labricoleuse | Entries tagged with books

This semester, the crafts course I'm teaching is on dyeing, surface design, and distressing/aging. I have taught this class several times and have always used for our textbook the invaluable reference, Painting and Dyeing for the Theatre by Deborah M. Dryden.

This semester though, I learned that the book's publisher, Heinemann, has allowed the book to go out of print. It's gone from their catalog, website, everything, and used copies are now going for over a hundred bucks at minimum!

If you use this book in your own classes or dyeshop, or are just concerned that the ONLY book applicable to the field of dyeing for the theatre has gone out of print, please help out by doing one or both of these things:

Go to the book's Amazon page and click the link on the right which says "Tell the Publisher! I'd like to read this book on Kindle!" An e-book release would keep their costs down but still allow students and theatre professionals to purchase the title legally, and provide the author with deserved royalties.
Email Heinemann and ask them to please consider a new edition or digital release of the title: custserv@heinemann.com

Thank you!

Recall that we hosted a series of master classes last week by Broadway fabric painter and author Margaret Peot, in tandem with the release of her newest book, The Successful Artist's Career Guide: Finding Your Way in the Business of Art. I've recently finished reading it--this post is not only to share my review but also to give away a signed copy!

I'm going to follow in the footsteps of the esteemed author and blogger Joshilyn Jackson, who is a dab hand at these book giveaway deals, and basically rip off how she does hers. Leave a comment on this entry, one comment per reader, between now and Friday March 9th at noon EST, at which time I'll use a random number generator to pick a winner who will receive a copy of the book! I'll notify the winner that afternoon and contact you for your mailing address to ship you the book.

But first, my review!

Understand that i am coming to this book as a reader from the perspective of someone who decided twenty years ago to pursue a career as an artist, so I recognize that the first two chapters are not aimed at me. Rather, they are aimed at the woman i was at 18 or 20, wondering whether I really wanted to major in theatre instead of something like advertising or accounting or electrical engineering. I think, had I access to a book like this at the time, I would have felt more confident about my choices, less terrified that i'd end up a starving junkie or something, and it would have taken me a lot less time to get where I got. The first two chapters are devoted to a sort of pep talk, confidence-building inspiration, anecdotal advice, things to help assuage the fears of one's family and friends who might be less than thrilled about the prospect of one's artistic career.

For me, the place where this book really takes off and becomes universally important and useful to even mid-career artists like myself is the third chapter, in which the author breaks down exactly how to put a price on your artwork and bid on various kinds of contract jobs--what sorts of variables to consider, how to weigh different contingency factors, and explains contractual terms like a kill fee (what you get paid if they decide they no longer want the piece but you've already begun making it). I'm actually planning to use it as a textbook in one of my graduate classes for a project we do on developing bids, that is how thrilled i was to see this information collected and presented.

Subsequent chapters deal with other practical matters--doing your taxes, securing health insurance, setting up retirement plans, promotion of your work, time management, even how to decide what sort of studio space you might need or want. I wish i could go back in time and hand this book to my 20-year-old self, because I guess i might still have made some of the same mistakes and underbid myself or gone years without insurance, but i wouldn't have had ignorance to blame.

Peppered throughout the book are interviews with working artists in all kinds of disciplines--graphic art, printmaking, decorative ironwork, art therapy, illustration, etc. These are nice little interludes and a fascinating glimpse into the lives of various successful-but-unfamous artists that serve to underscore how one does not need to be the next Pablo Picasso or Prince or Meryl Streep or William Styron in order to make a successful, fulfilling artistic life for oneself. These interviews are--like the first two chapters--perhaps more eye-opening and useful to the early-career artist (particularly a young student who needs to convince her/his parents that majoring in lithography is not an expensive ticket to the garret and starvation), but are nonetheless an interesting read no matter where you are in your own career.

Lest you think my review is nothing more than a cheerleading shill for the book, I do have one primary criticism: I think the publisher did the book a disservice in overdesigning its interior, and in choosing the size of the book. At first glance, i was really drawn to the unique size (8" square), the full-color interior, and the quality of the paper and cover. The more i read through the book though, the more some of the graphic design choices jarred me: images and text randomly oriented at skewed angles, or printed on faux-finish "textured" backgrounds which occasionally obfuscate a word here and there.

The most frustrating element of this is the way in which the numerous worksheets and exercises are treated graphically, printed at odd angles on what is meant to look like a torn-off sheet of spiral-bound paper superimposed on a background. Given that i can honestly imagine this book serving as an invaluable text in art classes, schools, and universities, this layout for the worksheets and the choice to make the book a size difficult to nicely photocopy for educational use shows poor forethought on behalf of the publisher. In places it's as if the book design was meant for a new-age self-help text, not the book which Peot wrote.

Luckily, this criticism in no way diminishes the value of the book itself for the sheer usefulness of information contained within. Graphical grousing aside, i still plan to recommend it to all my colleagues, and starting in the fall use it as a textbook in my series of four graduate courses. Perhaps the book will be so wildly successful that there will eventually be a second edition in which the worksheets are presented more functionally and less flakily. Take my advice, buy this book!

Don't forget to drop a comment on this entry for a chance at my giveaway of a signed copy! You can also Like the book on Facebook to learn about other giveaways and workshops attached to it, and if you do the Goodreads thing you can add it to a shelf over there.

If you follow what's going on in the technical theatre industry at conferences such as USITT, and via blogs like this one and other media, you've seen a growing number of examples of the use of digital fabric printing. From Disney's sublimation printing department, to fabric yardage pre-printed with age for regional theatre, to reproducing historical folding fans by digitally printing the designs onto silk, i've covered ever more of this type of work of late.

It's clear that theatrical costume designers and crafts artisans need to develop a familiarity with the processes of digital textile design and printing [1]. I've begun to encourage my students to take on projects that involve elements of digital textile print design, like this fan leaf design by first year grad student Leah Pelz

But it does beg the question: how does one learn how to go about such things? Obviously digital fabric design classes are out there, offered through a college of textiles, but that's not an option for most of us working in the field.

I received two books for Christmas which might be of help, if you're hoping to get some grounding in textile design to actualize the kinds of projects that present themselves in the course of costume production. Neither are ideal for theatre artists, but then again, we're not exactly a huge demographic. Both are useful in different ways, and laid out in such a way that you can pick and choose what you need from them to get done what you need doing.

The first is A Field Guide to Fabric Design by Kimberly Kight. Kim is the author of the blog TrueUp, which also hosts a fabric design forum for discussion of relevant topics. The book purports to deal with designing fabric "for quilting, home dec, & apparel," and it's a pretty succinct overview.

I will admit an aesthetic bias, before i even get to the content: I love the way this book is laid out, organized, and graphically designed. The images are great, the paper quality is nice, the font families are easy to read, and it's full of all kinds of useful info for the novice who wants to learn all about textile print design, from basic nomenclature to various method tutorials (both digital and analog). She also addresses things like copyright and licensing issues, which are of more pressing relevance to those designing fabrics for sale, but are useful to know from a costume design perspective as well.

In terms of digital design, Kight's book has a few tutorials on working with both Photoshop and Illustrator (versions CS3 or later), and she has some excellent insights into how to create stuff like a cohesive color palette for a design, or making a decent-looking scatter-print using spot-repeat grids.

The other book is Digital Textile Design, by Melanie Bowles and Ceri Isaac. Let me start by saying, if i had an aesthetic bias in favor of Kight's, i've the opposite with this text. Plainly put, i found this book hard to look at. From the font choices to the non-intuitive layout, to the (IMO) hideous and already-dated-looking images/designs, it was not easy on the eyes for me. Even the size and paper used kind of turned me off, because it felt like a low-rent workbook. Then again, it does seem to be aimed at a fashion-school textbook-buyer's market in some ways, so maybe that's to be expected. It's got some of the same basic information to be found in Kight's book, but is less comprehensive in terms of related chapters on things like color theory and fabric types and even some of the terminology.

The good thing about the book is that it's got a ton of actual step-by-step digital fabric design tutorials. Mind you, they aren't very clearly written, and i wound up using them more as vague signposts on a road of progress--a couple of them resulted in some cool exercises that helped me understand new ways of working with images and design programs, and some of them were essentially useless without liberal use of the Adobe Help site. Again, if the text is taken as a workbook meant to be used in tandem with an in-class instructor, maybe its vagueness in places is not a problem in that context? I'd think you'd want it as "idiot-proof" as possible, myself. Figuring it out on your own, it's hit or miss.

