Fisherwomen project –
just about done
The purpose of the task
was to try out working from existing garments, find out what
information was needed, what was important, and how this could be
translated into a Gwendoline costume.
Stephen's loan of the
costume from the “Women's Voices” project was inspired.
Task 1 examine and
record garments, drawing, measuring, noting details and guessing at
construction methods. Learnt under duress the need to be very methodical and precise.
Task 2 – look for
contemporary images, artefacts, sources – comparing to and looking for
contextual background. This was far more time consuming than
expected. - internet is great but it still takes time – finding
images on google wasn't enough – paintings had to be credited and
checked against the photographic records. Both have drawbacks , the
“naturalistic” poses, the romantic visions, the selective
subjects, but both gave a lot of information about how such garments
were worn, by whom and idea of when. It did feel a bit like cheating
knowing that the costume was based on Sutcliffe's photographs and
having some knowledge of the Staithes group of painters. But I have
found new, interesting artists and learnt a lot more about the
fishing industry and the communities dependant on it. At times the
lack of detailed information on the web is frustrating- pinterest
images which have lost their origins, undated paintings, uncredited
photographs. A lot is available in blog posts but it is hard to judge
the quality of information and whether it is sourced fact or opinion.
Part of this task was creating my own images-illustrations really- trying
to imagine how the garments I had could have been worn. I am a visual
being, so seeing made the necessary connection between what I was
touching and the research I was compiling and reading.
Task 3 –
Reconstructing the garments.
This was supposed to be
the fun bit. Referenced Janet Arnold's books and other records to
compare with other contemporary garments and to check my own
observations with her far more informed and experienced notes! I
redid the measurements and took a whole lot more to create pattern
pieces and fitted them to Gwendoline. Oh dear -Gwen is only human-ish so
quite a bit of adjustment was required. Marking the seams on her and
fitting to them saved my sanity a few times. Following the original
as closely as possible Gwen's version was put together, darts,
boning casing, flat lining and then seams. The reduction in scale has
caused the usual additional problems- and yes, I did end up using
some thin but fairly rigid plastic packaging for the boning – and
no, still haven't put the roller blind up. Fastenings are becoming a
real headache – reducing the scale of buttonholes was unexpectedly
problematic– the length shrinks to match the button but the width
can not reduce beyond a certain point or it just doesn't hold the
fabric edge. This is obvious now, but had to be learnt the hard way.
I ended up working them by hand to cover the chewed edges and they
look far too clumsy( take glasses off and stand back – they look
fine!). I guess doing small scale detail on a fabric that frays at
full scale was always a poor idea. The other bright idea –
inserting plastic boning of unknown parentage – wonderful until I
had to press the jacket! The next not really seen problem was the
centre front opening – I was concerned about the buttons being too
big visually but the real issue was the amount of allowance needed
for the holes. The overlap is giant scale against the rest – it
would cover the first dart on the opposite front if I let it. So no
resolution yet – still questioning whether to try it, to find a new
source for mini buttons, or to cheat and surface mount the row of
buttons and have hooks and eyes underneath.
Oh well.
Do you like the background? a bit Wuthering - an old painting of N Yorks Moors but it seemed appropriate for a Whitby based project. And of course I like the back best.
The project is just
about done – some tidying round required. Sorting the button issue
is the most obvious thing but I would like to redo and improve some
of the paintings – I have to decide exactly what I want from them
– they suffer from a lack of clarity of purpose and expectation.
When all is complete I will condense all of the Fisherwomen posts
into a summary page and attach. It has been an interesting and
enlightening process – the amount and level of detailed notes
needed was an eye opener – working downstairs and having the
costume upstairs became my fitness regime. There is a huge difference
between information used for looking and recording and what is needed
for making!
