September 24, 2019 Bev Hulme Leave a comment
Our second Uni module was to design and create a garment, in this case a Napoleonic style waistcoat, which fitted a costume brief for a specific performance, while learning lots of new techniques, which in turn helped us to put together a technical file.
The Brief
The specific performance we were researching was a production called ‘Napoleon Blown Apart’ which had originally been staged by the Arcola Theatre in Dalston.
Based on a true story of a failed assassination attempt on Napoleon in 1800 when a bomb went off in Paris as he was supposed to be en route to the Opera. His carriage had been delayed so he wasn’t in the vicinity of the bomb, but we were asked to design a waistcoat for someone who may have been caught up in the explosion. There’s a big hint here… costumes sometimes need to be distressed or damaged to fit a storyline, despite hours of work you may have put into their creation, and there were a few tears shed on this project I can tell you!
The Technical File
We covered a lot of topics in our tecnical file including how patterns and colours work, natural and synthetic dyeing, types of embroidery and other fabric embellishment and making different pockets. I was imagining most costumes wouldn’t need pockets (they’re really too fiddly!) but, of course, where else would the performer hide their mobile phone? (Just kidding! But they often do have props which they need to keep upon their person!) We also tested out different fabric types and did lots of the (in)famous burn testing to identify fabric properties and then trialled different seam types and finishing options for raw edges. That might sound a bit boring but actually I was surprised what I knew but couldn’t quite remember exactly.. it never hurts to go through the simple stuff and refresh your memory.. and I found out about a few more options I’d never heard of. I found a great book online with lots of information about seams and finishes…yes, now I’m at college I’m a total anorak about researching everything in detail!!
The Waistcoat Design
My technical folder became two technical folders at this point as I got to grips with designing my little waistcoat.. Its quite overwhelming looking at old waistcoats for inspiration. I found quite a few on-line at the Met Museum, LACMA and at the V and A.
I can’t imagine how these seamstress could produce something so exquisite with the all that detail. it must have taken a long time to complete each one.
I really liked the shorter designs of waistcoats and found this one above with tiny silk paintings on the pockets which I decided to try to copy on my garment. Finding inspiration for the overall design was a challenge, until walking my dog I realised the inspiration was right there! I live in Greenwich, London, and as well as the magnificent architecture of the Naval College and a beautiful park, many gardens still had flowers which were late flowering probably due to the very temperate climate we have here. I tried a few different options but settled on some white roses, with a tinge of pale pink under their petals, and beautiful red, orange and green hips. Instead of using full hydrangea flower heads I thought I could take one of the tiny flowers and use that.
The colour palette was interesting and had to be based on available dyes at the time. I already had some teal silk fabric left over from an outfit I had made to wear to a wedding so it was just a case of putting together a colour palette that worked with this base fabric and then designing the embroidery from the flowers I had photographed – and a few I pinched and from peoples front gardens and pressed!
This is the design I finally decided upon. I used tracing paper on top of the pattern front piece to ensure the design would fit perfectly on the front edge and find where to position the buttonholes. The buttons will be the hydrangea flower and the strip at the top is going to be on the pocket flap.
The roses will be cream appliqued silk with some gold and pink stitching. The rest of the design will be embroidered using different stitches. The rose buds will be in orange and lighter green. The hydrangea flowers will be a burgundy with gold centres and the rose leaves a darker green.
The waistcoat pattern was provided by college so we weren’t required to fit it to anyone in particular, as this was our first project. We trialled different pockets with a flap or welt but my silk material was fraying so quickly I agreed to make false pockets on my garment as long as I put the pocket trials in my technical folder. To give the waistcoat front a solid base I backed my silk fabric with calico which we washed first to ensure there would be no additional shrinking. As part of our technical training I dyed some cotton to line the waistcoat front and I purchased some lovely rust/orange linen to make the back. My dyeing should have come out a darker colour but I didn’t make the colour strong enough from the test volume to the main dye vat. Luckily it was still in the shade range so I was happy to use the colour I had created.
The Embroidery
The next step was to prick and pounce the embroidery design on the front silk/calico pieces. This was easy to do but I soon realised the chalk pattern was rubbing off before I could embroider it with all the handling. I found the best solution was to take a ‘Frixion’ pen (these are the pens that you can rub out on paper) and trace over my chalk design. If any pen marks remain visible they will disappear when you press the garment – but be careful to always test it on a scrap of fabric before you use it on your main piece just in case it doesn’t disappear.
I then started to make the tiny cream roses to applique onto the design but they were quite troublesome because the silk was fraying so quickly. I backed them with some light polyester lining but after stitching and turning out they hardly resembled my original shapes. I then hand stitched small lines on them in pink and gold so you could see the effect of the petal curling up. You also have to keep your hands really clean and be prepared to wash your tiny applique pieces because they get very grubby, very quickly!
