Looking for Patterns to the Past

Making her way past the spats and the 8-inch hatpins, Janet Wilson Anderson attempts to explain the vagaries of the American psyche.

“We like to dress up as pirates and Vikings,” she says. “Ancient Egyptians--to a degree, yes, we’ll do that. Mid-Victorian, yes. Civil War, 1920s, Old West--all yes. Irish, yes, but Welsh, no. Why? I don’t know.” And let’s not leave out the pilgrims. “Kids get stuck wearing Colonial so often for Thanksgiving that when they grow up they never want to dress as a Puritan again,” Anderson notes. “Besides, the 17th century was one of the uglier ages for fashion. It’s hard enough getting guys into historical costumes without making them wear petticoats.”

And yet, if anyone could coax a reluctant he-man to play dress up, it’s Anderson. “Once fellas discover just how much ladies appreciate a gentleman in tights,” she says, “well, some of them turn into incredible peacocks.”

Fed up with being endlessly merged and acquired as a power-suited marketing exec, Anderson three years ago opened AlterYears, a Pasadena store that boasts an incredibly large collection of historical costume patterns, which she has culled from museums and private researchers. Renaissance Pleasure Faire participants and studio wardrobe researchers, cross-dressers and goth rockers, historic reenactment buffs and brides-to-be who want to walk the aisle like Guinevere all stop by for hard-to-find patterns, costume items and advice.

“I spent my life in the equivalent of a gray flannel suit, but on the weekends, I would put on a Victorian gown, get my hand kissed and flirt right back,” she says.

“Dressing up changes you,” Anderson tells me before swirling a hoop petticoat over my head. Suddenly, I do feel different, though it’s mostly because I’m afraid I’ll knock things off the shelves with my skirt.

She recalls the young thing who announced that she wanted to make an “old timey” dress. Knowing better than to inquire which century the customer had in mind, Anderson asked her what movie she had seen the dress in.

“Ooh,” said the girl, “like they wore in the ‘50s.”

Which one, Anderson gently asked--the 1550s? the 1850s?

“Oh, no,” she replied, “the ‘50s when they wore poodles on the skirts.”