Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2007 - 59

book

reviews
On the other hand, you shouldn't wait for
summer to dig into these two resources to increase your knowledge of costume and fashion
history.
While leaﬁng through clothing research
books and looking at the fantastic historical
garments, I often think, "What does this look
like in person?" "Are there really what looks
like a million rows of pin tucks in that skirt?"
"How tall was this person who actually wore
this?" Yes, the location of the garment is usually credited, but now you can ﬁnd the collection in Clothing and Textile Collections in
the United States.
There is nothing like seeing a garment
in reality to appreciate the value of the workmanship and ﬁnd out the story behind it and
the person who wore it. Many times, vintage
clothing is photographed beautifully, but when
viewed up close you can see more detail, the
wear or repair, and realize the delicate nature
(or not so delicate; some of these have survived for hundreds of years) of the garments.
Queen and Berger, with help and support
from the Costume Society of America, teams of
researchers and state editors, present in this
one book much needed, valuable information.
Organized alphabetically by state, showing
towns where museums are located, along with
major routes, the guide provides an excellent
directory of clothing and textile collections.
The book should come with a travel voucher
or gas coupons. It almost begs you to walk out
the door and see all the country has to offer in
clothing collections.
In the introduction, the editors give helpful hints for behind-the-scenes visits. Calling
ahead to see if a particular item is on display is
helpful. If not, ask if a private showing would
be possible. Make a class ﬁeld trip, and as they
suggest, thank your tour guide or curator personally and in writing. The guide will help ﬁnd
new collections that you may not have even
thought existed.
When the general (costume/clothing interested) public thinks of clothing or textile
collections, we might only think of the major
collections. The Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, with

THEATRE

DESIGN

over 80,000 pieces, or the Hope B. McCormick
Costume Center at the Chicago Historical Society, with more than 50,000 pieces, are only two
very large collections. Now you can discover
the smaller, lesser known collections, which
are sometimes more fun than the larger ones. I
have elbowed my way through many exhibits at
the Met, and while those are spectacular, it is
nice to ﬁnd the less publicized collections. At a
smaller collection you and a few others might
be the sole viewers, not you and dozens trying
to read the same small square of text next to
the glass case. Often, the collections displayed
in historic houses are far more intimate and
sometimes things can be viewed closer than in
the large collections.
There's also an alphabetical index so you
can look up a speciﬁc museum by name and
ﬁnd where it is located. Maybe a further step
would be to index the collections by historic
period, although many are of course not limited to a speciﬁc era, but organized by a style
or type of clothing. There might be a supplemental index, with headings such as "Inaugural gowns," "Wedding Attire," "Funeral Attire,"
"Military Uniforms," or "Occupational Clothing." While this book will keep all of us occupied for quite some time, I would love to
also have a guide to the collections in Canada,
Puerto Rico, or maybe even South America.
Europe would be out of the scope of the Costume Society of America, but what a fascinating project. In your personal research odyssey,
perhaps you can see a major portion of the
2,604 collections that preserve clothing, costumes, uniforms, accessories, textiles, ﬂags,
and quilts. As the editors also suggest, contribute generously if there is no fee for the exhibition, as this promotes the continuation of these
collections and future collections.
How many times have you as a costume
designer or technician wanted to know more
about the images in historical research books?
There are many perfectly reliable volumes that
reprint old pattern catalogs or ready-to-wear
clothes and provide the basic period research
you are looking for, but often you need more
information. How did they drape or pattern
that skirt? What grain-line is that pattern piece

really cut on? Joy Emery, project director of
the Commercial Pattern Archive, goes the extra
step and gives us as much detail as possible.
CoPA is a noble project and most helpful to those of us in the costuming industry. It
was supported by the Betty Williams Pattern
Fund, USITT's Endowment Fund, the University
of Rhode Island Foundation Faculty Assistance
Fund, the URI Council for Research, the Rhode
Island Foundation Archive, Document, Display and Disseminate Fund, and the National
Endowment for the Humanities. Combining
fourteen different pattern collections, including the well-known collection of the late Betty
Williams, the Fashion Institute of Technology,
The Museum of Costume-Bath, The Museum of
the Moving Image, and her own personal collection, Emery has consolidated an archive of
one hundred years worth of men's, women's,
and children's original patterns. The archive
not only includes the front image of the pattern
but historical information such as how much
the pattern originally cost, its size, location,
date, and the pattern layout, when available.
This last piece of information is what I
found the most helpful. When looking at period research you can make an educated guess
as to the exact pieces that go into constructing a period garment, but how nice to have the
actual pattern pieces to look at, even if they
are in small scale. When recreating a vintage
pattern, detail is half the battle. The more
information you have to start with, the more
closely the recreation will resemble the original. After all, this is the ultimate point, not to
construct or design something that "will do,"
but to completely convince you and your audience that this costume is an original period
garment.
Unfortunately the majority of the 18681900 images were from Harper's Bazar and do
not have the pattern layout, but that is a minor
point. As the patterns move into the 1900s, the
pattern companies provided more and more
information to their customers about the garments and subsequently to us. As the patterns
progress from 1900 to 1968 the pattern layouts become even more detailed, making it
easier to discern how a particular garment
Copyright 2007 United States Institute for Theatre Technology, Inc.

TECHNOLOGY
WINTER

2007

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Theatre Design & Technology - Winter 2007