It's how it looks AND How it works (historic design)

Were Frances Stuart's clothes
designed to work?
What did she need to do
 while wearing this glam outfit?

This portrait is from an exhibit I went to on a recent trip to London. I talk about visiting London through a sewists eyes, in my June Enchanted by Sewing podcast.

This dress is gorgeous all right, but does it have anything to do with something a middle class California woman would sew today?

Is the tendency to think gorgeous is the be-all-end-all of a garment something that only the gold-satin bedecked Frances Stuart had to cope with three plus centuries ago?

As a sewing student in the Cañada Community College Fashion Program, I was particularly interested to read about the experiences of students at the Academy of Art in San Francisco. The piece (http://www.sfchronicle.com/style/article/Four-Seasons-S-F-serves-up-new-uniforms-4506762.php )  describes a project involving the students designing new uniforms for people who serve food at the Four Seasons Hotel.

This was the phrase that had me laughing. "A normal project, we just design what we like, what we imagine in our heads," she said. "This was different. The winning uniform is actually in production, so we have to think about the function of the design. They have to work in them."

Is that a novel thought, or what? Imagine, clothes that have to move around with the person wearing them, and work!

I may love Frances Stuart's glamorous gold dress, but would I really want to dress up like this? How comfortable was she in her corseted body? What was it like to move around in those skirts? Could she run away from scary things, or jump up and down in joy? What could she have done in this frock?

I love the inspiration I find in this dress- the sleeves, the shimmery golden color, and the lovely belt. And most of all, I love the fact that as a middle class woman of today, I can take ideas from this historic ensemble, and incorporate it into a job-able, comfortable, bike able modern design.

Reinterpreting historic details in modern day garments, keeps me enchanted by sewing.

Traveling Light - It's all Relative :-) (Historical Tripping in London)

Frances Stuart
Duchess of Richmond
by Sir Peter Leley

Inspired by a recent trip to the U.K.

Want to hear more about London through my sewists eyes? Listen in (download to an mp3 device or listen directly on the web) to the June episode of the Enchanted by Sewing podcast Laurel Loves London.

After returning from a two week trip to London and Cornwall , I was thinking about the challenges of packing light. No matter how hard I try to plan in advance I slip too many things in the bag at the last minute. In the case of this last trip, we needed a bigger bag for trekking poles (without which I could not have survived the challenging footing on the coastal trail of Cornwall), which gave me a larger suitcase.

Oh dear, that was a mistake! I just located a universal packing list planner at http://upl.codeq.info, but frankly I think it would just have caused me to put in more stuff than I did. However, I think I can give myself points when I consider the practicality of the garments I did put in.

Bet you dollars to doughnuts that this gal, Frances Stuart (she was also a Duchess of Richmond),  was a much worse packer than I am!

Like... do you think this outfit goes with everything else in her suitcase? Could she use it as a substitute for a raincoat? If she washed it out in the bathroom sink in the hotel room, would you guess it would be dry by morning? Not to mention I'm guessing her beauty and hygiene bag (my husband calls it a 'ditty' bag) was fuller than mine.

So... I'm feeling like a pretty savy traveller right now.