The craze for historical pageants staged in Britain by local communities at the beginning of the twentieth century stimulated a widespread public engagement with historical costume. As well as thousands of performers, and tens of thousands of spectators, pageants involved hundreds of local people in sewing parties who spent months making the costumes required for these outdoor re-enactments of episodes of local history. This article investigates how pageant costumes were designed, made or sourced, on the large scale required, and the cost implications this involved. Whilst costume designers were acknowledged, the employment of professional dressmakers and milliners often necessary to complete the work received less recognition. Florence Edwards, a professional theatrical dressmaker, is one of the few who can be identified. The role of the London theatrical costumier Willie Clarkson, a supplier to many pageants, is also examined. During pageant preparations, local people actively researched dress history, and in the case of Emily Ashdown her interest led to a lifelong career as a dress historian.
{"title":"Dressing the Pageanteers: The Local People and Theatre Professionals who Costumed Edwardian Historical Pageants","authors":"Ellie Reid","doi":"10.3366/cost.2024.0285","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/cost.2024.0285","url":null,"abstract":"The craze for historical pageants staged in Britain by local communities at the beginning of the twentieth century stimulated a widespread public engagement with historical costume. As well as thousands of performers, and tens of thousands of spectators, pageants involved hundreds of local people in sewing parties who spent months making the costumes required for these outdoor re-enactments of episodes of local history. This article investigates how pageant costumes were designed, made or sourced, on the large scale required, and the cost implications this involved. Whilst costume designers were acknowledged, the employment of professional dressmakers and milliners often necessary to complete the work received less recognition. Florence Edwards, a professional theatrical dressmaker, is one of the few who can be identified. The role of the London theatrical costumier Willie Clarkson, a supplier to many pageants, is also examined. During pageant preparations, local people actively researched dress history, and in the case of Emily Ashdown her interest led to a lifelong career as a dress historian.","PeriodicalId":517550,"journal":{"name":"Costume","volume":"55 11","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140399311","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The Costume Society Grants and Awards 2024","authors":"","doi":"10.3366/cost.2024.0300","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/cost.2024.0300","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":517550,"journal":{"name":"Costume","volume":"42 5","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140400981","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
An extant farthingale sleeve support and a silk satin sleeve to wear over it form part of a collection of garments still owned by the Willoughby family to which it originally belonged in the 1590s or early 1600s. This paper provides an insight into its history as part of the Willoughby women’s wardrobe and a technical description of its materials, manufacture and current form. Its construction matches contemporary documentary evidence for farthingale sleeves which were assumed to form part of elite dress. Evidence presented here suggests that the fashion moved rapidly through society and became a feature of ordinary women’s dress by the early seventeenth century.
{"title":"Borne Out with Whalebone: A Late Sixteenth-Century Farthingale Sleeve","authors":"Ninya Mikhaila","doi":"10.3366/cost.2024.0284","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/cost.2024.0284","url":null,"abstract":"An extant farthingale sleeve support and a silk satin sleeve to wear over it form part of a collection of garments still owned by the Willoughby family to which it originally belonged in the 1590s or early 1600s. This paper provides an insight into its history as part of the Willoughby women’s wardrobe and a technical description of its materials, manufacture and current form. Its construction matches contemporary documentary evidence for farthingale sleeves which were assumed to form part of elite dress. Evidence presented here suggests that the fashion moved rapidly through society and became a feature of ordinary women’s dress by the early seventeenth century.","PeriodicalId":517550,"journal":{"name":"Costume","volume":"13 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140398961","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
‘Mother, Daughter, Doll’ and ‘Colourful Sitārah’ are two photographic collections by Boushra Almutawakel (b. 1969). These collections aim to visualize the conservative grip on Yemeni women from the 1960s up to the present day. This article discusses the progression of the blackness of female covering caused by social, political and cultural developments that are special to the Yemeni context. Almutawakel's photographs celebrate the sitārah, the traditional colourful Yemeni cape, which was altered into a black, shapeless garment through the ideological invasion of Wahhabism in Yemen, which has led to increased isolation and invisibility for women there.
{"title":"Sitārah: Exploring the Transformation of Yemeni Women's Dress Code over Time via Boushra Almutawakel's Photography","authors":"Shada Bokir","doi":"10.3366/cost.2024.0288","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/cost.2024.0288","url":null,"abstract":"‘Mother, Daughter, Doll’ and ‘Colourful Sitārah’ are two photographic collections by Boushra Almutawakel (b. 1969). These collections aim to visualize the conservative grip on Yemeni women from the 1960s up to the present day. This article discusses the progression of the blackness of female covering caused by social, political and cultural developments that are special to the Yemeni context. Almutawakel's photographs celebrate the sitārah, the traditional colourful Yemeni cape, which was altered into a black, shapeless garment through the ideological invasion of Wahhabism in Yemen, which has led to increased isolation and invisibility for women there.","PeriodicalId":517550,"journal":{"name":"Costume","volume":"134 3","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140403455","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Selective List of Recent Articles from Periodicals","authors":"Hilary Davidson","doi":"10.3366/cost.2024.0289","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.3366/cost.2024.0289","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":517550,"journal":{"name":"Costume","volume":"2 2","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-03-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140401689","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}