Jamestown Conference - Day 4

I'm back home after the conference, but still in a bit of a daze from the amount and wealth of information.  It was truly wonderful, and no small amount of effort to pull off.  My thanks to all involved.

The morning started with new sessions from Jane and Ninya.  Ninya walked us through the basics of pinking and stamping fabric.  It seems to work best on silk satin or velvet.  I particularly like the look of stamped velvet.  Ninya had some samples of modern velvets, both cotton velveteen and acetate based, plus a small sample of real silk velvet.  It was surprisingly difficult to tell the difference between them.  Ninya referenced an article by Arnold, which I have a copy of.  Here is the full citation for anyone interested:

Janet Arnold (1975) Decorative Features: Pinking, Snipping and Slashing,
Costume, 9:1, 22-26, DOI: 10.1179/cos.1975.9.1.22
http://dx.doi.org/10.1179/cos.1975.9.1.22

Jane walked us through some of their findings from the database of wills that they have developed.  She had us color in pages of little figures in the proportions of colors seen in the wills.  I'll wait for the full details to be published, but it was surprising to see just how much black there was.  Red was much more common on women than men, but might be covered by outer layers.

Jenny Tiramani gave a key note speech during lunch.  She talked about some of the things they are working on currently, but as many will eventually be published, I can't share details.  But, I loved the leather hose example, and just hearing her passion for the work.  Much as the Tudor Tailors follow the PAD model (Pictorial, Archeological, and Documentary evidence), Jenny uses the 4 C's: Content, Cut, Construct, Context for understanding an item and it's place in history.

First up after lunch was Matthew Gnagy's class on the Bara system.  I've already made a doublet following his first book, so had been through the process of making proportional tapes.  It was still great to see how he does it and the material he uses (boning casing for making tapes works really well).  At the end, he quickly drafted a doublet pattern.  I'm a bit jealous that he could free hand all the curves (I had to use french curves).

To end the day was Jenny Tiramani's workshop on stays.  Much of the material will soon be released in the new Patterns of Fashion 5 book due out in a few months. We got to see several draft pages and it looks equally as good as the previous PoF books.  I didn't realize that stays were often stiffened with baleen (as in, from a whale).  We got the chance to touch and feel real baleen.  We finished with making a small sample of stiffened stays using artificial baleen and reeds.