I think though, after reading both of them and working through their respective tutorials and guidelines, if i had to recommend a course of action for the average theatre craftsperson or costume designer who wanted to begin working with digital textile designs, i'd recommend buying the Kight text. If you suck at Photoshop and Illustrator, her book will get you going conceptually, and Adobe's support pages have so many really good instructional videos that you can hunt through them for the specifics on how to do something like "select just this part of the image" or "paste this but mirrored" or whatever.

After reading both these books and doing some tutorials, i put my learning to the test, and spent a day off futzing around with Photoshop and Illustrator to see what i could come up with in the realm of random textile design (meaning, not with some specific stage need like the Parchman Hour prison stripes.

A while back I had scanned all these funny old 19th century ads and cartoons that have to do with historical millinery/hatmaking, and decided to see what sorts of fabric prints i could make with them as jumping-off points. I've begun grouping them on Spoonflower in a collection called Vive les Chapeaux!. So far i've got two hatters' ad prints for making hat linings and such, and a hilarious border print that i'm thinking about using for cafe curtains in my millinery studio. Fun!

[1] No, i don't believe that digital printing and design will ever entirely supplant the artistry of surface design techniques, from batik to screenprinting. This post is not about that debate. This post is about the rise of digital design and printing as one more tool in the toolbox, as it were.

While traveling in the UK last month, I had the opportunity to visit the Hat Museum of Stockport, England, which i wrote up in a blog post, here. In their gift shop, i purchased two books of possible interest to the

labricoleuse readership: Penny McKnight's Stockport Hatting and Denton and the Archaeology of the Felt Hatting Industry By Michael Newell et al.

McKnight's book is reminiscent of a course pack: spiral-bound with a vinyl cover, possibly published in batches from a copy shop. The Newell text is a trade paperback, though it's only about 20 pages longer than McKnight's. Both feature a number of useful and interesting illustrations--everything from period advertisements for hatters to photos of hat factory facilities; those in the McKnight book are not the best quality (think photocopies) and entirely black and white, while those in the Newell book are better reproductions and some are in full color. The Newell text is unfortunately full of quite a few typographical errors and could have used another pass-through by a good copy editor before going to press to eliminate these.

The books can be addressed on one level as a pair, since they both cover quite a bit of the same ground: the heyday of the British hatting industry in the area around Stockport, a small town on the periphery of Manchester. McKnight's book predates the Newell text by seven years (published in 2000 and 2007 respectively), and in places, the Newell text comes close to plagiarizing McKnight's, with whole sections reproduced nearly verbatim. They are both quite useful for gaining a grasp of the development of the felt hat blocking process as developed in the Stockport/Denton area in the 19th century, and for establishing a knowledge of how the terms differ between the US and UK hatblocking communities (for example, what American hatters call sizing a hat, UK hatters call proofing it).

In terms of a book I'll get mileage out of in my millinery class as a supplementary text, McKnight's Stockport Hatting and its chapter on production methodology is going to be the most useful. I may assign it as reading in future classes when we do our blocking projects, because it's a great overview of the process from a mass production perspective.

The Newell book is interesting in terms of millinery history scholarship (which is a research interest of mine), but not something I'll use in classes. I might recommend it to fellow milliners with a similar interest in the history of the industry, or students with a particular focus in millinery. I particularly appreciated the verbatim quotations of the personal recollections of the industry from aging Denton hatters, which reminded me of Debbie Henderson's book Hat Talk: Conversations with Hat Makers About Their Hats--the Fedora, Homburg, Straw, and Cap (previously reviewed in this post). Another fascinating/horrifying feature was an account of a proofing-house explosion which killed many workers, complete with a photograph of the destruction it caused to the factory in which it occurred.

Other Publication Notes

On the book review tip, if you can get your hands on the most recent issue (Summer 2011) of Theatre Design & Technology, you can read my reviews of two new books by Frances Grimble, released through Lavolta Press, Bustle Fashions 1885-1887 and Directoire Revival Fashions 1888-1889. Or, you could wait until the digital version of the issue shows up on the website, which seems to be running two seasons behind the quarterly publication schedule (Winter is up now, though Spring and Summer have since come out in paper editions).

And, in case you have ever bemoaned the dearth of fiction featuring fabric store clerks as protagonists, I have a short story, "Shake Sugaree," in the current edition of the literary journal Mason's Road that fits that bill. Check it out!

Unrelated, but I realize it's been a while since i've mentioned it: you can also follow

labricoleuse on Facebook or on Twitter for notifications on when the blog has been updated. Pass it on!

Wow, i only posted four times in January, and not at all this month so far. (Things have been really, really busy.)

I haven't been too busy to read, though, and i wanted to mention a book i came across serendipitously, which may be of interest to La Bricoleuse readers: Kristen M. Burke's Going Hollywood, which is basically a handbook on how to move to LA and make it in the film and television industry. Burke has designed costumes for over forty motion pictures, and really knows her stuff.

First, let me say that i found the book by way of Frocktalk.com, Kristin's blog about costume design for film. I slowly surfed my way back through the archive of it, through the myriad excellent posts on specific films she's worked on, interviews with other costume designers, behind-the-scenes info on exhibits and galas and LA-based fashion boutiques, all great stuff! Check it out!

I moved to LA to freelance for a year in 2004, the year this book came out, so unfortunately i could not have benefited from the advice therein without a time machine. However, man, do i wish i had had this book when i did so. There's so much great advice and info about working in the film and television industries, the logistics of LA and the movie biz, contacts for resources, and much of it stuff that you can't find in more "textbooky" cinematic costuming resources, such as Richard Lamotte's Costume Design 101, or Kristin's other book, Costuming for Film, co-authored with Holly Cole. (Both of which are also excellent books--Lamotte's saved my butt when i designed the costumes for Long Distance, a feature film starring Monica Keena.)

In addition to the above Amazon link, you can also get the book direct from its publisher, iUniverse, in print or download format.

Sorry for the radio silence--i've got a lot of irons in the fire right now, but am not sanctioned to write about any of them...yet! I promise i'll have some cool process posts soon. But academia, that's always fair game to write about. Millinery class is underway and i have a few short notes of interest on that subject.

First up, Parisian milliners Estelle Ramousse and Fabienne Gambrelle have a new book out, called Studio Secrets: Millinery. This is admittedly not the best book at first glance. It's a project book, with step-by-step instructions on how to make different styles of hats, and the hats themselves are not particularly jawdropping.

However! I'm glad i bought it for our library, if only because Ramousse does a blocked cloche project with toile gomme, a millinery material that you can't find in the US (to my knowledge...i'd love to be proven wrong by someone with a link to a stateside source). Toile gomme is like a cross between buckram and burlap--it's loosely woven from jute yarns, impregnated with a starchy adhesive. I loved seeing how she works with it, and her methodology on that project is quality stuff. The book's only $20, so that's money well spent, IMO.

I've collected a few interesting links on the hat topic as well. Enjoy!

We're doing buckram projects in my class right now--the students are working away on fascinators and pillboxes while learning to use the material--so hopefully there will be some great project photos to share soon!

The course i'm teaching this semester is millinery, which means i've had a good excuse to read a couple new-to-me books in the area of hat topics. Past books featured can be accessed via the 'books' tag. This semester's going to be a good one--my class is overenrolled so there may be as many as 8 students! More students means more hats!

The first book i want to mention is Plumes: Ostrich Feathers, Jews, and a Lost World of Global Commerce by Sarah Abreva Stein.

This is a pretty dry academic book, but also a fascinating look at the ostrich feather industry at the turn of the century. It really opened up my perspective on how plumes were viewed by consumers at the time, given the trouble that it took to obtain and ship them from primarily South Africa. There's also some great info on post-harvest plume treatments like willowing and curling; definitely an interesting read for historical milliners.

Book #2 is Talking Out My Hat by Lilly Daché.

Lilly Daché was perhaps the most famous milliner of the early 20th century, and this is her autobiography.

It's a terrific summer book, a beach book or a deck chair book. It reads like the longest best gossip session ever, and would probably be even better if read while sipping mimosas and eating Vosges truffles.