A detailed view of the embroidery and applique. Its not perfect and a trained embroiderer would probably be horrified but for my first attempt, and working to a tight deadline, I’m very happy with it.
The Silk Pictures
The tiny silk pictures on the original waistcoats were hand painted and often the subjects were classical. There was no way I could do that myself so I had to think of an alternative. Years ago I printed pictures on T-Shirts using a transfer created using my inkjet printer so I googled what options there were available nowadays and straight away found some information on how to create our own printer ‘fabric’ by mounting it onto freezer paper. I was a little nervous of doing that on my brand-new, bought specially for my Uni course, printer so I was happy to find both silk and cotton ready mounted onto A4 paper sheets to purchase on-line. The make I chose is called ‘PhotoFabric’ and it worked perfectly.
To make the Greenwich picture I took a photo of the Maritime Museum and surrounding buildings but of course it has a lovely background of Canary Wharf which isn’t exactly redolent of Greenwich in the 18th Century! I was going to have to remove modern London and so the next step was to teach my self some basic tasks on Adobe photoshop!
I decided to focus on the smaller building on the right of the picture and zoomed in to it. I then had to remove the new buildings and ‘add’ some sky which I took on another sunnier day. Once I had done that all I just had to remove the modern people on the left of the photo. I printed this onto paper but it still looked very ‘modern’ and not like a painting. I then decided to put this picture on my light box and trace over it. I used watercolour pencils and paints to colour my picture and it started to resemble an old painting.
Once my painting was complete I scanned it back into my computer and then tested the printing, first on paper and then on a sheet of the silk. I took the opportunity to recolour it as a sepia picture but I preferred the coloured option as it worked really well with my fabric and colour choices.
I even added a few deer which would have been found in the park in those days!
I printed two copies as mirror images, and stitched one on each garment front. Then I added the embroidered pocket flaps on the top and edged it all with an old gold braid. The final decoration I chose were some tiny silver ‘spangles’ These were a recycled gift from one of my Uni colleagues and the decoration was complete. I should have taken a note of how long it took me to complete all this hand stitching but I think it was about 2-3 weeks.
Once the decoration was complete I could start to put the garment together. By this time the was fraying quite badly even though I had it backed on to the calico. Luckily I had very generous seam allowances and it all went together beautifully. I made the ‘jiggers’ for the back with hand-stitched holes for the cord. Once the front was attached to the lining I could add the buttonholes and sew the buttons on. I have written a separate post for the buttons which worked beautifully. The buttonholes were done on my amazing sewing machine (the Brother Innovis NV1300) but I didn’t like the look as everything else had been hand-sewn so I simply went over the stitched buttonholes with some hand sewing and that looked much more appropriate.
I was so happy with the finished garment. I didn’t believe I could do that much embroidery in such a short space of time and it looked pretty good! The spangles are perfect and I was so proud of the silk printing, from working out the process, creating my picture to the finished effect!
Now for the difficult bit…!
One of the most important things to learn about costume-making is they can’t always look brand new and ‘just as you’ve made them’. Especially now we are living in a world of high definition filming. It just doesn’t feel believable for example, after someone has been in a battle or explosion, their clothes are clean and perfect. What if a lady in a long dress is walking down a muddy street..? The bottom of her dress will be dirty and quickly raggedy! If you want perfection – do the couture course! Ok, thats the theory, but when you’ve made something for the first time and its beautiful its quite hard to imagine destroying it…
Breaking down, or distressing, is actually quite a fun process! Your stock equipment would be a cheese grater, file, teapot and maybe some acrylic paint. I used a concoction of strong, cold tea, then crushed some garden mud and leaves in a pestle and mortar with some cold water and rubbed that into one of the front pieces. Once it was wet it was quite easy to rub with a cheese grater to make it look ragged and then I tested to see if I could burn a couple of areas to look as though there was some flying burning debris which hit my character. (I quite enjoyed doing it although I still would have preferred not to..) My dog even came and had a sniff and walked on it while it was drying on the kitchen floor! I coated the area with some diluted PVA glue, which dries clear, to ‘hold it together’.
Maybe it would be easier to pass your garment to someone else to do the breaking down so they aren’t so ‘precious’ about the work already done – just totally focussed on the final look for the performance! One other thing – you would probably have to make two identical garments, one for the scene before the explosion and one for afterwards!
The Finished Waistcoat
My final garment was much better than I could have imagined at the start of the project. We learnt a lot of new processes and detailed information about fabrics, dyeing and breaking down which I had never tried before. This is exactly why I wanted to come to study and I’m getting so much out of the course..
I hope you like the finished garment and thanks for reading! If you need more information on any of the processes then please contact me using the form below.