On Friday you’re going to have a single vote with which to pick a final pattern for our Grand YWU Single Pattern Project. So today, let me give you some context for your final choice.
When we have a winner – what then?
When we all know what the Single Pattern is going to be, the first thing that’s going to go through your mind is how you’ll interpret it. How will you tackle this pattern? What do you want to do with it? What fabric will you use? Where will you wear it? How much can you alter or change it? Will it suit you?
The one thing you must really understand is that I want this project to set you free, not restrict you. I’m not going to be drawing up a book of minutely detailed rules and no-one’s going to be marking you on how well you’ve followed them.
Design
In fact, I want this project to be freeing. I want you to be free to do an accurate historical interpretation, or to make it pure fantasy. You can go steampunk, you can go modern, you can try making it with PVC or newspaper, just to see whether it’ll work. You can also modernise it and make it something you could wear to work tomorrow, for example. The only rule is that you must be able to show that it began with our chosen pattern.
Skill level
I also want this to be a freeing project for every person, no matter what skill level you enjoy. If you’re a pro, go nuts with copious underpinnings, soutache braid or embroidery (we’ll have plenty of further ideas for you to run with).
If you’re just starting out, feel free to keep it absolutely simple, or just take a section of the pattern to concentrate on. You might want to concentrate on the bolero jacket if we choose the 1860s dress, for example, or take the 1885 bustle skirt only, or do a piece of embroidery based on what you can see on the Empire dress, if that’s our final choice.
In fact, maybe those who are more experienced will also want to take a small piece only, and completely handstitch it, for example, or use your fabric budget to make it in silk rather than compromise on fabric for the entire outfit.
Keep in mind when you’re voting that versatility is going to be the most important element of the project.
The one thing you must really understand is that I want this project to set you free, not restrict you. I’m not going to be drawing up a book of minutely detailed rules and no-one’s going to be marking you on how well you’ve followed them.
Complexity
Feel free to stretch us: perhaps you’re not confident drafting one or other of the dresses if you have fitting issues, but remember that that’s our problem when we write the tutorials – our job will be to make resizing possible regardless of your shape. In showing you how to do it, you’ll get new ideas about how to do it in future. Use this opportunity to make us show you how to do the hard stuff!
Underpinnings
This brings me to underpinnings: many of you have noticed that in reproducing one of these gowns “as is”, you’re going to need varying levels of corsetry or hoopage or bustle. For the ambitious amongst you, this will only enhance the challenge, and for some of you, the underpinnings are pre-existing in your closet. For others, this will only make the project more complex.
We will, of course, offer tutorials on making the underpinnings too, along with suggestions for those on a budget. And since there’ll need to be quite a few tutorials, plus a couple of months’ grace to let you finish your outfits, I’m not anticipating a deadline earlier than about June 2009, so there’s plenty of time!
But if you’d like to modernise the outfits, you will be able to negotiate making the outfits for a modern, uncorsetted body. This is absolutely valid: historical costume is not just there to be copied, it is also there to be studied, adapted and re-invented. What hurdles will you have to cross in making these clothes for the modern body? How do the two compare? We’ll look into this too.
Budget
This is an important element in the choice for many of you: what can you afford to make?
Points to keep in mind:
- What do you have in your stash?
- Could you swap something from your stash on our forum and get something new and exciting to work with that way?
- Charity shops, markets and auction sites are all good sources of cut price fabric – I’ve recently seen some wonderful cotton velvet curtains on Ebay in the loveliest faded browny-pink! Scarlett would approve.
- Remember that women of the past were usually on a budget too. What would an American pioneer or a European farmer’s wife have done in the 1700s or 1800s?
- You don’t have to make the entire outfit – you are free to concentrate your efforts on a single element, if the winner is a suitably multi-piece design.
- Consider thinking laterally – remember that newspaper dress I talked about!
Variety: the spice of it
I hope that by now you’re beginning to see what this Single Pattern Project is really all about: variety. The more people take part in the greater a variety of ways, the more there will be for us all to enjoy and learn. By comparing our different approaches we can gain new ideas and inspiration, learn from each other and find out how vast and nuanced the construction of clothing can be. And most incredible of all is that all of it will come from a single pattern.
What else do *you* think we should keep in mind when we’re voting on Friday?
