the shoulder from about 1/3 across to about ten inches from the end, leaving the last ten inches or so open to flutter on the shoulder as the illustration shows. The only trick will be belting it in such a way that the hem stays flat. It's obvious the fabric isn't cut at a diagonal because there is draping on the low side, but I may end up needing to engineer a cheat to keep it even as the night wears on.

18th Century Miniature Tricorn (kind of)

Miniature tricorn hats were worn by aristocratic women in the mid-18th century and into the 19th century. Of course, they were not quite as miniature as mine.

To make my tiny hat, I cut three pieces of canvas:
A circle with an 8 inch diameter for the top
A circle with a 10 inch diameter for the brim
A strip measuring 11"x2" for the band.

I gathered my top circle until it had a circumference of about 10 inches. Then I stitched the band around the gathered edge, tucking the cut edges in like double-fold bias tape.
Next I stitched the top of my hat to the brim, stuffing the top of the hat with scraps to help it keep its shape. Normally a hat would be starched, but I didn't have time because I was making the hat for a same-day party and I don't have any starch at home!

Once the top of the hat was stitched to the brim, I folded the tricorn into its shape and tacked each fold in place. I had to do this about six times, because it kept coming out a little imbalanced, with one side bigger than the others.

Then the real trouble began. I tried securing it with ribbon, which looked wrong, then with a hair pin, which looked wrong also, and finally I attached it to a headband, which looked fine and held well all night.

And then the masochist part of my brain took over and I decided that what my hat REALLY needed was satin trim around the edge, taking a one-hour project and turning it into a three-hour project. So I hand-stitched (of course) red satin ribbon onto my hat. Next I'm going to find some appropriately piratey but also appropriately tiny buttons or broaches or findings or something to decorate it with the way we do our big hats.

My hat was made from part of a cloak from an SCA fighting unit I'm no longer part of. I wasn't sure what to do with it, but I made it at my own cost and with my own device, so there wasn't any call necessarily to give it back, but I also was never going to wear it again. So, hats!

Galabeya Research

Lord Grayfalk (partner-in-crime and fellow time traveler) is also shy a set of hot-weather garb for our hell-on-earth visit to the wilds of Victorville, and he's asked me to make him a set of Egyptian men's garb.

Now, I should clarify that when he asked this, it was delivered by way of, "you know those white robes you always see on diggers in Egyptology movies and Indiana Jones and stuff? I want one of those." This is approximately like calling a dealership and going, "you know that coupe they drive in LA? It's domestic, and it comes in blue? How much for one of those?"

So I made him do a little bit more research and show me what he's talking about. In no time, he came up with the modern version of this garment: he wants a galabeya. As they're worn today, they look like the photo on the left.

I did some additional research, but had some difficulty identifying when the galabeya came into being or how it's evolved. I've found some costume patterns which accompany cabaret-style bellydance costumes for women, which doesn't at all support any claim to accuracy.

I've found a couple sites which state that the galabeya is a Bedouin style, but if that's accurate, that means it could have come into use any time in the last seven THOUSAND years, since the term "Bedouin" is a generic name for a wide variety of Arabic desert-going nomads who have been around for 5000-7000 years. Photographs of Bedouin men show a garment similar to the galabeya (usually under a floor-length vest), with a variety of subtle distinctions, as far back as the late 19th century. Naturally, photographic evidence is not AVAILABLE before the late 19th century.

It's frequently assumed within the SCA and by costumers in general that Middle Eastern fashion has not changed at all over the millennia, and that's is safe to assume that anything described as "traditional" is how the Middle Easterns have dressed forever. Did we not wander out of the Garden and find the Eastern tribes garbed precisely as we see them today?

Not exactly.

It's ignorant and actually quite bigoted to treat the entire history of the entire region whence all culture originated as if its story were somehow simpler than our own. Consider how much the United States has changed in the two hundred and change years since the foundation of our unique culture. How can we assume that a culture which has existed for thirty times the lifespan of our own could be so simple?

From the information we do have, it's clear that there are many differences in conventions of dress from decade to decade, and tribe to tribe. Certain cultures, such as the Ottoman and Persian empires, recorded in great detail their fashions and we therefore know a lot about the evolution of styles in those cultures. While portraiture was generally frowned upon in Islamic culture of the middle ages, the wealthy frequently commissioned portraits, and miniatures were made in both cultures with a frequency suggesting no moral hesitation. Perhaps the peoples of the Egyptian deserts were more pious, because my searches for 17th century art from that period yields mostly textiles and earthenware (both gorgeous, but devoid of human figures).

Egypt was a province of the Ottoman Empire from 1600 until it was captured by Napolean in 1798.

European art of the 16th and 17th centuries depict Egyptians the way we imagine Cleopatra and the Pharaohs, but in the 19th century, European art shows Egyptians dressing much more similarly to the way we see them today. Obviously a substantial shift occurred, but when, and what did those transitional garments look like?

Aha! I discovered this 13th century embroidery by Egyptian Christians. The figures are not detailed, but they're wearing simple, long-sleeved robes that flare from the waist. And that's what I'm looking for! Armed with the knowledge that a flared full-length robe with long sleeves has in fact been spotted before the 17th century in Egypt, I can make my galabeya with a clear conscience.

And by that I mean I made it last night, and now that I've researched it completely, I feel better about it.

I made the galabeya very simply. There's a front, a back, gores in the sides to add flare, and sleeves. I'm adding gussets in the arm pits to allow for more movement, and then I'm pretty much done.

Turkesque Autumn Entari

Going over my wardrobe plans for Highland War I realized I was about half an outfit short, so I decided to break my self-imposed ban on new projects to actually turn my corded velvet into something wearable. I started out making an entari to reasonably period-accurate specifications, but I decided to do a sleeveless design. I'll probably add sleeves later in the season as colder wars come up.

Then I realized that because this fabric is heavy, drapey, and striped, the straight-cut period design didn't fit exactly right and looked very very square, whereas the lighter fabric I used last time hugged my shape really well with the original design. In any case, I decided to add subtle waist curves, which made for a much more flattering fit.

In the long term, I'll want to match this with a different gomlek, because the neckline of the gomlek is a little lower than the neckline of the entari, and that looks a bit silly. I also don't really like the bunchy sleeves with the sleeveless entari, so I think the next gomlek I make will be straight-sleeved, with a high, round collar.

What's Period About it?

• Material: under debate! I was of the impression that corded velvet was period-accurate, but I'm having trouble finding nonverbal evidence online. That doesn't mean the evidence doesn't exist, but the source is, in hindsight, somewhat dubious, so I'm setting about to do some more research.

What's NOT Period About it?

• Color: As with the other piece, this is a little bit too subdued in terms of colors. Also, stripes were worn by the lower classes, whereas velvets weren't. 
• Closures: Entari closures are typically button-and-loop or long frogs. I used metal hook-and-eye style broaches. I thought the gold leaves fit well with the autumn colors of the fabric, and since I knew I already wasn't going 100% period, I was less worried about straying than usual.
• Cut: as mentioned, the cut should be straight through the waist, and instead it's curved. I could have avoided this by starting my gores higher and cutting the waist seams straight but at a slight diagonal, but I didn't, so there we have it. As a result of both the tailoring and the fact that I cut it just an eensie bit too big, there isn't as much bust support as the green cotton entari offers, so I'll have to wear a bra with it.
• Sleeves: there aren't any, and there ought to be.

This is why I listed it as Turkeque. "Turkish" gives it far too much credit. It's more of a costume piece than an actual recreation, but it's pretty, and it's comfortable, and I'm ok with that.