1950s dressmaking manuals told women they could make clothes that would
look just like RTW, so they didn't have to admit they home sewed.
It was a big day in my brother's life when he stopped letting my mother sew
his shirts for him. That was about 1964.
Then, in the late 1960s and early 1970s, there was a "counterculture"
reaction against things manufactured by the "establishment," including
clothing, food, and many other things. People took up not only home
sewing (see _The Illustrated Hassle-Free Make Your Own Clothes Book_), but
bread baking (see the _Tassajara Bread Book_), organic gardening, candle
making, and lots of other crafts. The emphasis was not only on doing it
yourself, but on _not_ imitating "plastic" ready-made clothes, supermarket
food, etc. Many completely inexperienced people were experimenting with
various crafts; and inexperience, as well as a "go with the flow"
attitude, led to many original approaches.
That's when Hippies started embroidering their blue jeans and wearing
ethnic garments.
And by the 1980s, some people had become very skilled, in fact
professional, at patchwork, free-form crochet, and lots of other
things. (The Tassajara bakery morphed into the very expensive,
sophisticated, gourmet vegetarian restaurant Greens.) They published and
taught about new approaches and techniques they'd developed. Companies
like Folkwear were founded. Banks bought enormous fiber art hangings for
their lobbies. It was very hip to study "fiber arts" in college (not
usually sewing, but weaving, spinning, crochet, embroidery, and such).
You must live in Northern CA.
The modern reenactment movement (I'm excluding things like Victorian
costume balls and jousts when I say "modern") also, I believe, got its
start as part of the counterculture. The SCA started as a bunch of
hippies who enjoyed dressing in colorful clothes and evolved into a much
larger organization with much more complicated goals.
Ren. Faires started in the early 1960s, and their founder coined the term
"living history".
Still, there was a lot of DIY, which I don't think I'm seeing currently as
a mainstream movement.
"Wearable art", while not being exactly mainstream is at least
common. Places like Michael's craft stores carry supplies for making
wearable art, and a few kits for the same.
CarolynKayta Barrows
dollmaker, fibre artist, textillian
www.FunStuft.com
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