Daché talks about immigrating to the US, how she got started in millinery, how she met her husband, how she became as successful as shedid. She doesn't talk about technique or method, but if you have a background in millinery, the 'shop talk' does reveal some insights into her design sensibilities and use of media. She also tells great stories about things like making hats for Marlene Dietrich in the film Desire and fruit bedecked turbans for Carmen Miranda.

Here are some awesome quotes from the book:

I learned that a hat must have a soul, and that it is the lightness of the heart as well as the skill of the fingers which make it so.

Women have come to me for a hat to make their dreams come true. (Sometimes they do.) They have come to me in disappointment or grief, for a hat to take their minds off their troubles. (It very often works.) They have come for a hat to hold a husband. (This is more difficult, but not impossible.) They have come for a hat to catch a husband. (This is easy.)

A hat is the expression of a woman's soul. It is something she wears on her head, but it belongs to her heart. It is her challenge to the world.

...a hat is an optical illusion, to make a woman look like what she isn't.

Women's hats, if they are good hats, always must stir controversy, arouse conversation, occupy the spotlight.

Now i'm ready for class to start! Let the hatmaking begin!

While in NYC last week, i took a day trip up to the Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum in Norwalk, CT, where they are hosting an exhibit on the history of the top hat. "Top This! History of Top Hats," is curated by Stacey Danielson and features a selection of top hats on loan from Reginald Borgia, who was vice president of the Hat Corporation of America, a premier American hat manufacturer in Norwalk in the 1930s-1970s. There's a great article on Borgia and the history of the Norwalk hat industry in this April edition of the Norwalk Citizen.

Throughout the 19th century and the first half of the 20th, Norwalk and Danbury were the hatmaking capitals of America, when it came to the manufacture of blocked hat styles from felt and straw for both men and women. ~~The exhibit is not mentioned at all on the LMMM website, nor is the cost of admission ($10).~~ I found out about it via a hatmaker's newsletter. In the gift shop, i met one of the women whose father's top hat collection contributed to the exhibit; they were very excited i'd come so far just to see their hats!

The exhibit was small, contained just within the music room of the mansion, but featured probably around 30 hats, over a dozen hatboxes and top hat luggage cases, as well as a display of blocks and tools. I enjoyed the display showing top hats made from wool felt, beaver felt, silk faille, and silk plush, for the opportunity to contrast their appearance. It was also cool to see a rounding jack that was 200 years old, but i have to say, mine made by Mark DeCou is way better! :)

In the gift shop, i purchased two excellent books, both by hat historian Debbie Henderson: The Top Hat: An Illustrated History, and Hat Talk: Conversations with Hat Makers about Their Hats--the Fedora, Homburg, Straw, and Cap.

My god, people, get these books if you are at all interested in mens hats!

The Top Hat contains much of the notecard label text from the Norwalk exhibit, as well as a lot of great photos and engravings and info about the history of the style. Most excellent, however, is its appendices, in which Henderson reprints two pamphlets from 1942, "How a Silk Hat is Made" and "How an Opera Hat is Made." They explain in detail exactly how old-style toppers and collapsible toppers were manufactured, including photos and diagrams.

Hat Talk is more of a rich oral history of the hatting industry, and is largely a series of interview transcripts that Henderson conducted with really old men who'd worked in the hat industry before it largely folded--blockers, foremen, salesmen, guys from companies like Knox, Stetson, Dobbs, Borsalino, Cavanaugh, Bollman--plus tons of sales literature images reproduced throughout. Also highly recommended, but if you only get one, get The Top Hat for those appendices.

And, if you find yourself up that-a-way, check out the exhibit and the beautiful Lockwood-Mathews Mansion Museum!

I know i owe one more post on SPESA, on the suppliers who were there, but first i'd like to mention two books of interest to the milliners, hatters, and scholars of historical fashion.

The first is Hatless Jack: The President, the Fedora, and the History of an American Style, by Neil Steinberg. I originally read this book as part of the research I did on the supply chain of the Stetson fedora for a textile industry business class i took at NC State's College of Textiles.

As the title implies, it's a history of the fedora and a cultural analysis of the decline of hat-wearing in the 20th century--which is far more complex than simply "Jack Kennedy didn't wear one at his inauguration and bam, the next day all men throughout the Western world threw their fedoras in the trash." It's also broader in scope than that, addressing the development, rise, and fall of the top hat style and the homburg, as well as straw styles like the boater and the Panama. The book is full of fascinating pieces of history, like the Straw Hat Riots in NYC in the 1920s, where gangs of roving crazies would snatch men's straw hats off their heads and smash them in the streets, purportedly in outrage at their flaunting straw headwear past September 15th, the recognized "felt hat day," after which men were supposed to switch back to felt fedoras and homburgs. All in all an informative, interesting, and accessible read.

Via the bibliography for the above book, i also picked up Fred Miller Robinson's The Man in the Bowler Hat: His History and Iconography, which is exactly what you'd suppose: a book about the invention and adaptation of the bowler hat style throughout history. This one is a much more dense, despite being over 100 pages shorter and full of photos and artwork, and is clearly aimed at a much more academic readership. Robinson has ferreted out every possible reference to the bowler in cultural consciousness from the films of Chaplin to the paintings of Magritte to the drama of Beckett. Sometimes i'm in the mood for all that hyper-analytical signs-and-semiotics writing (see also: almost went the route of the dramaturg), so I enjoyed it, but it's no popcorn beach book.

I'm hoping to have time to write up the last SPESA entry tomorrow, but if not, it's because i'm off to NYC for a week with one of my students on Wednesday morning. I may be totally off the grid for the duration, but even if so, i'll have that writeup plus a whole mess of fashion and costume exhibit reviews upon my return, plus hopefully the continuation of some projects like the commedia mask collection and the hat block casting...

If you also follow A Sketch a Day, you know that i've gotten on a rendering kick lately, both digital and analog. Last summer, when i took the CAD class at NCSU, i wrote up a book review on Sandra Burke's text on fashion rendering by computer, Fashion Rendering: Design Techniques and CAD; this post addresses a second text on the topic, From Pencil to Pen Tool by Armstrong, Armstrong, and Ivas.

Burke's text was a good one in that it gave a broad base introduction to drawing with vector-based software like Illustrator and CorelDRAW, for only $30 (cheap for a textbook). This text is more expensive--$50 used or $88 new--but also covers raster-based imagework in Photoshop and comes with a tutorial CD-ROM. A good portion of the first few chapters addresses general fashion design topics like an overview of design rendering styles and artists throughout couture history, how to draw a fashion croquis (don't get me started on how disturbing the 9-head and 12-head figures are in practical terms for stage design...that's a-whole-nother post in and of itself), visual reference sketches for garment design elements (like how a gathered ruffle is drawn differently than a circle-cut ruffle). Good stuff, but not any new information.

But! The useful part of this book is the middle few chapters on specifically dealing with Photoshop and Illustrator in a clothing-related context. The overview on various applicable Photoshop tools and how they might specifically apply to relevant issues like creating a collage [1] or a textile print design is a good one to check out. The ones on Illustrator, i felt like they were neither superior nor inferior to the Burke text--having dealt with it a lot last summer, those chapters were a good review. The CD-ROM contains some practice files as .psd and .ai documents for manipulation and experimentation (both guided exercises in the text and whatever else you might want to do with them)--croquis, garment flats, fabric patterns--and some movie files showing exactly how to do some of the techniques described. If you are someone who learns computer skills better watching someone do something on a screen, then trying it yourself, those movies will be real eye-openers.

I think if you are someone who has grown up messing around with Photoshop, this book is going to be fairly Mickey Mouse to you, but i know tons of designers who lacked exposure to any kind of image-manipulation software until they got well into their careers, with no idea how to begin learning. General courses don't address costume-specific issues, while specific courses are slanted toward, say, graphic art and poster layout or something. To those folks, this would be a great book to check out as an introduction to those programs, focusing in an area that is easily adaptable to costume design conceptually speaking (i.e., fashion).

Of course, the book suffers the challenge that all published texts on software suffer: instant obsolescence. It came out in 2006 and talks about Photoshop CS...well, now in 2010 we're looking at the release of CS5. Then again, in theatre especially, many of us are working with software a few versions shy of the most cutting-edge release--i've got CS2 on my work computer and CS3 on my laptop--so it's probably still a useful text for someone seeking introductory guidelines.

