Short Comment

Just a picture, and instead of no comment, since I just cannot shut up: a short comment,

In which this week, we see what happens when I don't have the *right* lining material, and the fabric store is having a black friday sale.... Oops. 
 

Accessories: tiny purple hat

On teh painting of the Woman in the Purple Dress we can se ethat she has SOMETHING on her head and that this something is purple and black, but not much more can be seen.

It can be something like a headdress, a coif, but taking into consideration what for and by whom the dress will be used (for mueum events) I was looking for a solution that can be used EASILY. 

That is wha I made this tiny hat, with a hairclip. 

The base came from chine, and I used some leftover fabric and lace from the dress and purple feathers for the decoration.

The Woman in the Purple Dress

 I already told you, that after a some discussion and deliberation the museum (which is the National Galery) asked me to reproduce a dress from two of their paintings. Lats week I showed you one of those, which was a medeival dress, this week I am bringing you the one that was a much bigger task, The Woman in the Purple Dress. The painting always had ambivalent reactions, many hailed it as the "Hungarian Mona Lisa", others criticized it for several reasons, one of those that it was painted in a studio (not outside). The modell is the painter's wife, who was pregnant at the time, and during the modeling she felt increasingly uncomfortable, not in the least, because the dress she made for herself was getting increasingly thight.

From the first moment we talked about this dress I set out to get just the perfect shade of purple taffeta, which was not an easy feat, as even though one can find many pictures of the painting on the Internet, all shows a slightly different shade of purple. 
I found three possible choice online, the museum people choose one, however, by the time all the paperwork went through and the advance payment arrived, the store did not had enough of it. I needed to start over. By that time the deadline was getting alarmingly close, aside of the color and the price, I had to consider the shipping time as well. I found one possibility in Poland and an other within the country, and the museum people choose the polish one. Cool, they are paying and I wanted them to be absolutely satisfied, so I ordered the polish one. 

By that time I had all the underwear done (in fact I had those done before the advance payment arived, because... well let's just talk about the dress, and not get into deadlines, because no matter how carefully I am trying to set them in my written offer, at the end the advance payment arrives when it is, and the deadline is set at what it is set, and there is always a rush....Anyhow...), and worked on the medeival dress when the package arrived from Poland. And when I opened it, I was about to cry. 

Not only is the fact that they are not selling fabric in 1 meter units but only 0,5 meters units, and turns out the price is double, which would still have been the lesser problem, but half of what I needed arrived (yes, the info is on the page, but pretty well hidden, and I was happy finding any purple taffeta, and was not paying enough attention). However, the fact that the color is "shot" or "changeable" wich means it is woven in a way where the warp threads as one color (purple) and the weft is anouther one, in this case red. Which resulted in a fabric that, loking at it from one way looked gorgeous, just the right shade of purple, but from every other was it was RED. 

While I was gaping to that fabric and trying to convince myself, that I can make it work, and the other half CAN make it in time, my messanger flashed. 

I told you, how I was actively searching for the right shade of taffeta for months, and that search inculed badgering the salespersons in every store of the I Love Textile chain for that purple taffeta. (You know, the chain that sells factory rejects, leftovers and whatnot at a fairly affordable price). By now their sales persons know me (and my reenactor friends), they know what we are looking for. So the blink on my messanger was the guy, Csaba from one of these stores, saying "Hey, I got some puple taffeta, do you still need it?" YESS! Yes, yes! I was in the store in no time, bought a bunch of it, and then collected what else purple fabric I found at home (you can see them in THIS post) and run up to the museum asking the museum people to go, check the fabrics against the painting and choose, which one I should use. They did see that the polish one would not work and chose the one that came in the last minute with the help of the I Love Textile store. 

I finally had all the fabric I needed, the underwear was done, I could set out sewing. The purple taffeta was a bit thinner than I would have preferred, but I underlined it with a fabric that was kind of stiff but not thightly woven. (The same way I lined my blue and silver bustle dress). That meant a ton of basting. 

I sewed about 30 meters of lace decoration on the skirt, and the hem was done with a wide bias strip. 

Once again by the time I got to sewing the deadline was really thight, so not much time to take pictures, but we managed to sneak in a few, when it was finished. 

The skirt actually has a train, but also there are strings and rings inside (just like on my bustle dress), so it can be "bustled up" (pulled up inside), so it does not gets dragged through the floor. 

Also an overskirt is made, though you cannot see clearly on the picture, just how it is made on the sitter's dress, but generally they wore such a thing.

And then I set out to make the jacket. I thought, my job will be easy, as last year I already managed to make a pattern that I was satisfied with, I just get out the mock up and the pattern I made for my bustle dress fit it onto the size M/38 dressform a friend loaned to me... but as much as I was searching for it, I could not find it. I dug through about 9 years worth of sewing patterns, mock up and modified patterns to no avail. I needed a quick solution. I turned to Truly Victorian patterns, though they did not have exactly the style I had in mind, they had one I could work with.

I only used this as a starting point, took of the ruffled peplum from the back and added peplum-y bits to the bottom all around, so after a couple of mock-ups it started to look like my bodice. 

