Thursday, 20 September 2012

Bibliography for 'Summer Collection' 2012.

This is the archive of my research bibliography for the project from last (academic) year.  I'm going to be using the bibliography page for research for my final collection, so I'm putting this to one side!

The 'summer millinery' Pinterest board is here:
 http://pinterest.com/debbielough/summer-millinery/

The '1920s' Pinterest board is here:
http://pinterest.com/debbielough/1920s/



Bibliography of websites looked at, and books used in research (broken down roughly by subject area).

Please note that this is a complete bibliography - some I have read either all the way through, or the relevant chapters - others I may only have looked at two or three pictures, or a read a couple of paragraphs.  The ones I have used most are in bold text.


Historical / period research

Through the Looking Glass: A History of Dress from 1860 to the Present Day
    Elizabeth Wilson and Lou Taylor - BBC - 1989

A Hat Maker Remembers: A Conversation with John Reed-Crawford.
    Recorded and transcribed by Debbie Henderson, 25 July 1994.
    Costume: The journal of the costume society - No 32 - 1998

Fifty Hats That Changed the World
    Robert Anderson - Conran Octopus Ltd - 2011

The Emancipation of Women
    D C Brooks - Macmillan - 1970

Gillard D (2011) Education in England: a brief history
www.educationengland.org.uk/history

RESEARCH PAPER 99/111 - 21 DECEMBER 1999
A Century of Change: Trends in UK statistics since 1900

www.theglasgowstory.com

www.wiganworld.co.uk

translate.google.com

The Cut of Women's Clothes: 1600 - 1930
    Norah Waugh - Faber - 1968 (1994 reissue)

The Visual History of Costume Accessories: From Hats to Shoes: 400 Years of Costume Accessories
    Valerie Cumming - Batsford - 1998

Dress and Morality
    Aileen Ribeiro - Batsford - 1986

Haute Couture
    Richard Martin & Harold Koda - Metropolitan Museum of Art - 1995

Dressmakers in Worthing, 1920 - 1950
    Ann Wise - Costume (the journal of the costume society) - No 32 - 1998

Hats: A History of Fashion in Headwear
    Hilda Amphlett - Dover - 1974

youtube.com

hullcc.gov.uk/museumcollections

collections.vam.ac.uk

metmuseum.org

www.wikipedia.com

digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/HumanEcol.MillineryBooks

costumegallery.com

britishpathe.com

A Shriek in the Night (film - director Albert Ray) - 1933

Be Yourself (film - dir Thornton Freeland) - 1930

A Star is Born (film - dir William A Wellman) - 1937

The Amazing Quest of Ernest Bliss (film - dir Alfred Zeisler) - 1936

The Thirteenth Guest (film - dir Albert Ray) - 1932

The Young in Heart (film - dir Richard Wallace) - 1938

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiaroscuro

http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Chiaroscuro

Pandora's Box (Die Büchse der Pandora) Dir George W Pabst - 1929

Diary of a Lost Girl (Tagebuch einer Verlorenen)  Dir George W Pabst - 1929

Nosferatu (Nosferatu, eine Symphonie des Grauens)  Dir F W Murnau - 1922

Metropolis - Dir Fritz Lang - 1927



Muse
www.youtube.com

www.pandorasbox.com


Summer Millinery
The Cutting Edge: 50 Years of British Fashion 1947 - 1997
   Amy de la Haye (Ed) - V&A - 1996

Hats: Make Classic Hats and Headpieces in Fabric, Felt and Straw.
    Sarah Cant - Black - 2010

www.enokiworld.com

fashion.telegraph.co.uk

vanityfair.com

harpersbazaar.co.uk

madhattery.royalroundup.com

www.judybentinck.com

www.vogue.co.uk

fashiontrendsetter.com

mirror.co.uk

google.com (image search)

piroskawolf.blogspot.com

missdelite.blogspot.com

tomandlorenzo.com

sbeulah-blog.onsugar.com

gofugyourself.com

theluxuryemporium.ie

sallyannprovan.co.uk

ginafoster.co.uk

janetaylormillinery.com

racheltrevormorgan.com

en-gb.lovehats.com/shop

nigelrayment.co.uk

stephenjonesmillinery.com

piphackett.co.uk

williamchambers.co.uk


And via Pinterest:
renoirgallery.com

bhldn.com

voguepatterns.mcall.com

acertaincinema.com

pinterest.com

NB - I have also looked at some images on Pinterest that are not credited to their original source.

