The first and probably most important word. No matter what your historical costuming needs - whether you need to know one little detail for a passage in a novel or you're attempting to recreate a 16th century gown in perfect detail - everything begins with research.
But what does that actually mean, and how do you go about it?
What Is Research?
This may seem stupidly obvious, but research is fact-finding. It's investigation. It's the first half of the case in Gyakuten Saiban, where you're hunting down clues, often without any solid idea of how the crime happened or what clues you actually need to build your case. Geekery aside, that's actually a pretty solid analogy.
Research involves seeking out evidence. Depending on what your project is and how you intend to tackle it, research may come before or after the DESIGN stage of the process. Although many people prefer to do as much research as possible, and find research very enjoyable, there is not an obligatory amount of research you must do - research should serve the project, it does not need to become an end in and of itself.
Of course once you have the bug you may find you go off and research things in minute detail just for the hell of it, and that's okay too.
Research for historical costuming usually takes two forms - finding out the WHAT or finding out the HOW. Generally speaking the WHAT is easier than the HOW, but it depends entirely on the era and the evidence available.
WHAT
What was worn by a middle class Spanish woman in 1755? What colours were popular in Japan in 1921? What would a young officer have worn to Waterloo? What make up was available to Scandinavian women during World War II? What fabrics were available in southern India prior to colonisation? What style of Mongolian bridal dress was Queen Amidala's iconic gown based on? What constituted Russian court clothing during the rein of Catherine II? What did a man wear under the dragon robes of late Manchurian Imperial clothing? And so on...
HOW
How are 18th century sleeves set on a sacque gown? How is the fabric for a 16th century open robe of velvet measured and cut? How were the patterns on early Indian chintzes imported to Europe achieved? How did a Roman matron fasten her stola? How were Tudor riding doublets usually embellished? How was a surviving Vionnet gown constructed? How were Heian era formal dress usually worn? How were the materials for an early 20th century Albanian festival jacket obtained? How did Korean women in the late 19th century set their hair? And so on...
As you can see, some of these questions are very linear and narrow in scope, and how you would research it is quite obvious (How was a surviving Vionnet gown constructed? -> Look at the gown, examine construction) whereas others are more open ended and don't necessarily suggest an obvious line of enquiry. In my next post, I'm going to talk about how to start your research and sources of information (Some of which may surprise you)
But for now I'm going to round this off with some
Hints and Tips
- Always, always decide in advance what you are going to research and how much detail you need. It's incredibly easy to get lost and bogged down in how awesome it all is
- Accept that you may not always be able to find a definitive answer to all your questions. Depending on when and where you are researching, this might be true more often than not
- Research is hard and time consuming. It can also be great fun, but that doesn't stop it from being frustrating, dull and unrewarding at times
- You don't have to do research. I offer this with extreme caveats - obviously, if you are the remotest bit interested in accuracy, you are going to have to research, but to what extent is entirely up to you. If you want to recreate a dress similar to one you've seen in a portrait painting, for example, but you are not in the least bit interested in accuracy and have chosen to use modern construction methods, the fabrics that are available to you, and only your own knowledge of dressmaking - then that is not wrong. It's just a different choice. On the other hand if you are planning to create a period ensemble that will hold up under the scrutiny of, say, a collected group of English Civil War reenactors as appropriately accurate, then you had best research your little backside off
- Keep an open mind. See what is actually there, not what you expected or hoped to see. Often, you will go looking for something thinking you already know the answer and find out you were wrong. It happens to us all. I'll talk about this a bit more later on in the series.
- There are no hard and fast truths, only evidence.
Actually, that last one bears repeating; There are no hard and fast truths, only evidence.
You will hear statements offered up all the time as though they were hard and fast truths (Women in the 1860's wore the crinoline. This garment is called a Polonaise. Spencer jackets are cut to a Empire waist. Stripes on eighteenth century gowns go up the back, down the front and around the sleeves. And so on) - but that doesn't necessarily mean they are.
For example, lets examine one of these statements. The crinoline was widely worn in Europe and America during the 1860's. There's lots - lots and lots and lots - of evidence for this and indeed it is widely true - but.
Russian court gowns of the period weren't cut for a crinoline and were almost certainly not worn with one, and there's no evidence that the crinoline was ever adopted in some rural areas of Europe. In the early 1860's steel caged crinoline hoops had become cheaper, but they were still too expensive for very poor women (Not to mention the amount of fabric they would have needed to make their dresses!). There are numerous literary references to older women and women in rural parts of England not adopting the crinoline until much later than the fashionable younger women of the towns, if at all. But there is also records of young working women in the factories being ordered to remove their crinolines at work! And then there's the aesthetic movement, a small minority of women in Britain closely tied into artistic circles who chose to dress in a 'classical fashion'. Also the 1860's were the era of the bloomers - long, baggy outerwear for women, rather than the modern interpretation of bloomers as underwear - although articles and news pieces of the time herald them as a novelty and they are widely ridiculed. In addition, the 1860's is a whole decade - fashion is never so static as that, and the exact size, shape and cut of these gowns fluctuated year to year, as evidenced by period fashion plates and extant gowns.
So while it is generally accurate to say that women of the 1860's did wear the crinoline, it's also possible to find evidence as to why a specific woman or women did not. Similarly, for another example, most 18th century striped gowns do have the stripes going around the sleeves - but there are the occasional, rare examples of gowns that have stripes going up and down the sleeve. For that reason it is perfectly possible to produce an 1860's ensemble that is not a crinoline, or an 18th century gown where the stripes don't go around the sleeves, and back it up as historically accurate, albeit an anomaly.
Generally speaking, the 'truths' are based in evidence - the overwhelming existence of it - but not always. If you are going for extreme accuracy, always be prepared to back up your choices with evidence. "Because it is widely held to be true" is not evidence, and neither is "Because such a person said so."