I borrowed the book through interlibrary loan, so if you have access to a good library, you can check it out that way before investing. The copy i got had the CD-ROM taped into the back, so i felt like i really got a good grasp on what the book was teaching. I probably won't pay brand-new cost for it, but if i find it used for a decent price, i'll pick it up as a reference text.

And, if you've seen on the news the horrifying flooding that has submerged huge areas of Tennessee and want to do something to help, you can contribute to the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, who are directly involved in disaster relief in the area, or text 'REDCROSS' to 90999 to donate $10 to disaster relief. Topically, one Nashville resident and vintage sewing enthusiast is auctioning lots of vintage sewing patterns to raise money--her auctions feature womens, infants/children, and maternity patterns. So many friends and colleagues have lost their homes and businesses to this flooding, i can't even imagine how awful they're feeling (I grew up in Tennessee). So, spread the word about the charity and the pattern auctions, please!

Alright, i've done my posting for the day. (I'd set myself a goal of posting something new by midweek; go me.) Tomorrow, i've got some plans to do some half-scale dress form, shoe last, and hatblock casting with a couple of my students, so there's the documentation of that to look forward to in a future post!

[1] In the fashion industry, they call thematic collages that capture the visual inspiration and essence of a collection "mood boards," which is what the applicable chapter is on and the CD-ROM video. But, we make them in costume design as well (i always hear designers refer to them in other terms though, like "inspiration collage" or "array of influences") so the chapter is a good read.

Just the quickest of breaks in end-of-semester hecticness to post but i couldn't keep them to myself! Decorative Arts class presented all their final projects yesterday afternoon, and i have some fun images of some of the projects.

The way the semester worked out, we wound up doing the footwear project last due to respirator training scheduling with our Safety folks; because of the danger of the solvent-based chemicals we use in footwear applications, i won't teach that unit til all students have gone through respirator training and fit-testing and have their proper PPEs. They have to do two different footwear projects--a simple project and a complex project. Simple projects are often something like spats/gaiters, a soft shoe, or a basic shoe modification. Complex projects are all over the map, everything from animal feet for human performers, to transformation of a modern shoe into a period style.

( click for footwear fabulosity )

Aren't they lovely, fun, zany, and just excellent? I am so proud of all their work.

Here's some nice news: I decided to cross-post a lot of my "grad school application FAQ" posts over on TheatreFace.com (a networking community for the theatre profession), and my "Should I go to U/RTA?" post was profiled as a highlight in their weekly news update. Cool!

And, a book link: one of my students brought in a book she used in a research paper, and it's really fascinating, X-Rediography of Textiles, Dress, and Related Objects, by Sonia O'Connor and Mary M. Brooks. The old footwear is truly amazing--with all the nails and shanks and in one case, even TOE BONES down inside them. There are some really disturbing-looking x-rayed old dolls, too. If that interests you, definitely check it out!

I swear, i just have to finish getting these evals written and grades turned in, and i will write that entry on the bloody lipsewing appliance.

That will be my Christmas gift to you all, perhaps. Ha!

Milliner of the Month! That's me!

HATalk magazine is an e-zine published monthly by the fine folks at How2Hats.com, also known for their excellent selection of e-books on millinery techniques. The magazine contains several how-to articles in each issue on various millinery tips and tricks, a prize giveaway, a "hat of the month" focus, and the "milliner of the month" focus, which in the September issue (released today), is me!

The article is a basic overview of the millinery course i teach for the Costume Production MFA program, addressing the particular challenges of making millinery for the stage and the types of techniques and topics we cover in the course. It's a good article, and i'm particularly pleased for several of my students, whose hats are featured in accompanying photographs, credited to their creators.

One of the professional goals i set for myself a couple years back in terms of academia was to help facilitate the acquisition of publication and press credits for my grad students, by encouraging them to submit articles and papers to industry journals, newsletters, and other trade publications, assisting them with creating and/or publicizing their own professional websites or blogs, and via collaborative publication efforts like co-authored articles or pieces like this where photography of their work can gain visibility. Six of them made it into this piece, so hooray!

The September issue of HATalk, in addition to the article on my millinery course, also features another theatrical millinery topic: a piece about the commission of a custom hat block for an opera, from renowned blockmaker Guy Morse-Brown! If you've been thinking about subscribing, maybe this is the month to check it out. You could piggyback the payment on top of a book order, which brings me to...

How2Hats.com's August e-Book Sale! 50% off all titles!

Every August, How2Hats.com run a huge sale, half off all their e-book titles and DVDs. It's a great time to stock up on books you've thought about buying from them, especially for non-UK customers whose currency doesn't hold up well against the pound on exchange rates.

Last year when the sale was on, i wrote up a few book reviews of four of their titles, including their book on stitched-strip hat construction (a topic it's very hard to find documentation about), and Barcelona milliner Cristina de Prada has covered even more of them in her blog, here, in a post about her splurge during the 2007 sale. So, check those posts out if you want some customer feedback on the e-book titles!

Image viewing issues for labricoleuse posts?

Unrelated, over the past two months, three readers have contacted me saying they are unable to view images posted on this blog.

I have tested the image visibility on both PC and Mac computers, and using Firefox, Internet Explorer, Opera, and Safari web browsers, and have not had any difficulty with any of them. I can only guess then that perhaps readers having image viewing issues may be accessing the blog through service providers who have blocked content from Photobucket.com, which is who i use as my primary image host.

The majority of readers have no issues with viewing the images, so if you are unable to view my photos, i would suggest calling tech support for your service provider and describing the problem to them. I never have high enough traffic to exceed my bandwidth for images, so beyond that, i don't know what else to suggest. Sorry! :(

I have a few more books to address with respect to this semester's topics, and these relate to the "reshaping the actor" and hypothetical engineering projects.

The first is Puppetry: A World History by Eileen Blumenthal. This is a large-format book with both tons of text and lots of full-color and B&W photographs. It is a general overview of many kinds of puppetry (from marionettes to shadow puppets to bunraku to multiple-operator macropuppets in various cultures), and discusses not only elements of structural engineering but cultural significance as well. I keep it in the class library as a reference for some of the hypothetical engineering projects, in case a student wants to do something like a five-person Chinese Dragon or a parade-style macropuppet, etc.

Another book i always make available is edited by Blumenthal, Julie Taymor: Playing with Fire. This year, i've got the updated 2006 version, which includes some of her recent film work, as well as the 2006 opera Grendel. (The previous edition was from 1996, and stopped at her staging of The Green Bird.) It's a coffeetable-book-style retrospective of her career, mostly photos of productions in full-color, but also featuring many of her design renderings, some behind-the-scenes pix, and a few diagrams of some of the less intuitive structures (like the one-person cheetahs from Lion King which are waist-mounted and utilize the puppeteer's legs as the animal's hind legs). I keep this one around for mask class as well.

Speaking of Lion King, Taymor's production diary/scrapbook, The Lion King: Pride Rock on Broadway is another excellent (though clearly production-specific) resource for creative puppetry structures. Whereas Playing with Fire has maybe 3-4 pages on the Lion King process, Pride Rock on Broadway is crammed with structural diagrams and maquette photos and matrix sculpture images, even to the point of including an actual structural blueprint for the hydraulic mechanism inside the hyperextending head-mounted "Scar" mask. It's a great resource, particularly given how many designers tend to find inspiration in Taymor's work, and want things made "like that one costume in Lion King."

Another new book i was super excited to come across is Journey of the Tall Horse: A Story of African Theatre by Mervyn Millar. This book is essentially about the genesis of the acclaimed Handspring Puppet Company of South Africa, and specifically their fantastic production Tall Horse, about the journey of a giraffe from the savannah of Africa to the menagerie of King Charles X of France in 1826. (If you follow this sort of thing, you'll maybe recognize Handspring from their most recent production, War Horse, which opened at Britain's National Theatre last year and is still running.) It's mostly a history, so it's largely text, but VERY image-heavy, nearly every page has a production photo, a design rendering, a behind-the-scenes snapshot, or a structural diagram of one of the multitudinous puppets. It's particularly cool to compare and contrast Handspring's two-operator giraffe puppet with Taymor's single-operator giraffe design depicted in the Pride Rock book!