Saturday, 15 September 2012

Creative people...

A friend found this blog post and posted it to Facebook.  I thought I'd post it here, because I think it's cool.

(And it also made me feel a little better about my easily-bored-ness, and my dislike of 'rules', and my constant questioning 'why' about everything...)


http://bravegirlsclub.com/archives/14412

Wednesday, 29 August 2012

My Nana


This has been a really difficult day for me. I wasn't sure I should post this, but I've accomplished b***** all else today, so I thought I may as well.


My Nana was the closest thing I ever had to a real mother.

She brought me up and took care of me all my life. 

She was kind, gentle, never laid a hand on me. She taught me to read, to cook, to sew, to dance, taught me that all people were equal, and gave me an incredibly strong morality. 

She lived through the Great Depression, World War Two when she worked in a munitions factory, took care of her mother until she died (when Nana was 16), had pleurisy, had pneumonia four times, took care of her husband (my Grandad) when he was dying from lung cancer, raised three children of her own, a score of foster kids, and me.

Then without warning, when she was 72, and I was 17, I watched her die suddenly. One minute she was talking to me, and the next she was dead.

That was 20 years ago tonight (at about 9.02pm BST).



So I just want to say, in this post that has absolutely nothing to do with sewing, or with my work, or with hatmaking, if you love somebody, even if you don't always get on, talk to them. Tell them you love them. Give them a hug. Spend some time together. Because it takes just one second for them to be gone forever.


And I love you Nana, and miss you forever.


My Nana and Grandad - Gertrude [Trudi] (1920-1992) and George Lough (1920-1977)

Wednesday, 15 August 2012

Bridal Hat

It's been a while since I posted - work deadlines...

Now then, I recently made a hat for a friend to wear for her wedding.  We'd agreed on a nice white (off white really) fur felt velour, so I could brush it up nicely, and that it would be an undersized, or mini, top hat.

I don't have blocks for a mini top hat, so I created my own.  For the brim I used one of the polystyrene (styrofoam) rings that you can get for craft work.  My first attempt didn't work, because as soon as I tried to block the felt over it, it snapped into three pieces.
I taped it back together with electrical (insulation) tape, and paper mache-d over it to give it some strength for the blocking, and it worked brilliantly (and I could pin into it).  Then I just drew on  my brim shape with tailor's chalk.  Best part - I can now use this again for a small brim, or as a flat beret block.

I also didn't have a block the right shape for the crown - for this I used expanding builder's foam, sprayed into a clean plant pot, and carved to shape, then papered over the top.  This was a bit less successful (only because I was being picky about the shape - I wanted the sides to curve in - obviously that would normally require a 'puzzle' or segmented block.  I haven't yet worked out how to do that in the foam (am sure it's possible).  Anyway, I wasn't 100% happy with the shape, so I cut some sections out of the base, and effectively sewed darts into the felt.  Much better!  This would have worked even if the main part of the hat hadn't been hidden by the fabric drape, because of the pile of the velour felt, but I'd have had to be more careful about my stitching being concealed than I was.

My friend sent me a box stuffed with goodies that she'd collected - braids, brooches, necklaces, fabrics from her wedding dress, etc, etc.  The stipulations she made was that I had to use the rabbit's foot, for luck, and that I should 'load it up', because she doesn't 'really do less is more'.

So I did.  I sent her several sketches, and she picked the bits she liked from each, and asked for a couple of changes.  And I got to work on putting it all together.

The first set of  pictures are the ones I took, which show the detail from all angles, but not the colours (for some reason my photos glared).  The second set are pictures that guests at the wedding (I couldn't be there due to a clash with a family wedding) have incredibly kindly allowed me to use (credits below the photos).

My favourite part of the whole hat is the hot air balloon earring / pin!





Photo used by kind permission of Liz Hanley

Photo used by kind permission of Christine Simpson



As I said, I couldn't be at the wedding, but it looked completely fabulous, and I'm sorry I had to miss it.

I also wish the 'happy couple' all good things for the future.