Once again, my innate need to have the inside finished properly got the better of me, and I neded up sewing a lot by hand tacking down edges, sewing in boning cases, and adding the ruffled lace to the neck and sleeves by hand and other stuff. 

And the dress was done.

The last task was to make the sleeve-ruffles, that are buttoned inside the sleeve, so they can be taken out if they needed to laundered. 

When it was all done and finished, I walked over to the furniture store nearby, because they sell the metal hangers with the clips that has springs in them, they are the ones strong enough, and picked up dress-bags, packed up the dresses and took them to the museum. 

Spent some time with the museum-girls to show them each piece, and helped to dress one of them, so they know in just what order to put the pieces on. When she was fully dressed, she wanted t run down to the painting at once, to take pictures, so we did. 

It was a lot of work, and rather complicated, but at the end I was proud of the finished piece.

I had help from a few people, from Katalin, who lent me the dressmaker doll, Csabe Legyesi from I Love Textile who managed to procure just the right shade of taffeta in the last minute, Gizus, who helped me to get the pattern, Christopher who picked up packages for me (with the lace, the boning and other accessories), Norbert who drove me to pick up the dressform, and kept cheering me on, even when I was crying about the wrong shade or my hurting hands, and set up the place to photograph the pieces at 2 AM. 

Weekly SO

 Strong Opinion that is. 

Which this week is, that we seem to have forgotten the meaning of the word itself.

These days we cannot have an opinion. I mean, I voiced my opinion that I do not care for a certain designer's pieces, and boy, did I got the heat and the cold of it. I was mysogonist, hateful, racist, wanting to tear down a succesful woman, and a host of other things.

Not liking something, or someone's work (taste) does not mean I HATE him/her. Nor do I envy him/her, or his/her succes. 

There is the saying of agreeing in not to agree, agreeing to have different taste, opinion, etc, without screaming at each other. 

I don't exactly know where this is coming from, but "cancel culture" is a symptome of it (and not the cause), where people get cancelled for voicing an opinion. Where is the freedom of speach these days, the freedom of thought? 

Medieval

 So, I mentioned earlier, that people from the National Galery contacted me, that they would like to have some clothes to bring a couple of their famous pictures live for some historical interpretation sessions with children.

After a few meeting I managed to convince them, that it is not really possible to make one bustle dress that can be worn from girls aged 10-16 (you can fit them to ONE size and add enough so they can be adjusted a few kilos/cm extra up and down, but not a few SIZES), they decided to have two dresses from two pictures, that can be worn by the museum's employees, and many things shown to the youngsters (layers, cuts, support-system and a lot more). 

One of them was a lot more complicated affair, an 1870-ies bustle dress, for which you already seen what is under that dress.

The other painting was a medeival one, MS master's Visitation.

They wanted to represent Elizabeth, the figure on the right.

I set out looking for a silver brocade or taffeta, and the museum people selected a beautiful, though somewhat loosely woven silver brokade. I did convinced them, that in order to have more-or less historically accurate rendition, they HAVE TO HAVE a linen undershirt, not in least so they have a layer that, unlike the brocade, can be regurarly washed. 

Once again, the deadline was very thight, and I simply had no time to make a photo of the making process, I can only show you the finished pieces. I haven' used a bought pattern, I used the one I made my early renaissance dress about 9 years ago, and fitted it to a size 38 dressmaker's dress form.

Here it is worn by me. It is to thight for me, as in the order form the museum specified size M/38EU, and though I lost a lot of weight, I still consider myself on the bigger side of 38.

And here it is worn in the museum, at one of their event with children. 

Short comment

 I am watching Gentlemen Jack (absolutely faboulous costumes, yumm, though the rolls on the hair of the actress playing Anne Lister make me break out in hives, but then that is a topic for another post), and N. comes in, sits at the edge of the bed, looks at the screen... then asks me on the most bored, innocent voice:

"why do I know that is a BUSK?"

"The same reson, you know the difference between a Regency and a Victorian bonnet?"

 Because he listens to me.

Accessories: Wonder-shoes

 The last pink accessory - for now at least. 

As I mentioned more than once (I am sure), that as a reenactor, with historical attires, accessories are probably the hardest thing, especially shoes. 

Yes, there are a few place you can order some, but there is always a risk. You never know, if it is going to fit you or not, if the quality would worth the price or not. 

Early last year, I found a shoemaker, who made me a fairly low heeled, but high victorian boots that I use for my sports attire. Then I gave him the next task. 
Make me shoes that look like rococo shoes, but comfortable, and comforst should include heels, that cannot be "high", higher than 2-3 cm. 

I collected a big Pinterest board, showed him the shapes I loved, the height I hope I can still walk in, and he set out to work. 

He made me the first pair from black, to wear with the Maria Theresa gown.

 and I loved them so much I wanted another pair, in pastel color. The shoemaker told me, than it is best of I choose the leather myself, and tol me to go to Légrádi Zoltán, so I did.

I swear, I did not meant to get PINK shoes. I did not. But when I saw that pink leather I lost it, and decided, that I WILL have pink shoes to go with my pink dress. 

The shoes were made by József Zombori @Baktócipő