Random thought: It's weird to consider chronology with respect to these courses, since i teach them on a biennial basis. I've taught this once before, and it'll come around again in Fall of 2011. Each time, i have six students--if i stay here for the remainder of my career, how many students will learn these subjects from me in the fullness of time? I guess if i keep on teaching and don't get hit by a bus or something before i'm elderly, i could teach as many as, what? 150 students in a given topic? Maybe as many as 200? And of course there's my commitment to "open source costuming" through conduits like this blog.

That's a lot of paying it forward. Cool!

This fall, the graduate course i teach is called "Decorative Arts," which basically indicates that it covers crafts-related topics which don't neatly fall into the other three course topics of Millinery/Wigs, Masks/Armor, and Dyeing/Surface Design. We start out with gloves, then progress to shoes. We cover jewelry, then parasols, and lastly discuss body padding and other projects in a unit called "reshaping the actor."

And, the students also do a hypothetical project in which they propose and solve a crafts-related engineering project (usually something involving macropuppetry, like a four-person elephant, but sometimes something like "inflatable Lysistrata phalluses" or "the growing bird tail in Seussical"). For this project, once their general concept is proposed and accepted, i give them a venue size and budget range, and they do all the research and development--materials sourcing, drafting construction plans, creating a half-scale model or a miniature mechanism, and labor projections. Basically, they get to the point where they'd start making the real deal, but due to time and budget restraints, we don't actually build them.

One of the things i totally love about the cycle of teaching these courses is, it allows me to regularly revisit specific crafts-related topics on a biennial basis, even if it's something that hasn't come up in a stage context in the interim. Before i began teaching, my work was tied to the programming of the company for which i worked (i.e., if we weren't doing any shows with masks in them, i wasn't making them). Each time a course topic comes around, i have the opportunity to comb the library stacks for related books. It keeps me on my game, as it were.

There are a couple of "general overview" books i've not mentioned in this blog before which i'm going to be using as potential project references for students, Fashion Accessories since 1500 by Geoffrey Warren, and the eponymous Fashion Accessories: The Complete 20th Century Sourcebook by John Peacock. Warren's book, published in 1987, is very similar to the hand-illustrated The Mode in... historical references produced by R. Turner Wilcox. (We use her book, The Mode in Footwear, as another class resource this semester.) He divides it into chapters by century beginning with the 16th, each one a general sort of collage of detailed drawings of shoes, gloves, hats, handbags, canes, and so forth, interspersed with little blurbs of text. It's not thorough or comprehensive, but it's a decent enough resource for a very broad overview. Peacock's volume, published in 2000, is much the same, except its drawings are rendered in color, and its blurbs are less detailed--Peacock's text would feature a drawing with a caption that said simply "Lace jabot," while Warren's might say something like, "collarette of lace, net, and silk ribbon."

I mentioned a few glove books in this prior post, but another resource i picked up for potential project images is Valerie Cummings' Gloves, part of the costume accessories series edited by Dr Aileen Ribeiro. These are slim volumes (under 100 pages usually) on specific fashion accessories, discussing history, trends, applicable vocabulary terms, and full of both color and B&W photographs of several examples both period and modern.

Another great book in that series is Jeremy Farrell's Umbrellas and Parasols. Since the course is about making these things, i require my students to buy my parasol construction text, but it doesn't have a lot of historical research images on which to base their projects, so Farrell's text is a good supplement.

I led an independent study in footwear alteration and construction some years back, and at that time posted an extensive list of shoe book reviews. I've got three more to add this time around, as well.

If you have perused a lot of shoe books, you do wind up seeing the same historical examples depicted in them, volume to volume. Lucy Pratt and Linda Woolley's Shoes does contain a fair number of color photos, but many of the shoes are familiar from the Shoe a Day calendar and Mary Trasko's Heavenly Soles. Unlike the calendar and Trasko's book (which is essentially a coffeetable flip-book), it's got a lot of well-researched text augmenting the images, historical info and trend analysis of previous eras and construction commentary.

Joy of joys, am i glad to have found Norma Shephard's In Step with Fashion: 200 Years of Shoe Styles! This book is to shoes what Susan Langley's Vintage Hats and Bonnets is to hats--not only is it full of nicely color-photographed period and vintage shoes (and not ones you've seen in five other books on the topic), but the footwear photos are augmented by period advertisements, daguerreotype portraits with prominently featured footwear, images and info on related topics like hosiery, socks, and even shoeboxes! This book only just came out in 2008, so it's fairly new.

Stepping Out: Three Centuries of Shoes is a full size glossy 95-page exhibit catalogue that was published to accompany the exhibit of the same name at Australia's Powerhouse Museum. Much like the Shephard book, it also contains reproductions of period advertisements, photos, and paintings related to the shoes (which are also shown in full color photos), and is peppered with great historical information. This is another 2008 publication as well. Guess it was a good year for shoe books!

To peruse some past projects for this class and read book reviews from previous posts on related topics, you can check out the "class: decorative arts" tag in the sidebar. And, i've got a full class of six students (with a potential overenrollment of a seventh, depending on paperwork coming through for her) so there will be lots of cool projects to look forward to this time around! I'm wondering whether anyone will rise to the pattern-matching challenge of

handyhatter's parasol... :D

Wow, two weeks since i last updated! I think that's a record for the amount of time this blog has lain fallow.

Part of that's due to the fact that one of my current freelance jobs is not something i'm cleared to write about at all for industry confidentiality reasons. (Wow, doesn't that sound mysterious? It's not something on the level of, "I could tell you, but then i'd have to kill you," i swear! It's just not something i can post about online in public fora.)

But, part of it also is due to a course i'm taking right now, a CAD course aimed at fashion and textiles industry folk over at NC State's Textiles college. NC State's College of Textiles is one of the best in the world--they teach it all, from design to manufacture, and their facilities have a range of state-of-the-art equipment and brand-new technology. This summer, they're offering their introductory CAD for Apparel class, which you normally have to take on-site during a regular semester. I couldn't pass up the opportunity to take it, but it's like "CAD on steroids" or something--we're doing 14 weeks of learning in only 5 weeks, so to say that it takes up a lot of my time would be an understatment. However, what i'm learning is invaluable and excellent, and today, i'd like to talk about it a bit!

When many folks talk about "CAD," they actually mean the program AutoCAD, which is heavily used in many industries for a variety of applications (for example, it's pretty much replaced hand-drafting of plans and blueprints in architecture). I've posted in the past about a few options for commercial CAD software aimed at garment-makers, in fact.

The term CAD though is an overall acronym which stands for Computer-Aided Design, and in this course, we're addressing a whole range of programs applicable to different steps in the design process, from compilation of initial research, to rendering of garment designs, to patterning the garments themselves, to establishing efficient cutting layouts. The info is of course all presented in a fashion-industry context, but I'm looking at it all with an eye to how we could utilize elements of their technology for our own purposes in costume production.

I've always suspected that Adobe Illustrator would be of great use to costume designers, particularly in a case where you need to crank out a huge number of design renderings...like, oh, say, for

nicknickleby? Sure enough, from the work i've done recently learning to use it for apparel applications, my suspicions are confirmed. If i were a designer, i'd definitely start building a library of digital croquis files and garment shapes, because the sketch-up of initial renderings would be such a breeze, and would create images that could be emailed to directors and design teams and shop staffs in a trice, without worrying about whether a scanner would pick up all the nuances of some jacked-up pencil scribbles or whatev.

We've been focusing on using Illustrator to create apparel flats, which are basically those little images on the backs of sewing patterns which detail the front and back of the garment, showing all the seamlines and major design details.

I started out doing the simple garment styles in a series of textbook projects, like these flats of a tank and long-sleeved knit top:

( click for images )

In the course of converting these files to small enough JPGs to make sense on a webpage, some of the clarity of line detail was lost, but i think you can still get a good idea of what they are. I initially had converted them to PDFs, which retained all the detail and would be great to email to a design team, in that they could be printed out if need be and distributed to drapers and would be exactly the clarity desired.

That textbook i mentioned is Fashion Computing: Design Techniques and CAD, by Sandra Burke, from FashionBooks.info.

