La Bricoleuse

I've been so busy this semester i've not posted any of the images of the period pattern class projects yet! For shame. But, here's a post to remedy that.

Judy Adamson, head of the Costume Production MFA Program at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, teaches a cycle of four period patterning classes. Second and third year graduate students research the appearance and construction of a given era, choose a research image to reproduce, and then create a full-size half-form project replicating their research image. The cycle of period foci goes as follows: 15th-18th Centuries, 19th Century Women’s Wear, 20th Century Women’s Wear, and 19th-21st Century Menswear (tailoring systems). They're doing 15th-18th centuries this semester and the current time period is Tudor.

These projects are then formally presented by the students, who discuss draping and patterning challenges they faced, alterations that they might make to create a costume suitable for stage wear (particularly alternative means of situating openings and closures to accommodate quick changes and the like), understructures and appropriate fabric/fiber choices, and so forth. I always sit in on the presentations if my schedule permits because i love the discussions that pop up from the various projects, and i love seeing the clothes come off the page and onto full-size bodies.

( two ladies, two gents )

This project overview is the first in the category of "Haberdashery," a term whose meaning varies widely--in the US, it typically refers to men's accessories, whereas in the UK it's synonymous with notions and trimmings.

In this context, i'm using it as a catchall craftwork term for items that don't neatly fit into other project categories (Footwear, Headwear, Dyeing/Ageing, etc); to wit, the unusually-structured brightly-colored ruffs made for the American Repertory Theatre's 2001 production of Shakespeare's Richard II.

( 2 photographs )

I was given the embroidered organza in the color the designer wanted, but every other material used had to be dyed to match--heavy nylon crinoline, cotton-wrapped millinery wire, bias tape, twill tape, a thin nylon horsehair-braid, and a cotton/acetate-blend brocade. I used a range of different dyestuffs, primarily Aljo's line of nylon/acetate and cotton/rayon dyes, and Rit. There were five ruffs--the two wine/burgundy ones pictured, as well as a rust-colored one and two fuchsia ones (these two were cut from the final production).

The research photos provided were of the large fluted ruff that the vampire-bride Lucy Westenra wears in Bram Stoker's Dracula. In order to create the ruffs themselves in this style, i stitched tiny channels in a radial formation and made "bones" from heavy-gauge millinery wire. Along the outer edge, narrow horsehair was sewn beneath the densest part of the embroidery to make the ends retain the springy half-moon curve. For the ruffs that needed to sit up just beneath the actors' chins, i created the underpropper foundation structure you see in the first photo up there--essentially, a stiff "posture collar", flared at the top to support the ruff. For the yoke-like ruff that was directly based on the Westenra research, i used the same material (heavy nylon crin, reinforced with Rigilene) but made a sort of taco-shaped "plate" as the base. The fluted, boned embroidered organza ruffs were then tacked to the support structures, and any potentially-visible nylon was covered with a layer of brocade. The ruffs have a central back zipper, and 1-2 untacked flutes that snap into place over the join.