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18th century clothing, authenticity, common dress, common people, dress, John Copley, living history, sewing
One of the arguments I hear against changing the way people dress as civilians at reenactments, particularly the women but sometimes the men, is that “if we all use the same pattern, we’ll all look alike, and that’s not how people dress now or then.”
I have news for you: that is how we dress[ed].
I know, we can’t apply modern thinking to the past– that’s crap historiography. But why do we resist using the same correct patterns for historic garments when we are clearly dressing alike today?
I’ve not yet read a paper on the similarity of women’s dress in Robert Feke or John Copley’s portraits that really convinced me, but if you look at enough of them, you might think there’s only one woman and one dress in all of British North America, because Badger and Greenwood are painting her, too.
Even if those clothes are studio props, what does it say that the sitters wanted to be portrayed in the same clothes? Look, if that’s the only means of getting myself into a Charles James, you bet I’d take it. Or, for a more contemporary analogue, Alexander McQueen.
Luxe et Indigence. Le Bon Genre, 1817
Dressing is about status as much as it is about self-expression, and in the 18th century, dressing signaled refinement, sensibility, and status through the quality of fabric as much as through the cut of clothes. Air Jordans do the same thing today, or North Face jackets, or Kate Spade purses. They show what you can afford, even if you’re eating oatmeal for dinner behind closed doors.
We dress the same now, and we dressed the same then, with variations according to pocketbook. We can’t all afford K&P superfine wool today any more than we could have bought the best wools or prints in the 18th century. But using accurate patterns and fabrics appropriate to our station will create the best impressions possible– even if my gown is cut to the same pattern as my wealthier acquaintance’s.
Kitty Calash 
What a great point! If you look carefully at early 19th century American portraits, for example, many women seem to be wearing the “same black/blue/brown/green” dress. But if you keep looking you’ll see an amazing variety of collars, cuffs, waistbands, jewelry and accessories, and realize that even within the highly defined fashion dictates of the time, women showed their individuality quite well!
I remember mufti days at high school – everyone joyfully ditched the uniform for the day & wore jeans+t-shirt. Only a couple of other people realised that they’d swapped one uniform for another. The social stigma for not owning jeans was a really good lesson in conformity of clothing.
^ in the second half of the 1970s
I agree to a point–I think it depends on what we define as “same.” We do misrepresent the past if we have two hundred women milling about an event, all wearing identically patterned linen gowns, with the same cap, and a choice of two blue checks for their aprons. No jackets, no quilted petticoats, no bedgowns, no cotton prints, no variations on the gown. Fortunately, I think we have little risk of that happening. One of the easiest ways to do it *right* is to use the vetted, correct patterns and fabric that plenty of other people use. I understand why some want to avoid doing that. Heck, I want to avoid doing that–I like branching out into uncharted territory and researching the crap out of something to present something a little different to the public. But if you’re not going to get into that “research the crap out of it” part (I own that I love it and that makes me a nerd), there’s nothing wrong with sticking with the established good stuff. There’s plenty of variety within the established good stuff, too, to represent a wide variety of the era’s clothing.
The resistance to researched patterns or researched variations is really what annoys me…as I think it does many people. We can’t all be outliers, and to be identical would be wrong as well. Still, I think we can all use the same [even general] pattern in different enough ways that we will represent a reasonable and probable level of variation.
I looked again at some event photos and noticed how we were all using the same basic pattern, but one in blue linen, one in changeable silk, one in a cotton, so they all looked very different, and were accessorized differently. That seemed OK to me; we had each researched our fabrics and accessories, so the different “class” levels were expressed, and different interpretive points made.
Aside from recreating a specific portrait, that seemed like a well-met goal.
Out here in the hinterlands, I find the hardest part of all this is learning about the fabrics. What is the proper weight and feel for the wool for a cloak? How do I know if the drape of my cotton or linen is right? Really, the prints and patterns are easier–we can look at examples via computer screens–but there’s so much more to it in texture, weight, drape, etc.!! Aside from everyone around here using the same dress pattern (the Past Patterns Lewis & Clark Dress), it feels like the fabric selections are our biggest struggle in the “sameness” category as well as the “authenticity” category. There are precious few shops selling good quality fabric, and even the good stuff is questionable for our purposes. I can order swatches from those supplying goods to re-enactors, but I still don’t have a firm grasp of my appropriate choices.
I would love to read a good essay from you, Kitty, on how you research, source, and select your fabrics!
That Lewis & Clark dress is pretty popular everywhere! I’ll work on fabric choices, though we are often all in the same boat, given the dwindling number of fabric stores.
Kitty
I very much agree! There are so many variations in cut and fabric that can be used to make gowns distinguishable from each other (someday I will see my 18th century book published …), not to mention different styles of trimming – but underneath it all, even fashionable women were wearing essentially the same gown.
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