Some years ago I was invited to play hostess at a "Shakespeare
dinner," a fund-raiser for a nearby not-very-good-but-very-
pretentious Shakespeare theater--they wanted me to be one of Henry
VIII's wives, as if that much to do with Shakespeare and certainly as
if anybody ALIVE would want to play one of them gals. An early-music
group I costumed was performing, and I knew what they were wearing--
handsome costumes (if I say so as shouldn't) intended to suggest a
range of the couple of centuries their music is drawn from. I asked
what the other performers would be wearing and learned that I was the
ONLY "character"--everyone else who would be working at the event
would be wearing "Shakespearean" outfits they were putting together
themselves from costume shops, prom dresses, tights, and basic
Simplicity tunics. So I figured historical accuracy was not going to
be much of an issue, and since I had very little time to get ready...
And since they were paying me $50 and I had no spare change of my own
to make a real investment...
I myself have NO really good costumes--I costume community theater,
mainly, and I'm usually the director in those situations.
So I too got a Simplicity pattern that I thought would say
"Shakespeare," bought some great fabric from the Clearance table at a
local upholstery store, and presented myself not as one of Henry's
dead dears but as the Duchess of Yore. It went over very well,
although most people didn't get the joke (maybe they thought I'd said
"York").
Anyway, that's the past to most: "yore." A mixed bag of pretty
things, odd things, big sleeves, and flat shoes.
These Hallowe'en stories have been very entertaining, but not very
surprising, since where the general public is saying "Yore," all
these specialists are saying "1482" or "1624"!
--Ruth Anne Baumgartner
scholar gypsy and amateur costumer
On Nov 5, 2007, at 4:11 AM, Kate M Bunting wrote:
Audrey Bergeron-Morin wrote :
And then there's the time I was invited to a medieval wedding...
the groom
was wearing a tricorn hat :-/
Yes, a lot of people seem to use "medieval" as a general term for
"long ago". When I do 17th century the public often refer to us as
medieval.
Here in Britain adults don't dress up for Hallowe'en, but we did
once wear costumes to work for one of those charity fundraising
days. I wore 17th century clothing, and I too felt a bit as though
I were cheating.
Kate Bunting
Librarian & 17th century reenactor.
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