Documenting Costumes

This is a distillation of a discussion that several costumers contributed to. These are general rules that most experienced costumers and masquerade judges agree on.

When trying to document a costume for historical or re-creation purposes, assume that:

• People have not seen the movie or anime.
• People have not read the book.
• People have not seen the famous artwork that you have derived your costume from.
• People do not know about the historical period or country clothing of your costume.

Document Sources

• A picture. Bring it or a copy of it. If you can do a color copy of the original artwork, book cover, etc., that is probably best. This works well for movie, anime, book cover, and artwork sources.

• A description in a book. Bring a copy of the description paragraph or pages plus bibliographical information.

• Pierre Pettinger recommends:
  I'm no expert at historical documentation. However, I think detailing your source's credentials with a summary of the relative comments from her would be sufficient. For example:

  Dr Knowitall, Professor of All History at Fabric U. Author of 170 books on the vast differences in costume in the Abbey at Nice between August and November 1732.

  According to Dr. Knowitall, the abbots hem was always 0.4321 inches.

  I would think this is appropriate.

• A doll. Bring the doll as your source.

Historical Considerations

• As a general rule, the more documentation you have, the better. However, the judges are not expecting to read a thesis document. In fact, they won't. Lisa Ashton was told by an expert that judges don't want a long-winded thesis. She writes one anyway for herself, to remember the project, but hands in a series of short essays on each piece of the garment, i.e., a paragraph on the shape and construction of the corsets of that period, the farthingale, the bodice, etc. For each piece, she:
  • Briefly discusses fabric choices.
  • What was available then.
  • The sources used.
  She also includes:
  • Copies of line drawings.
  • Patterns from the sources.
  • Color reproductions of plates to show the shape of the French hood, etc.

  "Pictures of any kind are good. I took photos of the process, and of me wearing the chemise, the corset, etc., so the judges could see what it all looked like. In addition, I had one page where I glued swatches of each fabric and labeled it."

  "I often do detailed documentation even of SF and F costumes, especially if it is a figure from mythology, or if I am doing research on the costume "profile," such as I did for the samurai. Even though it was a fantasy samurai (rather than any sort of historical samurai) I wanted to demonstrate that I had used examples of the real thing to formulate my own designs."

  "Workmanship judges often appreciate this."

• Be careful on your colors. Remember that radioactive orange is a recent color. Remember to research what colors were used for your period and country you are re-creating. Some colors were available in some countries but not others and to some classes of people but not others.

If you do something different from actual historical, be sure to document what it is and why. Legitimate reasons can include:

• The material (buttons, etc.) is no longer made or is prohibitively expensive.

• You used a different technique for an intentional presentation reason.

• Machine sewing instead of hand sewing. You might want to include a sample of your hand sewing to show that you could do it.

• Historical Interpretation allows you to do a historical garment with a twist.
  My favorite is one that Carolyn Kayta Barrows did. She did a Martha Washington Revolutionary War dress that was accurate with hand stitching, and with quilting done on the underskirt. A beautifully done garment with one major material difference: she chose to use camouflage material.

  Her interpretation was done on the premise of what Martha Washington might have worn if she had had the opportunity.

If you have any further information to share about this topic, please e-mail Carole Parker for inclusion.