3 months is not very long...

Hello!!

I'm now back in Sydney, having not had any good opportunities to update  while having many adventures around Europe... It seems my last update was while I was in Florence, which is SO long ago!! I don't quite know how to tell the whole story, so I will tell the relevant parts of it as they come to mind.

I was heading overseas for the Costume Colloquium II conference in Florence, which was fantastic; but also to do a work placement at a London based company called Angels. Angels have been making costumes for 150 years or so, and these days make and alter stock costumes for film and stage shows. Basically, someone putting on a show or film will contact Angels, and pay money to be able to use their HUGE amount of costumes already in stock for the show they are a part of. ... I don't know that I'm really explaining this too well, sorry.

I ended up in the Alterations Department of Angels, for 8 weeks from late November through till mid January. I had a fantastic time working with everyone else there, and learnt a lot!

In Alterations, we would basically alter the costumes after they had been fitted to the various actors. So, depending on the job, we could be letting trousers up or down, in or out; replacing buttons, epilettes, or military braids on jackets; re hemming skirts; entirely replacing trim on worn out old costumes... the opportunities and variation was endless! Of course, not all of it was interesting - trouser hems will never be fun, lets be honest - but the interesting projects more than made up for the less challenging ones.

I had many favourites, but here are a few particularly great ones: I got to re make a skirt, including underskirt and two layers of frills, just because the designer wanted it to look "more yellow" (it was already quite yellow, but it needed to be MORE so!). I also spent nearly 3 days replacing the worn out, fragile silk floral trim on a skirt and jacket of a costume based on 1860s evening dress - 11m of 12cm wide trim needed to be sourced, matched, approved and perfectly reapplied. In the early days of my placement, I was spending quite a lot of time working on original dresses from 1910 or so, all of which needed to be either let down, or have false under skirts added to make them about 15-20cm (6-8inches) longer, or let the centre back out by approximately 5-7cm (2-3 inches) - women just aren't built the same as we were 100 years ago (we now have freedom of movement, not corsets; and also have much better nourishment!!)... And, menswear wise, it took me a day and a half to take in a military jacket. For better or worse, it had actually been properly made, not store mass produced - there were layers of hand stitched canvas through the chest and shoulders, etc. I needed to take it in 1/2 inch all the way from the front of the arm pit, across the sleeve head, and all the way to the hem, going along the side back seam. The most difficult part of that was encountering the shoulder pads - I pulled them apart, cut them back, and replaced them - it was much easier to get a smooth line across the shoulder that way; where the other option had been to push them in to the garment further and make terrible bubbles all across the back.

The beauty of being in London for 8 weeks was that the rest of England, and Europe, were relatively accessible on weekends.

I took one Friday off work to go up to Nottingham. I had a friend up there to visit, but also a business contact to re introduce myself to. Lawrence of Dukeries Textiles is a manufacturer of the most amazing tulle and nets. His family run and owned business has provided fashion and costume designers with top quality fabrics for generations. I went with the idea of purchasing some lace - the kind that can't be made anymore. When machines get so old that parts are no longer available for replacing, the last of anything in the world is always more worthwhile. I bought 4 lengths of lace, the narrowest was 4cm, the widest almost 18cm; and each piece approximately 9m long. None of those patterns of lace can ever be made again, I own the last of them in the world. I believe. 2 of them are cream, 1 antique gold, and 1 blue thread on black fabric. To me, they are the most beautiful things in the world, and I will not use them until the perfect moment comes along. Lawrence told me that he supplied the royal family with the tulle for Princess Diana's wedding veil, and that he's expecting another order from the royal family soon.

Other great adventures included a trip to Canterbury to visit a friend for Christmas. There wasn't a lot of costume things on around there, but I wanted to publicly say that I had a fantastic time with the Arnott family, and met a budding fashion designer/maker on Christmas eve, Dulcima, and can strongly recommend you all check out her website.
http://www.dulcima.co.uk/

Another amazingly exciting experience was getting on the train out to Reading, to visit the fantastic Kerry - aka Costumes Incarnate http://costumesincarnate.blogspot.com/ My classmates and I had a fantastic time catching up with our Tailoring Lecturer in her new environment. We partied, ate too much, danced it off, and ate more. It was wonderful!! I'm sorry I didn't make it to visit more than once in my time in England, but I promise I'll be back again soon!! ;-)

Before I knew it, my placement was over, and I had 1 week left in Europe. So I went to Paris for the weekend. Well, 4 days, but it was worth it, despite my lack of French. I climbed almost everything I could, saw the best of the best sites, and managed to spend 3/4 of a day out at the spectacular Palace and Gardens of Versailles. I can't recommend a visit there strongly enough, it was all so breathtaking. The size of the castle itself, not to mention the gardens, fountains, Grand- and Petit Trianon, everything! It was so perfect. I kept thinking of my research project dress, which would have been perfect to photograph in the gardens, though a pain to transport all that way across the world!

Now, I'm back in Sydney and settling in to my new apartment, and setting up my sewing room. 3 months away taught me that I'm not ready to stop learning, so I've come up with a few costume ideas of things I would like to make. The research process will begin in late March, when I have finished a job I'm starting on Monday! I will be Costume Assistant on a telemovie on Channel 9 - pretty sure I can't talk about it, so I wont.

Now that I have finished my essay, I will end this for now. I'm really keen to blog regularly, so maybe I will go into more detail of each of my costume adventures in Europe, or come up with new projects to write to you all about.

Until next time - happy sewing! xx