It's a really good introductory text for learning about garment rendering techniques and covers a range of different programs--not only Illustrator, but also the same techniques in CorelDRAW and Freehand, as well as a bunch of info on using other programs for garment design and construction processes. It walks you through methods for creating a whole range of garment illustrations for women, men, and children, and gives you tips for how to create different style and fabrication looks (like how to render drapey folds, or insert a pattern or print).

So! If you are an utter beginner and want to start using a vector-based drawing program like Illustrator, CorelDRAW, or Freehand to help with rendering, it's a great book to pick up, and the price point is low for a textbook (about $30), which, given that purchasing the program itself will set you back a couple hundred, is a boon.

You know, I was really struck in the course of this section of the class by the fact that, in the costume design and production process, we sometimes don't even have the apparel-flat step, going instead from the stylized rendering directly into the mockup or "sample garment." Maybe a draper will talk about seamlines and construction details in an initial conversation with a designer about renderings, or ask for a more detailed sketch of an element of a garment. Maybe a designer will provide those details in her/his initial rendering even, or send some research pictures noting seamline placements. But, in general, it's a missing step in our process, and how much miscommunication and waste of time and muslin could be avoided were we to begin to incorporate it?

Whether it be that a designer or design assistant sits down with the stylized renderings and bangs out apparel flats in Illustrator before turning in the designs to the shop, or that a draper evaluates a stack of assigned renderings and generates a few quick flats for the purposes of style-line and seam-placement discussion BEFORE going into mockup fabric, it seems like this technology could be of such help to our industry. Because, seriously, once you grasp the way the program works and how to draw flats with it, you can just crank them out in a few minutes! Okay, more than a few for a more complex garment, sure, but still, much faster than sketching by hand, scanning, and tweaking the sketch in Photoshop, and definitely much faster than draping or drafting a mockup and stitching it up in muslin.

I think it's one of those cases like safety regulations--chalk it up to ignorance on behalf of the average theatre practitioner, not willful negligence. The fashion industry and professional costume production have largely diverged, and because of our lower budgets, much smaller production quantities, and lack of access to new fashion technology trends, we're at an innovational disadvantage. But you know, that's one reason i really wanted to take this course: more of us need to cross over there, pick and choose from what they've developed and try to pull some of it into our industry, too.

We're moving into pattern development software so i plan to post about that experience soon, too, and we'll also be covering textile print design and digital portfolio creation, so that's on the horizon as well. And, i do have a millinery post or two brewing, hopefully coming in the next coupla weeks, about this exciting trio of hats i'm making on a bid job for the Williamstown Theatre Festival!

Today, i'm so excited to bring something completely new to La Bricoleuse: my first guest blogger!

An old friend and colleague, Trystan L. Bass (lj user

trystbat), recently had the wonderful opportunity to visit couture milliner Stephen Jones' hat exhibit at London's Victoria & Albert Museum. She graciously agreed to write up the experience for me to share here!

Trystan is a writer with a consuming passion for travel and costume, and one half of the travel-media team at T & T's Real Travels (look for their forthcoming DVD on Carnivale in Venice, slated for release later this summer). She is a longtime active member of the Greater Bay Area Costumers' Guild, has set foot on all seven continents, and won "Best in Show" with the Empress Eugenie group at Costume-Con 26's Historical Masquerade.

* * *

A hat is "the cherry on the cake, the dot on the 'i,' the exclamation mark" for an outfit, in the words of British couture milliner Stephen Jones. Likewise, I've often felt a costume isn't complete without something on my head. Whether a wild wig or a plumed chapeau, a headdress calls attention to the face and makes a fantasy or historical costume more personal. In modern fashion, interesting hats have become rare and they make the wearer stand out. The latest special exhibit at London's Victoria & Albert Museum combines all these threads of millinery fascination, sprinkles them with a dash of context, and tops them off a blast of whimsy.

"Hats: An Anthology by Stephen Jones" is an exhibit of over 350 hats, both historical items from the V&A's vast collection and modern pieces from Jones and other, mostly British, designers. If you're looking for a strict history of hats, you'll be sadly disappointed. Read the title: This is an "anthology," not a catalog or a chronicle.

Also note it's "by Stephen Jones," so it's one person's specific take on the subject. And it's one truly fabulous person too. From new romantic 1980s roots (his breakthrough was a hat for Boy George in the video for "Do You Really Want to Hurt Me?"), Jones regularly works with couture houses like Christian Dior, Thierry Mugler, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Commes de Garcons, and John Galliano.

The exhibit is arranged into four areas. You enter into "Inspiration," where hats are grouped by style and material. One of the first cases features hats that compare historical shapes with modern ones. Elegant silk18th-century bicorns and tricorns sit next to one of the battered leather tricorns worn by Johnny Depp in the "Pirates of the Caribbean" movies. Stephen Jones' "Carnival" tiny tricorn made of sheer organza with fuzzy pom-poms dangling is arranged next to these to show the progression of shapes. A 17th-century samurai helmet is displayed next to Darth Vader's helmet from "Star Wars" -- the inspiration is obvious. Vivienne Westwood's "Harris Tweed" crown is shown near a glittery tiara. A variety of turbans from India, the 1940s, and today display how timeless the style is.

Another large case features hats made of natural materials. Hats have long been made of straw and natural fabrics or trimmed with feathers and fur. But this display showed hats constructed of many more materials found in the natural world. For example, there was a bird-shaped hat made by Jones from wooden lollipop sticks for Galliano's 1996 collection and another by Jones made from bulrushes in 1993 called his "Kon-tiki hat." Looking farther back, there was a WWII-era hat made of lacquered wood shavings – a beautiful illustration of making do in a time of shortages.

The center of the exhibition was titled "Creation," and it allowed a peek into the milliner's world. Jones' own design studio was recreated, complete with overflowing drawers of supplies, sketches of new designs, and hats in progress.

Beyond this was an area called "The Salon," a little bit of a historical hat shop and partly an ode to the process of purchasing the perfect hat. Particularly charming was the display of vintage hat boxes.

The final section of the exhibit was "The Client." Here you could see hats of famous people, plus video screens to show those very hats being worn by their owners. The golden feather hat ornament worn by of the then Camilla Parker Bowles at her wedding to Prince Charles was on display. Nearby was a modest lavender plumed hat from the Queen Mother. More adventurous chapeaus worn by the likes of Sarah Jessica Parker and Bjork.

Many (although sadly not all) of the exhibition's hats are shown on the V&A's special website for the anthology. Make sure to explore every section of the site to catch all of the beautiful features, such as 360-degree views of select hats, video interviews, a video showing Jones' signature Union Jack top hat being made, and much more.

The companion book to the exhibit – written by V&A curator of modern fashion and textiles, Oriole Cullen – shows even more (but again, not every last hat). The book is also something of a biography of Stephen Jones, but it places his work in context of millinery in the past 200 years. This is fascinating reading for students of fashion history and especially for anyone interested in the current state of haute couture accessories. The photos are exquisite, ranging from museum displays to fashion shows to vintage illustrations. The book includes a fine hat-related bibliography and brief biographies of prominent milliners dating back to Rose Bertin.

The exhibit, website, and book are each a bit different, and they naturally compliment each other. Ideally, hat lovers would indulge in all three. But if you can't see the exhibit in person, make a point of spending time with the website and consider buying the book (which is available from amazon.com and other retailers worldwide). These are treasures for fans of modern millinery.

Trystan L. Bass

* * *

As for me, I won't make it to England to see the exhibit, but i do own a copy of the book, which is available on the V&A webshop, here: http://www.vandashop.com/section.php?xSec=262

They also carry a number of related products, from actual hats to hat-print scarves and notebooks, brooches, etc. I was in need of a project notebook, so i splurged on the little composition book covered with Mr. Jones' design sketches.

I feel certain that the next time millinery class comes around, some folks will be looking to this book for project references!

So, i'm FINALLY getting around to my second half of the millinery book reviews. (If you are in a book-review-reading mood, you can find all my previous ones by clicking on the "books" tag in the sidebar--that'll take you to a whole mess of previous posts of book reviews on costume craft artisanship topics!) Here we go!

Paper books (as opposed to digital books):

Reconstruction Era Fashions: 350 Sewing, Needlework, and Millinery Patterns by Frances Grimble.

