I started sewing as a child, doing my father's mending and alterations.
(My mother didn't sew much.) My father bought me an antique treadle
machine because it was cheap, simple to operate, and hard to break. He
also taught me what I knew about sewing at that point in my life.
I took Home Ec for two years in junior high, which taught me nothing,
and almost turned me off sewing for life.
I started collecting vintage clothes when I was in my teens. My parents
were always going to country estate auctions--they collected Victorian
furniture (and all kinds of other things). They encouraged me to have an
interest in something antique, and were happy to buy me box lots of
Victorian and Edwardian clothes, which were going cheap at the time. I
taught myself how to clean, mend, and alter the clothes, though I read a
lot more about those techniques starting a few years later.
I really got interested in sewing in my last two years of high school. I
wanted to make clothes that were interesting and different (also ones
that fit, since I'm 4'9"). I designed my own clothes by drawing around
basic ones I owned and winging it from there. Sometimes my designs
worked, but often they didn't.
Which was frustrating, and made me realize I needed some formal
training. I wasn't contemplating a career in clothing design--my parents
wanted me to be an academic--but I managed to fit in almost all of both
the clothing design and textile courses around my requirements as a
history major. I took several beginning to advanced sewing courses,
couture sewing and design, flat pattern work, drafting, weaving, and
crochet. (My father bought me my first electric machine, a Sears
Kenmore.) I did a lot of reading on clothing history--I'd done some when
I was in high school, but got really serious about it when I was in
college. I made a lot of my daily clothes, and they were as historically
inspired as I could wear in modern life. But I wanted to make the real
thing; which is how I got involved in reenactment type activities. First
I wanted a place to wear the clothes, but husband and I soon took up
historic dance (we'd previously been doing other types of dance).
The other thing I'd been doing since childhood was writing. After I got
my history degree I ended up with a career in publishing. (Although
early in it I also completed a publishing program at another college,
spending several years in night school.) I worked my way up from being
an editorial assistant through being a project manager/senior editor, at
various book and magazine publishers. I also wrote software manuals in
Silicon Valley. Eventually I decided to start my own business. It was
obvious that I should publish books on costuming, considering I'd been
studying it almost all my life.
Right now I'm doing something I haven't done in years--designing my
daily clothes. I was only interested in "accurate" historic ones for a
long time. Historic clothes got too outré for daily life as styles
changed (although I remember when I could go into work as an editor
wearing Ralph Lauren skirts with vintage Edwardian blouses and boots and
huge repro hats). New petites lines made it easier to buy modern clothes
RTW, and I wasn't interested in spending my time making simple things I
could buy off the rack.
But now, it's possible to look more interesting. So I've been working on
a series of skirts made from vintage embroidered tablecloths. (More than
I really need of course, but with me, the practical need for an item of
clothing has never been the point.) I buy them on eBay, colored when I
can, but I've bought a lot of sturdier ones white and dyed them. I'm
doing draped and layered effects inspired by bustle dress styles, but
updated, things I can wear in daily life. (At least, since I'm willing
to be a little different.) I'm doing the designs by draping the
tablecloth on a dress form till it looks good. There are a lot of
interesting things you can do with a fancy tablecloth. I've also been
making tops to go with them. Some are made from embroidered placemats or
napkins that came with the tablecloths.
The other thing I'm doing is, I bought dozens of T-shirts and tops in
various styles from Dharma Trading. I've been doing a load of machine
dyeing every week for months. I'm leaving a lot of them as is--my goal
was partly to have one long-sleeved shirt, one short-sleeved shirt, one
camisole or tank, and one pair of socks in every one of my favorite
colors and shades. But some I'm decorating with bits of vintage lace and
crochet, small yardage, medallions, doilies, collars and cuffs, in
various more or less Victorian/Edwardian ways. I'm trying to use up
things I've accumulated for years, which are otherwise not very usable,
and not buy new. I try not to cut up the shirts, but sometimes I have
to. I'm almost done with the dye lots, I have only five or six more
loads/weeks to go. Three of those will be very light shades, so I can
transfer colored Victorian fashion plates to them with transfer paper,
and decorate from there.
Although I’ve made historic clothing for my husband, I prefer not to do
it for anyone but us two. When you make things for yourself, you can
spend as much money and time as you want, and make exactly what you
want. When you make things for other people, you’re always working with
their constraints.
I emphatically do not want a cat, or any kind of pet. I don’t want cat
claws in my silks, or a puppy chewing up my library of rare
publications. (Nor do I want a child—that would be even more
destructive, as well as time consuming.)
Fran
Lavolta Press Books on Historic Costuming
http://www.lavoltapress.com
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