Monday, 23 July 2012

Chocolate hat


Ok, so it's not [I]actually [/I]chocolate....

....and as usual, a just finished, rather than current project (never have time while am actually making).

But made for a college competition being run by the Chocolate museum in York.  The brief was to make a hat that represents chocolate and sweets that originated in York.  So Rowntree's, Terry's, etc.

I decided to use sinamay (despite my dislike), because you can do big shapes with it, with minimal structure.  I also decided to cover the whole gamut of sweets, rather than focusing on one or two.  Others in my class went for classic simplicity, and elegance - I went for explosion in a sweet shop!


The big swoop at the right of the picture represents a Chocolate Orange, and the swirl at the side represents a Smarties tube.  I had wanted to use a real Smarties tube, only to find that Smarties no longer come in tubes.  (Very dull.)


Forgive the poor pictures - my camera died, and I was photographing just before leaving to hand it in, so didn't have time to charge the battery.  And it was raining outside, hence the 'living room' backgrounds!!




I decided to experiment with trapping sweet labels between the layers of the sinamay (extra bonus - legitimate excuse to buy sweeties :o)  ).  I wanted to stress the long history of sweetmaking in York, so I also printed out the 'years of origin' of the sweets - so 1935 for Kit Kat, an 1882 for Smarties, etc, etc.


Across the hat is a scattering of assorted beads - first fimo Fruit Polos, then brown Goldstone beads, which represent the bubbles in an Aero bar, then Jelly Tots, Fruit Pastilles, and finally, Smarties.




I bought most of the beads ready made, but I couldn't find Fruit pastille or Jelly Tot beads, so I made them from air-drying clay, which I painted in acrylics, and then rolled in glass glitter while the paint was still wet. 

My second proper sinamay hat, and I'm quite happy with it - although it's notable that I've once again done it as a variation on a cut and sew hat, not a blocked one.  That's partly because I couldn't go to college for the workshop days, so didn't have access to the blocks, but I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing, because I probably wouldn't have been as open to letting the sinamay do its own thing (to an extent) had I had the blocks to fall back on.  I love blocking, but I do think it can sometimes be quite limiting.

Definitely need more sinamay practise though.  Might even get round to using it on a block that's bigger than a button base at some point!!!





Monday, 16 July 2012

Festival of History (Kelmarsh, or Kelswamp?)

In theory I was meant to have my stall at English Heritage's Festival of History at Kelmarsh Hall this weekend just gone.

Well, I was there, and my stall was there - unfortunately most of the stuff was never unpacked from the plastic boxes I left it in after unloading our van on Friday night.

For on Friday night, at around 11.30pm or 12am, an (unforecast) rain that I can only describe as 'Biblical' hit us.  I lay awake in bed listening to it pouring, and getting heavier, and heavier, and heavier,  And just when you thought it could get no heavier, it did.

As it turned out, almost a months worth of rain fell in a few hours.  We awoke to find the ground our tent was on to be sodden, but not too bad.  Then I got a 'knock' on the tent door from one of the event staff, letting me know that the event was off, and that if we needed any help, to give them a shout, and if I wanted to open that was fine too.

I went off to see my friends (in my re-enactment group), to find a large fast flowing stream running through half of the camp, and several friends' tents.  Fortunately, a sort of 'Blitz spirit' pervaded the whole site, and everybody pitched in and helped everybody else.  The weather improved, meaning that the exits that were at first flooded (trapping us onsite for a while) cleared, and the site was slowly cleared - we got off home at around 4pm.



From my point of view, the weekend wasn't a total washout - I got a couple of nice orders, and handed out a load of hat-related business cards in the beer tent, and wandering round the assorted streams and lakes on Saturday.

The staff onsite, both English Heritage and event staff, and the site staff from the Estate were wonderful, and couldn't do enough to help anyone having problems (we played the new game of 'towed by the tractor' three times)!  And I'm now off to find some new wellies - although waders may have been more useful in some parts of the site at the weekend.  Waterproof boots are fab - till you wade into water deeper than them to help a friend, and it pours in over the top and gets trapped - because they're waterproof...











Monday, 9 July 2012

Eggshell carving

I just had to share these, that I found via a friend on Facebook.


These are real eggs - and absolutely unbelievable!