This book isn't just specifically hats--it's all sorts of garments and accessories from 1867-1868, taken from ladies magazine sources of the period and "translated" into scalable, constructable, concise pattern pieces with description and discussion of each piece. In it are included a large range of caps, hats, hoods, and bonnets, with detailed information on the materials used. I went through it specifically looking for bonnet and hat info, but it is also an invaluable resource for ladies clothing construction info of the time as well.

The Mode in Hats and Headdress by R. Turner Wilcox (Ruth Turner Wilcox, that is, mother of the painter Ruth Wilcox Dawes).

This is another resource text by the author of The Mode in Footwear, The Mode in Furs, and The Mode in Costume, all of which are long out of print. Wilcox has done exhaustive period research and augments her historical overview with hand-drawn examples of hundreds of actual hats and hairstyles. The book is broken down into time-spans going back as far as the ancient world. It's not a primary source--all headwear shapes are filtered through the eye of the ilustrator, of course--but it's a great overview and wonderful for project inspiration in my class. One of my students is making a hat out of there for her first project, and i predict she won't be the only one to use it this semester.

Philip Treacy, edited by Elena Carotti and Debbie Bibo.

This is a slim volume of mostly photographs featuring not only Treacy's hats but the hatblocks and other equipment he uses to make them; it's essentially an exhibit catalog that went along with a traveling installation of his hats and blocks. What text there is is presented in both English and Italian, and the book is worth its cost alone for the opportunity to see candidly inside Treacy's workspaces (which are messy!).

E-books by How2Hats.com:

Sinamay 1 & 2
Finishing Touches
How to Make Stitched Strip Hats

First, some overview info. How2Hats.com has a summer e-book sale every August, where all their titles are 50% off. If any of these interest you, now is the time to buy them!

That said, when i purchased these they were having cart issues and i initially was charged via PayPal but then directed to a screen saying that the funds were insufficient for download permission (presumably due to having paid half the regular price). I emailed them about the situation and it was swiftly and apologetically rectified; hopefully they've fixed the glitch, but if not, don't be concerned that you have been ripped off. They'll make it right and get you your e-books.

The books are supposedly published by "The Wombourne School of Millinery," but if that is an actual institution teaching courses in real-time (and not just what they are calling themselves for the purpose of writing and publishing instructional texts) i could find no info online about how one might register or enroll. They publish a free newsletter which you can sign up for on their site, but don't be too tempted by the "free e-book" unless you want to see just the general layout and setup of what the actual instructional ones are like--the free book is mostly millinery cheerleading with a few photos of modern hand-blocked hats. It's a teaser, intended to inspire you to purchase their titles.

Sinamay 1

38 pages long with generally two full-color illustrative photographs on each page, outlining a method for blocking hats with sinamay straw. This one's quite useful, nice to see clear images and straightforward directions, and tips on working with sinamay itself. If you have ever tried seeking out info on straw millinery techniques, you know there's precious little out there to be found, so the rarity of the info itself in written-down form is enough to justify my purchase, in my opinion.

They've put a cliffhanger in this one, in that they've trimmed their sample hat with sinamay lilies, which they don't explain how to make--you need to get Finishing Touches for those instructions (or, be willing to try to figure it out on your own, which wouldn't be difficult if you enjoy improvisational creating). As someone who's written an instructional text on an almost-dead, largely undocumented artisan skill myself, i completely understand the authors' reluctance to "give away" information that was difficult to come by, that they spent time and energy and devotion learning and researching and practicing, transcribing and documenting and editing and compiling. At the same time, i find myself as a consumer somewhat irritated by blatant marketing tactics of the cliffhanger/teaser sort.

It's a delicate balance, this world of free and open flowing information versus writers and researchers and skilled artisans being justly compensated for sharing their hard-won knowledge, and in general i *am* a proponent of what i call "open source costuming"--i wouldn't write this blog if i were slavishly devoted to keeping my "trade secrets" to myself. However, I know how many hours i put into writing and illustrating my own book, coordinating with photographers and students and collecting waivers and permissions and working with editors and proofreaders and my layout artist and all that--it's a TON of work, a lot more than when i throw together a post for this blog on the fly, armed with nothing more than a digital camera, enthusiam, and an open blog-update window.

Though they include some transparent marketing, it isn't enough to make me pan the books or the company--they're invaluable, well-produced, concise, lovely resources, well worth the money i paid for them.

Sinamay 2

35 pages long with generally two full-color illustrative photographs on each page, pretty much the same gist as Sinamay 1, except the blocks used are more complex forms and the hat produced features two types of sinamay instead of one. I could've saved my money and done without this one, myself, but i'm someone who's blocked hats with a range of different materials. If you are a more literal-minded person who likes following specific directions rather than learning a method and then improvising, or if you have minimal or no hat-blocking experience, perhaps you want both of these books!

Finishing Touches

58 pages long, same format as the others, this book features how to make a range of trims from sinamay: spirals, roses, lilies, daisies, and leaves. It's great for step-following instruction, and also very inspiring--you could modify a lot of these techniques to create any number of other fun, exciting, dramatic shapes in sinamay.

How to Make Stitched Strip Hats

Remember my post on unspiraling old strip hats to scavenge the braid? This book completely advocates that right in the first chapter! It's more photographically dense than the other three books i purchased, in that each page has sometimes as many as four large full-color photographs depicting the steps of the process. It's only 21 pages long, but in those pages it shows how to use the technique with both a narrow straw braid and a wider flat horsehair, plus shows several really cool and inspiring examples of more complex hat forms created with the stitched strip technique. Best of all, it shows how you can do these hats on your regular domestic sewing machine, with only a head-form (which, you could use a styro head even for this technique) as "special" equipment. The only difference between making these hats on your home machine and making them on the industrial machines that are/were used, is that those machines sew a chain-stitch (so you can easily pull out a mistake or deconstruct a completed hat) and have an arched arm to better accommodate odd brim dimensions.

Some of these books have also been reviewed by Barcelona milliner Cristina dePrada in her blog, if you are looking for a second opinion! Ms. dePrada is a hobbyist couture milliner so she has a more contemporary fashion perspective. Overall, i do recommend the books from How2Hats.com; the information contained within is very clearly presented and concise.

...And, that's pretty much it for the time being on millinery texts i've been reading recently! Feel free to use the tags to navigate back to older reviews if you like, and if you have any other new titles to share, please feel free to comment!

When i'm gearing up to teach a class, i always spend a fair amount of time poring over books, both reviewing the texts i used previously and checking out new or new-to-me books. I hit the library and do catalog searches on terms relating to the subject of the class (this semester i did "hats," "hatmaking," "millinery," "milliner," and "wigs"). I sift through Amazon and eBay and check the rare book search services, just to see what i can dig up. Sometimes i find some good stuff, and sometimes i find some stinkers. I usually share my results in here. (Here's a previous post on the subject, covering some texts i think of as "old stand-bys" in the millinery field.) I've been going through a ton of cool hat-related resources this time around so i'm going to break them up into at least two posts, of which this is the first.

I should note that, when i evaluate these books, i'm looking at them with a mind to how valuable they will be to me--whether they are going to be of use in teaching a technically-challenging graduate-level class, whether they have any historical production techniques or trade secrets that i might adapt to a theatrical application, and so forth. One woman's trash is another woman's treasure, so just because it's not going to work for my class or my purpose, doesn't mean it might not be a great resource for you.

On the subject of straw hats:

The Panama Hat Trail, by Tom Miller. This isn't really anything i'd use in my class, but it was an enjoyable read and is probably of interest to those of you who are yourselves interested in all aspects of millinery. Miller is a travel writer, and this book chronicles an extended tour through Ecuador, pursuing the construction of a straw hat from the harvesting of the toquillo straw to its braiding into a hatbody, finishing production, and sale to a Western hatter. Miller writes in a conversational style that occasionally borders on the goofy, but he doesn't gloss over any aspect of his subject--in a single chapter he'll cover the most detailed technical information about straw harvesting, give background on Ecuador's history and political figures, and comment on the current economic challenges of her residents. Miller's book was originally written in 1988, and has been reissued in a 15th Anniversary edition.

