West of England Costume Society meeting, November 2012

Next year WECS is 40 so in celebration the society has decided to do a second round of something it did for its 25^th. Enter Patterns of Fashion II. The morning meeting was to get together volunteers and divide into 4 (or 5) groups. Each group is going to recreate a garment from Janet Arnold’s Patterns of Fashion. The four garments chosen are:

c.1931-2 Fuschia pink silk chiffon in the Museum of Fashion Bath.

c.1798-1805 Morning dress in white cotton with a small purple pattern in Salisbury Museum

(to go with this they are planning to do a c1800 military uniform)

c 1708-9 sap green brocaded silk mantua in Shrewsbury Museum

1562 white satin gown and crimson body of Eleanora di Toledo in the Pitti Palace Florence

 

My group is the Eleanora and two lucky people (not me) are going to Florence to have a look at the original. We have indicated our skills, plain sewing, pattern cutting, embroidery, materials sourcing, etc. We have a goldwork expert who is teaching others how to do the goldwork embroidery, and we have less than a year so it is going to be busy.

In the afternoon we had a talk by Chris Seals of Farthingales, seen above in his hussar outfit. He makes Napoleonic period military costume, examples of which can also be seen here.