Designing Woman Is an Old-Fashioned Girl : Traditions: Dressmaker specializes in re-creating authentically styled clothing for history lovers.
Kathi Reynolds, a professional dressmaker, is deluged with calls from customers seeking original creations for the galas on their social calendars. But unlike most designers, who might pull out the latest copy of Vogue for ideas, Reynolds turns to something like “Costume in Detail: Women’s Dress 1730-1930.”
Reynolds’ specialty is vintage clothing, particularly the styles of the 18th and 19th centuries. Her customers are museums and historic sites, tour guides and individuals who participate in historic re-enactments.
While battle anniversaries are often the reason for a re-enactment, the civilian activities surrounding the military action are becoming increasingly popular among history buffs. And civilian clothing of the era, says Reynolds, is critical for setting the scene.
“If you’re performing Colonial music, it doesn’t come off if you show up in modern dress. It adds much more to the whole presentation if you’re in the proper period dress because it gives people a visual cue of what’s to come.”
Among Reynolds’ most recent period creations is a wedding gown of blue-green satin with a white silk organza pelerine. The dress was worn by the bride when the wedding of a 19th-Century working-class couple was re-enacted at the 1840 House in Baltimore earlier this summer.
It’s just one of dozens of pieces--finished and unfinished--that Reynolds shows off as she walks a visitor through her studio in her home in Thurmont, Md. She also points out a quilted cotton petticoat fashioned after those of the mid-1700s and a simple calico print dress with bib-apron front, circa 1800.
Among the evening wear is a blue and white brocade and taffeta gown designed to be worn to a Victorian-style ball, and a court dress like those worn to English Civil War feasts in the 1640s. The latter is made of silk and velvet, with hand-sewn seams and hem. Scattered throughout the room are dogeared specimens from the 300-book reference library she’s accumulated over the years in researching her fashions.
The former librarian prides herself on the historical accuracy of her work--from the texture of the fabric to the placement of a pocket to the way the hem is finished. But it is not always easy to make an exact replica.
Heavy silk like that used in many of the fashions in earlier times is available, she says, “but it costs $50 a yard.” And colors of yesterday can’t always be duplicated. “Certain shades, particularly the tans and browns, just can’t be created with today’s dyes.”
Reynolds says her favorite period in history was the 1700s, because women’s lives, and their clothing, were very practical. “Yes, high-class women were kept very secluded, but there were a lot of working women who owned or inherited businesses, or who worked with their husbands in their businesses.”
Their clothing reflected their freedom, she says. “They weren’t confined by a lot of petticoats, skirts and such” that defined later periods. The Victorian era, with all its formalities, was a different story.
“By the late 1890s, clothing had become very complicated,” she says. “You get into very fitted linings and more and more pieces. Each back could have three pieces.” Re-creating those later periods can be costly, she says.
Reynolds says a late Victorian gown dating from 1870 to 1900 would cost about $400 to $450 in labor and $50 to $150 in materials, depending on the style. “The underclothing alone accounts for $250” of that.
A simple dress from the early 1800s, on the other hand, could be made for about $125, she says, “because you’re usually working in cotton with small yardage.”
The single most time-consuming piece she ever made was a mid-19th-Century frock coat that took her 45 hours to complete. “It was 75% handwork,” she says.
On the easier pieces, Reynolds likes to teach her customers how to do some of the stitching themselves because it helps cut down their cost and she enjoys sharing the old techniques. “But after the 1870s, you must be an expert seamstress. That stuff is hard to copy.”