Straw Hats: Their History and Manufacture by Harry Inwards (which you can read online if you click that link) was published in 1922, and focuses largely on the European straw hat industry of the time, particularly that of Inwards' hometown of Luton. It's historically interesting and has some fascinting photos, but is peppered with anti-Asian bigotry, so be advised of that going in.

Millinery course "textbook"-style pamphlets from previous eras:

The Women's Institute of Domestic Arts & Sciences 1916 millinery course texts--

"Developing Hats of Braid"
"Fancy and Draped Crowns"
"Millinery Facings" (essentially, underbrim design)
"Glossary of Millinery Terms"

I found these on eBay, offered by a seller named Rumbleseat Fashions. They're the educational pamphlets for a trade school that was based in Scranton, PA, and the only authorial credit i can find inside of them is in the introductory notes, which are signed "M.B.P." A little poking around reveals this to be Mary Brooks Picken, a prolific author and an extraordinary pioneer of women's distance education who later went on to teach at Columbia University and serve as one of the original directors of the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan.

They're wonderful period resources, as well as an interesting slice of insight into how the millinery trade was taught. The booklets include step-by-step how-to sections augmented with photography (very cutting-edge for the time) and some hand-drawn illustrations. They also include an exam at the end of each booklet.

I probably wouldn't buy every lesson in the series--for example, every book that covers wire frame manufacture teaches it in basically the same way--but for these subjects, i'm very pleased with the booklets, both for the techniques and the historical interest. What kind of huge nerd am i that i especially loved reading the glossary? The copies sold by Rumbleseat Fashions are very clear scans of the original reproduced on matte cardstock and staple-bound.

The Fashion Institute of Chicago's Nu-Way Millinery and Hat Design Course, by Caroline Countiss, Director of Staff. This 25-lesson resource originates from 1928, and is quite similar in its conception and layout to the Women's Institute's millinery publications, with photos, how-to sections, diagrams, and a short list of exam questions at the end of each lesson. I got the entire course on a CD from Dakota Prairie Treasures. Much like the Domestic Institute's course publications, it's fascinating for more than just its practical technique info--as a historical resource, it's great; i like to have these kinds of things so that when i do a show with hats from a given period, i can see how the milliners of the time made the hats of the time. (Of course, i then adapt those techniques for modern materials, machines, and employing modern safety knowledge!)

Full color archival catalogue:

Hats and Bonnets from Snowshill, one of the world's leading collections of costume and accessories of the 18th and 19th centuries compiled by Althea McKenzie. This is a small book of photographs documenting selections of hats and bonnets from the costume collection of the eccentric archivist, Charles Paget Wade. Wade collected elements of historic costume throughout his life, buying and restoring the estate of Snowshill specifically for the purpose of housing them (he didn't just collect attire, but a range of other objects from firearms to clocks to cookware, etc). He himself would occasionally wear the costume pieces around and stage amateur theatricals in them with friends. This book is fairly small and short, but the hats featured in it are in fairly brilliant condition and McKenzie provides multiple photos of the hats' interior linings, close-ups of trim, and so forth. I found the section of incroyable extreme poke-bonnets to be most interesting.

This is only the first batch; i have several more to discuss in a forthcoming post (maybe even two more posts worth, we'll have to see how windy i get about them)!

In other news, apparently archaeologists have found Shakespeare's first theatre. Cool!

I just finished reading a book that is of potential interest to the dye enthusiasts among my readership.

A Perfect Red, by Amy Butler Greenfield, takes as its subject a history of trends in red fabric dyeing, focusing primarily on cochineal. Greenfield traces the changing implications and significance of the color red in dress and adornment, discusses the history of the dyer's profession, and explores the effects of technological developments over time on the dye process. She also places cochineal, the primary source of brilliant red dyes for centuries, in a historical and cultural context, following it from Aztec and Mixtec culture through the Spanish Conquest, the advent of synthetic dyes, to its current minor resurgence. The book talks about dyestuff and red clothing's relevance to the rise and fall of European imperialist expansion and its significance in the cutthroat espionage of the time. I found it to be a fairly quick and interesting read, perhaps of particular fascination for those with an interest or career in dyeing.

In keeping with yesterday's theme of going to museums that were former residences, after the Neuegalerie, i went to the Cooper-Hewitt Design Museum, which is the former Carnegie mansion. The mansion itself is something to see, even more opulent than the Neuegalerie, with lots of interesting secret passageway doors to spy and beautiful fireplaces and light fixtures in every room. There's a spacious, shady private garden with tables for eating lunch, and it was clear that museum members often come just to hang out in the garden and relax with a book and a glass of wine or something.

There are three exhibits running right now, "Campana Brothers Select: Works from the Permanent Collection," "Rococo: The Continuing Curve, 1730-2008," and "Multiple Choice: From Sample Book to Product." The websites have a LOT of images of the works displayed, if you are in a surfing mood.

The Rococo exhibit is the largest, taking up two floors of the museum. There's a ton of actual Rococo stuff from the 18th century, everything from furniture to housewares to fabric, jewelry, personal effects, all beautifully preserved and intact. Wandering through that segment of it, i was reminded how hit-or-miss i find Rococo, in terms of my own personal taste. (For example, I really don't like ormolu furnishings, or the easter-eggy porcelain holloware, but i love the brocades and the little personal items like matchsafes and snuffboxes.) Some highlights of this section were the folding fans, automata, chatelaines, shoe buckles, and bejeweled hair ornaments with "tremblants" (what modern folk often call "dangly bits"). I have to say, there was a triptych vanity mirror whose tain was almost wholly intact, and i freaked myself out a little looking into it and thinking about how many women must have done the same over the past 300+ years, wondering what they were like, what happened to them in their lives, and the high probability that at least a couple of them were beheaded in the French Revolution.

Upstairs were the rooms full of post-rococo work that drew inspiration and aesthetic elements from rococo style, particularly Art Nouveau. I was thrilled to discover rooms full of Lalique jewelry, Mucha ornaments and printed velvet, Gaudi and Horta and Guimard pieces--furniture and embroidery and glassware. There were even more modern pieces, a Chihuly lamp of glass squiggles, a Prada shoe design. It was very literally overwhelming.

The Campara Brothers exhibit was contained in a single room, and the theme of it was basically, "stuff they like." Quirky, unusual, striking pieces, displayed at random. My favorite things in there were some kata-gami stencils for printing yukata fabric, some cochineal-dyed horsehair jewelry (and other undyed hairwork jewelry) from 1830, and a piece of 17th-century Flemish embroidery that was so thickly worked it featured a three-dimensional tree whose knotwork branches actually came out of the ground like a frieze sculpture.

The basement level, that was my favorite--the sample book exhibit.

Man, where do i even begin? There were 18th-century button sample books with handwritten notations of style and cost, embroidered waistcoat-pocket-flap samples, ribbon books, china plates divided into pie-slices showing different glazes and patterns. There was a 19th-century Japanese shibori sample book, a dye recipe book with swatches from 1879, 1950s glove leather samples cut into tiny glove shapes, and even a sample book of textile designs from the Wiener Werkstaette (crazy coincidence!). There was a book of swatches of "chocolates," dark-colored calicos considered appropriate for half-mourning fashions. There was an intact copy of Alexander Paul's 1888 reference text, The Practical Ostrich Feather Dyer, and running on a loop was a video of each book flipped through from start to finish. I watched the entirety of a book of millinery straw and a collection of 1930s percales. I could have sat there all day and watched every one, in fact. Some of the videos (as well as many of the pieces exhibited) are on the website though, so i can watch them at my leisure. And, if you are so inclined, you can too.

In the bookstore, i purchased a couple of cool books, too. Keith Hagan's Complete Pattern Library with accompanying CD-ROM looked like it could be a great tool for doing custom fabric print designs--i figure it may come in handy for some of my students, too, when they do the printmaking project in dye/paint class. Supersurfaces by Sophia Vyzoviti was another one i just couldn't leave on the shelf--it's full of cutting and folding diagrams and photographs for how to turn flat surfaces into three-dimensional objects, mostly wearable. You can use the methods on any number of base materials, too: leather, vinyl, felt, foam, plastic, tyvek, paper, etc. It seemed like a good resource to have, for situations where you have a vague costume rendering and a range of research and your job is basically, "make something cool that's kind of like these forms..."

I took a lot of photos of the grounds, and a few more random neighborhood ones as well.

( photography )