Your work is amazing, your dedication astounding! Thank you for sharing this. I too wish I could have seen the exhibition and feel out of date posting this at the moment. I am currently writing a novel about a seamstress working in 1770 Paris and this more than illuminates the sewing process – it is basically a dream come true having stumbled upon your site. Would you possibly be interested in being an advisor on the project (with proper credits of course)? Once the book is published, I would like to have a dress made up for book signings and other promotions, if you would be interested in that as well…? I would be happy to forward you a synopsis and the first pages of the novel if that helps.
My Best,
Christine

First off, I don’t consider myself a costumer, I’m a dress historian. This project was an unconventional form of research for my thesis on pre-industrial garment construction and the working lives of eighteenth-century English seamstresses.

I mention this to you because it may make a difference as to what sort of program you’re looking for. If costume design is what you’re looking to do, check out university theatre departments. I know there’s a decent one at the U of A.

My MA degree is out of the U of A, but I’m in the Human Ecology Dept. My supervisor is joint between Human Ecology and History and Classics. The Human Ecology dept has a good clothing and textiles collection, and a couple options for clothing and textiles studies. There is a well-developed textile conservation program. There is also a quickly developing Material Culture program, along with some apparel design. They have a few dress history courses in the dept, are introducing more Material Culture courses (of which dress is a part), and encouraging more students to do internships and practicums with the onsite collection.

For me, this was the perfect place to go, as I plan to go into either museum curatorship or become a history of dress/material culture professor (I’ll decide which sometime during the PhD). The U of A is just about the only institution in Canada where you can pursue this course of study, and the only with a collection geared towards use by students.

Hope this helps!

p.s. I’m not actually ‘based out of Alberta’, at least not anymore. I’m from Toronto, went out there for school, and have since moved back to Ontario. However, I donated all of these reproductions to the clothing and textiles collection at the U of A to be used as teaching aides. I strongly suggest you go visit them sometime, and if you’d like I’m sure they’d let you play with my repros!

Jessica

I used to think the same thing – that I was born in the wrong time period. I have since changed my mind. The clothing depicted here, and most of what has survived to today was worn by only about 5-10% of the population. It’s unlikely you would ever have gotten to wear anything like these garments – you would have been lucky to have had the job of making them! In fact, you’d be lucky to have made it into your teens considering the rates of infant and child mortality. You, yourself would have a 1 in 3 chance of dying during childbirth.

Now, instead, I wish I could travel back in time (then return home safely) in order to see, hear, smell, etc what life was really like – we can just never get quite close enough. I would prefer if people today dressed like fashionable people of the 18th century, rather than living back then; plus, with modern production methods and the low cost of fabric a lot more people would be able to afford it now than their historical counterparts could have!

Be thankful that you have the time and resources to dabble in the past from the comfort of your modern conveniences. Enjoy, and good luck!

Wish me luck,
Anni