Carolyn Dowell: No problem at all, I am excited to be here!
NS: So my first question is how did you become interested in historical dress?
CD: It was probably in a very Canadian way! When I was a little girl, the CBC version of Anne of Green Gables came out and I was reading the books at the same time. I’m an Anne girl and the costumes in that were really good – you watch it today and they still look really good. You can see little of the fluffy 80’s hairstyles and all that in it, but for the most part it was really well done and I was absolutely enamoured of the costumes in that production. I just loved period movies and stuff ever since then. That kind of sparked the initial interest. I didn’t follow that path right away, my undergrad was in visual art. I ended up taking all the costume courses in the theatre department at my school, so by the time I finished my undergrad I thought I was going to go into costume design. But then I was exposed to the Pattern of Fashions books by Janet Arnold, and I discovered that I was really into actual historical clothing and how it was made and learning more about it - and that drove me towards my graduate studies in actual dress history. So it started nascently really early but it took quite a bit of time to develop into what it would become.
NS: When did you start making your own historical costumes? Did it come from those theatre courses?
CD: A little bit, it was a little bit the other way around, they started very close to each other but I started sewing when I was I think 17, I started making clothes for myself and I make pretty well all my own clothes still. So I started with that but I already knew I loved period movies and costumes so I pretty quickly started dabbling in that. And it was around about the same time that I was taking the costuming courses in the theatre department and so that was when I started to learn about drafting, and I made my first corset and started learning theatre versions of period techniques and I kind of just kept going with it. It was still very movie oriented, I would make costumes based on movies and TV shows that I saw. And so I was gradually realizing that I was interested in these original garments more and more. An exhibition I saw that made a really big impression on me was the Dangerous Liaisons exhibition [at the MET], that just completely sucked me in, especially because it was 18th century. Even though Anne of Green Gables was the first, I really developed a love for the 18th century and that exhibition blew me out of the water. There was so much that was really great about that exhibition. It had a really strong impression on me because it was about a year after that I moved out west to go to the University of Alberta to start my masters. As part of my degree, I did a large scale 18th century reproduction project. I was learning 18th century sewing while I was doing it and already started doing object based research for my masters. I made clothing that was from the years 1750 to 1775-ish. There was a set of foundation garments, a robe a la francaise, a robe a la anglais, a riding habit, a matching calico jacket and petticoat, a pet-en-l’air and a quilted petticoat. I put that on exhibition at University of Alberta, they have a small exhibition space in the department that I was in. It was all about the making of and showing the fashion and it was about how they were made and what it was like to be like a dressmaker or mantua maker at that time.
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| French dress, 1775, Costume Institute at the Met | Source |
NS: When you’re making all these costumes, what does the research process look like? Do you start with sourcing material or looking for inspiration first, or do you look at the references first?
CD: Yes, all kind of at the same time! No two projects happen exactly the same way, it's kind of inorganic process. I have a ton of Pinterest boards constantly looking for new images visual sources on Pinterest. I have lots of books, like my patterns of fashion books are one of the most used sources for both styles and then how to visualize making them and what the pattern pieces should look like things. But also various types of books like from the Kyoto Costume Institute and then books of fashion plates. Mostly I do use images of extant garments and images of fashion plates, I do tend to use those more than portraiture; I mean there's definitely things that you can sometimes get from portraiture that you can't get from those other sources. Usually what ends up happening too is I almost never directly reproduce something. It's usually a combination of a few different inspirations because a lot of the times I'll see something and think “oh I really love this except I don't like this about it” or “I really love this but is there some way that I can modify this that is a way that they still would have done.” I do a lot of "franken-patterning" where I'll take patterns from different sources and squish them together.
NS: I can't read patterns at all, I have very basic sewing skills but I still have all the Janet Arnold books. I just can't truly read them so every time I see someone put a pattern together I think it’s the coolest thing ever – like how can you even read that!
