Costuming.....: Work Placements

14/07/2014

I started off my summer work placements at the lovely Preston Park Museum in Stockton-On-Tees. Standing in 100 acres of parkland, Preston Hall is an early 19th century mansion standing close to the river Tees. It has been a museum since 1953 and is now owned by the local council.

Preston Hall Museum.
Photo courtesy of http://www.prestonparkmuseum.co.uk/

Inside the Museum there is 'The Victorian Street', a purpose built street full of shops and traders from around 1895. There is everything from a working Blacksmiths forge to an ironmongers, a drapers to a real Victorian tea room.

G.Benson - Ironmonger
Photo courtesy of http://www.prestonparkmuseum.co.uk/

Volunteers help run the Museum with many of them becoming Costume Interpreters. They help create a unforgettable experience and deliver historical information to the visitors. All costume interpreters are dressed appropriately, so I decided to carry out a work placement here, helping to re-create a Victorian costume or two!

To start, there was a guided tour of the Museum and look into the 'Costume Cupboard' which holds a large variety of Victorian costumes including some costumes from the London 2012 Olympic opening ceremony! Myself and another costume student will be helping the volunteers to catalogue the hundreds of shirts, blouses, skirts, hats, gloves and many other garments.

21/07/2014

My first costume that I'll be making is from a pattern by the Historic Pattern Company. I've been so used to making my own patterns at uni that using a pre-cut pattern will be a challenge!

The fabric I've been given to make the dress from is a lovely lightweight wool fabric with a blue and emerald green tartan pattern.....

First thing to do was take the original patterns and draw my own and cut them out on square/dot paper. I chose to make a size 14 as I thought this would make an average sized dress. I need to remember that Victorian women wore corsets so the dress sizes seem really small.....I'm a size 12/14 and according to the pattern my measurements make me around a size 18/20!

Once the patterns were ready, I pinned them to the fabric and cut them out ready to be sewn together next time.

August 2014

I went to the museum about once or twice a week for the next few weeks where I chatted to the lovely ladies from the sewing bee and stitched my dress together. This was my first time sewing with a tartan pattern fabric which was fairly difficult trying to get those lines matched up!

September 2014

As I was starting back at uni at the end of September, I knew I would have to be finished in time. After a few late evenings hand stitching the nooks and cranny's, I completed the dress! The following pictures were taken in the Drapers shop in the Victorian Street. As the dress was a size 14 plus and my mannequin is a size 10, I did try my best to pin the dress in to show the waistline!