I have been spending so much time trying to keep up that I haven’t. So today there are a few tasks to do. I had enough sleep last night to have some focus.
I recently shared how I approach a frock.
This is not my exact process for every single garment I have made. And it doesn’t include how I got to the point of having a portrait in the first place. But generally even for media recreations I look at the full context, I’ll look at what else the designer has worked on, find any interviews, find making of, and sometimes I’ll be able to figure out what resources they had access to during any training they had.
The Just Breathe gown is a perfect example of how line art can be interpreted so far from the original and yet be immediately recognisable.
Duerer was really fascinated by this style that he used it a few times.
It might be easy to see my documentation and end results as things have been easy to find, most of it hasn’t been. But as an early adopter of the internet it’s mostly been those of us curating from art history and archives to find that information.
Fashion history has in my life time undergone a similar growth. I was simply not able to do the kind of research I am doing now at a university level. I tried. But couldn’t so I did my BSc while making as much use of the libraries as I could.
So it’s been exciting to see how very easy it is now to at least find the depiction of clothing by simple searches. But it is still based on who is doing the curating and why.
I’m trying to also work on my pattern book, it’s taking a bit longer because yes it was based on me and I have a degree of ease in using extant patterns and tailors books in that the patterns are very easy to use with very little change to fit me.
I’d really like to make it much more easy to use by anyone who wants to make or wear the garments, so am working on the instructions, line art for how to fit, the patterns, and figures. So it might take a while. I don’t want anyone to feel like an after thought if I publish too soon- my draft was a draft only.
As the extant tailors books really are a one size only deal (all of this is going into the book) it’s not a simple case of using modern scaling. And it has taken some time for me to use extant garments, the entire history of tailoring and dress making books, and artwork of the same fashion worn by people of different builds. There really isn’t a single scaling but is very regional- support and fit building built with layers is part of this. And so is regional style. But I am going to use some modern drafting books to be able to explain what modern ideas of scale are compared to earlier.
So there is so much I have not been able to web because I don’t want to not include everything that informs my process. The NRW stuff is waiting on one final piece of the puzzle and it seems fairly minor but it totally changed my understanding so now I need to make sure that new understanding is accurate.