CD: I mean you actually do sewing the more you understand patterns, and I was kind of thrown into the deep end with it too. My first sewing project was a dress, like every day dress for myself. But it had like a fitted bodice with darts, it had gathered skirt, it had pockets, it had a zipper and a lace up back, it really had every component possible. It was the biggest hot mess on the inside, it was atrocious! I remember there was somebody once who asked if they could borrow it and I said “no I'm not going to lend it to you just in case it falls apart”. I really wish now that I had kept it because it would be amazing to show what I started with. I started with something complicated and most people don't - for most people it's a good idea not to start with something complicated because you can easily get discouraged. But for myself it was the right thing, so having a challenging project as my first one even though was it was such a mess and perhaps only barely wearable, I was still so proud of myself.
NS: That leads really well into my next question which is: what is your favourite piece of clothing to make?
CD: I like making so many different things it's easier to say what I don't like making! I don't like making pants! My favourite things to make are probably 18th century gowns. After I did that reproduction project is part of my masters I didn't want to do 18th century again for a while because was six full months sewing eight to twelve hours a day, but now it's probably my favorite. 18th century fashion is probably my deepest love and it's why I did two graduate degrees on that. It ended up becoming kind of like my comfort sewing; I understand 18th century sewing so well that it's so easy for me to go into and do it. I really do enjoy hand sewing, I find it very relaxing - you can kind of do it anywhere, you can do it while you're watching TV and stuff which you can't really do with the machine. I find it visually and aesthetically really appealing and I really like the particular process of construction of 18th century gowns. There's that element of feeling like you're communing with historical dressmakers, particularly when you're doing hand sewing projects because it is so particularly physical and kind of visceral as opposed to when you're using a machine. Now that I feel really comfortable with it, it doesn't take as long as when I first started doing it. Like that project that I did as part of my masters I could probably do that in noticeably less time.
NS: 18th century fashion is so interesting because the fashion changes so much from the beginning to the end of the century.
CD: There's a lot of variety! When you get to know it well, you read more you start to see more in it, so I really enjoyed exploring the variety that is in the 18th century. I need to do some more from the first third of the century, I’m focusing a lot towards the end. I did a like a 1690s mantua and that was a really interesting exploration of dress.
NS: With all these outfits that you’ve made, what was the most challenging project you’ve worked on?
CD: Well actually it's one that I wouldn't really call historical more vintage. The most challenging project I think is when I reproduced Charles James' tree gown. The only reason that I was able to do it is because when I was back in London in 2012-2013 to do research for my PhD, the new assistant curator at the Museum of London was Timothy Long. He had come from the Chicago History Museum and did the Charles James exhibition there and he had taken patterns from of the foundation layers of several of James’ gowns. They had done reproductions of the foundation layers to display alongside the gowns to show what was underneath and the structure of the gown. He sent me pattern pieces for the foundation layers of the tree gown and so the next year I made my own. It was it was an amazing learning experience. I can say that it is a standing dress! I made it to go to the 2014 Toronto Officers' Garrison, my husband and I have gone several times; I love to go because it gives me an excuse to make a ballgown. It definitely made an impact that year I was there but it was it was the worst to wear it. There's a dinner that's part of the ball and the skirt of this dress just did not fit under the table! And there is an element of the under structure almost sort of like cones or buttresses that are right behind your thighs to give shape at the back and it's right where you want to sit! So my dress doesn't really fit under the table and I'm having to sit at the edge of my chair, it wasn't fun to wear. But I really love looking at it on the mannequin as a decorative dress now!
NS: Obviously you love dress history a lot, you've done two degrees in it. So why do you think that the study of dress history is important?
CD: There are a bunch of reasons. It is something you know people really do respond to. Dress is something that all human beings have in common; even if you're not in a culture that wears what we would call clothing you still practice some form of dress. Every single human being on the planet is connected by dress - we are connected to it and we are impacted by it literally from the moment we're born to death. It's our most intimate environment, it's what is literally next to our skins and it's sort of like our second skin or public skin. Dress has been so important to other aspects of history and society and culture. It’s the reason why the Industrial Revolution happened. Textiles have been the foundations of numerous countries’ economies in past centuries and it's what civilizations and empires were built on. Dress touches every single facet of life and it factors in so much to knowing who we were, which tells us who we are, which helps inform us about where we're going.
NS: That's great, I think that's a really great answer! Thank you so much for your time, you have provided such a great look into the world of historical costuming.
