So You Think You Can Sew: The Centennial Dress Project

In the last episode of "So You Think You Can Sew" I attempted (and finished!) one Starfleet shirt for my Volunteer Appreciation Dinner. I'm happy to say the dinner went very well, all the volunteers felt appreciated, and I was one of the only people there with a costume. I was rather proud of that fact, since mine had not come out of a box and still managed to look pretty good!

Beam me up, Scotty!

So with my ego suitably inflated with my burgeoning sewing skills, I tackled the next project in my queue -- a  1900s style walking skirt for one of my historical interpreter positions. I don't have many pictures of that project, since it is still technically ongoing (damn you, waist measurements that seem to change from fitting to fitting) but it is almost nearly finished and I have learned several important lessons that I am going to apply to my next project. 

Because this next project is a big one. Oh yes, it is.

Next year, my college is celebrating one hundred years of education, and in honor of this accomplishment, the school is publishing a book on the school's history, and a group of students and faculty is putting together a volume of art and poetry commemorating the centennial. And after seeing a picture in my alumni magazine, I lit upon an idea.

The picture in question.

I wanted to make a dress, very similar to the ones on display in the photo. These women are the first class of 1913, and they're sitting on the steps of the main building (Saint Theresa Hall, I believe) with some school swag and a lot of Edwardian attitude. How very, very different from my own freshman class photo. Not a knee, ankle, or shoulder in sight -- and this is Minnesota in August, presumably. It's hot. They're all wearing white -- and in a lot of variations, too!

So began what I am calling the Centennial Dress project, or the 1913 dress project. Over the next eleven months (The Centennial will be celebrated en masse in June of 2013) I will research, find a pattern for, cut, and sew a dress similar to the ones worn by those original college girls, and wear it to the Centennial celebrations.

The first steps in my research have already been completed -- First I emailed the college archivist for pictures similar to the one above, and asked for any other resources she could put me in touch with. While I was waiting for her reply, I checked our digital archives online and found the 1916 College Catalog, a listing of the requirements for graduation in 1916, as well as a listing for what every girl had to bring to school with her in 1916. (I imagine the requirements didn't change much in three years.)

REGULATIONS FOR WARDROBE 

No uniform is required. For school wear, dress of any color, material to suit the season. A better dress for Sundays. An inexpensive white dress for special occasions. Dresses must not be low in the neck; sleeves must reach to the wrists or lace sleevelets may be worn with short sleeved gowns. Shoes must have rubber heels. 

And there we have it. The list of requirements goes on (a sufficient supply of 'plainly made underclothes', three changes of underwear for the winter season, four napkins and a place setting including a napkin ring with your initials on it, et cetera) and truly, you could make some kind of very interesting museum exhibit with a trunk filled with the average 1913 girl's possessions on one side of the room and a suitcase filled with her 2013 equivalent possessions on the other.

So the next steps become more difficult. Explore period sources for other dresses in the same style that would have been available to the average college girl in Minnesota (Probably out of the Sears Roebuck Catalog or a similar company in the Twin Cities.) Find a pattern similar to those garments. Find appropriate fabric, and cut, piece, and sew the dress. Find appropriate shoes, hat, and gloves. Continue research on average student experience at college in the 1910s in order to arrive at school in June in Edwardian style ready to talk about what I'm wearing and what life would be like for me in it.

Oh, and maintain my nerve. I do at some point actually have to create a wearable garment.