> individuals learn and make their own compromises. There may be > a conflict of technique vs. the overall look — the machine French seam with > the non-offensive exterior appearance. > > Judges of competitions have a difficult job of determining which > compromise is better than another, not to mention comparing work portraying > different time periods!
Don't start thinking one period is "compared to" another period in Historical masquerades. They aren't. Entrants with simple costumes are often daunted by the big mid-Victorian or high Georgian stuff. But their presentations can be just as compelling as Anne Bolyn's was this year (I still get goosebumps). And just as simple as the 1959 Dior. Certainly compulsive multi-layered mid-Victorian is no "better" than the simplest Medieval when it comes to docs or construction skill. Given that there are more things to have to sew for an 1870s or 1880s outfit, the simple Medieval entrant could point to raising the period breed of sheep, and to hand spinning, hand weaving, hand dying, hand embroidery, and hand stitched construction, none of which were common practice for rich city women in the Industrial Revolution. And good fit was good fit, whenever it was. The best historical judges are the ones familiar with the look and construction details of a broad range of time periods. It only gets difficult job if a contestant is doing something you know very little about. But hey - that's another reason for having good docs. We judges this year jumped at the chance to learn things we hadn't known before (which is why I did the write-up about documentation first). And we were glad not everything was from the same period (how boring that would have been). But evaluating compromises isn't as difficult as it might seem. As a judge I want to see how skillfully you executed that compromise. Historical masquerades are a costume-maker's competition, not a fashion show, not Antiques Road Show, and not Halloween*. That you solved an un-solvable problem, and did it cleverly, is a credit to your skill. Persistence, and not settling for a bad compromise in something like fabric, is a credit to your skill. Learning a new technique because it's period, then taking the time to perfect it, is a credit to your skill. *Decades ago, at a small regional Con, we SF judges spent almost a day and a half working on it before we convinced our techies it was the contestant's show, not theirs, and got them to stop calling our entrants "the talent" and otherwise making unreasonable demands of them. They were great after that, and it was a good show. -- Carolyn Kayta Barrows -- Blank paper is God's way of saying it ain't so easy being God. -- _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list [email protected] http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
