Costume Word of the Week – Buckram
Single ply millinery buckram
“Millinery buckram is different from bookbinding buckram. It is impregnated with a starch, which allows it to be softened in water, pulled over a hat block, and left to dry into a hard shape. White buckram is most commonly used in hatmaking, though black is available as well. Millinery buckram comes in three weights: baby buckram (often used for children’s and dolls’ hats), single-ply buckram, and double buckram (also known as “theatrical crown”).” ~Wikipedia
Buckram may have been used in the 16th century as a stiffener for the fronts of bodices along with reed and whalebone, as well as in hats. In the modern day costumer’s workshop, it’s used primarily for millinery purposes such as making the foundations for stiffened hats like the spanish Toque, and fabric covered hats. 
A lot of people now substitute plastic canvas for buckram, but you can’t get the kind of detail and sculptural quality out of plastic canvas. Not to mention, buckram, you can sew through on a sewing machine.
I believe that once you’ve used buckram, you’ll want to use it instead of plastic canvas unless you’re in dire need of a cheap immediate solution.
Plastic Canvas - Cheap Subsitute, in a pinch.
CWotW – Steampunk
Ok, so it’s not really a “Costume” word this week, it’s more like a “Genere”… But it’s one of the hardest things I’ve had to explain to my Mom in a long time. Costuming/Clothing is the most influential part of Steampunk in my opinion. Without the costume, you’re just an average joe with cool stuff. And having attended the World Steam Expo this past weekend at the Dearborn Hyatt, I thought it was appropriate (All the pictures are ones taken with my camera this past weekend).
It’s a style of fashion/writing/art set in a time period around the victorian era, where we imagine the future that never was: one built on the power of steam engines and brass, as opposed to electricity and fuel. ~ Karmada
Steampunk: An aesthetic movement based around the science fiction of a future that never happened. Recall, if you will, visions of the future that were written a hundred years ago or more. Think Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Mary Shelley, and the like — telling stories featuring technology that didn’t exist at the time, but might someday. Remember that they were writing with no idea of the microchip, or the internet, or (in some cases) the internal combustion engine. Therefore, in their versions of the future, the technology upon which society would eventually come to depend is driven largely by steam power or clockwork. Sometimes electricity is likewise invoked, but it’s often treated as quasi-magical due to the contemporary lack of understanding about how it behaved and what it could do.WooEEE. That’s a mouthful, I know. Let me broaden that just a smidge and add this as a postscript: Steampunk could be considered a retro-futuristic neo-Victorian sensibility that is being embraced by fiction, music, games, and fashion. It is ornate and vibrant, and intricate. It believes that functional items can and should be beautiful.
It is lots of fun. If it isn’t lots of fun, you’re doing it wrong. ~Cherie Priest, The Clockwork Century
What is Steampunk by the way?
Well, if you are not familiar with the term, it refers to a genre of fiction where steam power, spring gadgets and modern marvels of the 20th century are thrown back to Victorian aesthetics. Technology in a Neo-Victorian setting. The term has spread on to include not just books, but any real mashing up of technology with more classical style, where Verne-esque and Wellsian science is a reality. Some post-apocalyptic elements rise up on occation, depending on the portrayal.
The definitions across the internet vary quite a bit, but that is the general gist of it. ~ Steampunk Lab
So you can see why it’s hard to explain. Some staples of the Steampunk Look are:
- Goggles (especially goggles, but many forms of eye protection usually with perfectly circular lenses)
- Top Hats (any sort of Victorian-esque hat really)
- Corsets (especially these. In this case I include waist-cinchers, under bust corsets, bustiers, Victorian, Edwardian, boned bodices…anything that could be construed as a corset)
- Vests (Men and women)
- Buttons (shiny buttons are best)
- Brass (not just buttons)
- Gears (they’re on everything)
- Buckles (they can go on anything you wear)
- Textures (Tweed, Leather, corduroy… very few well done steampunk outfits look “flat”)
- Detail (This one is difficult, but you can put the outfit together, but if you don’t have that extra detail, it won’t look right. Roll up the sleeves, add that extra tool belt, wear the hat, the makeup…)
During the convention I went to several panels, one that I think explained how to create a steampunk look most simply and beautifully was the one on Steampunk Costuming by G.D. Falksen. He suggested the way to do steampunk well, was to look at period clothing from the 19th century, use that as a base then add more subtle things from there based on what your character would have. He also mentioned color. He suggested looking at Victorian paintings since they had access to color that the sepia toned photos did not. These considerations lend to the more Victorian side of steampunk, the side that looks extremely elegant and almost real.
On the other hand, the panel I went to with Kapitan R.O. von Grelle and her crew. They had the more theatrical approach to steampunk where you need to have your outfit tell exactly what you are, what you do and to not have extraneous items that will detract or confuse what your character’s purpose is. You can see the Kapitan below in red and black. This lends it’s self to a more characture side of steampunk.
So far what I’ve found is that nothing is truly set in stone for steampunk. It simply depends on what you like.
CWotW – Ruff
ruff (ruf) noun
1. a high, frilled or pleated collar of starched muslin, lace, etc., worn by men and women in the 16th and 17th cent.
2. a band of distinctively colored or protruding feathers or fur about the neck of an animal or bird.
~YourDictionary.com
A ruff is generally a 16th century item of clothing which started out as the small neck ruffle on the collar and cuffs of men’s shirts during the early Tudor period. As time went on, it got larger, and incorporated lace, and embroidery and became larger. Eventually it also made appearances in women’s high necked smocks and then became a separate piece of clothing during Elizabeth’s reign reaching massive sizes as starch became available and strange shapes were now achievable. Late during Elizabeth’s reign wire supportaces were necessary to achieve the large open ruffs, and the large butterfly wing looking structures associated with them. During the 17th century, ruffs lost out to falling collars which then became smaller and smaller, and went back down to the size of men’s shirt collars that we know today, by the 18th century.
A set of ruffs were a matching set of neck and wrist or cuff and collar ruffs. This was a term used only after ruffs had become separate pieces of clothing from the shirt.
Melanie Schuessler’s “How to Starch a Ruff”
Dawn’s “Ruff Instructions”
Kimiko’s 1590s Ruff
So Saturday Karmada came by and she finished her corset, had some problems with the grommet setting tool…but we rigged a fix, and she got it working enough to get all her grommets set and now she’s got a front & back lacing, super cute corset with black trim/stay tape.
Turns out the threads on the thumbscrew for the top bit of the grommet tool were wonky and after I chopped the first 1/8 inch off the screw, it worked like a champ. So today I was able to use the last of my gross of “antiqued brass” grommets and I got my waist cincher finished. I had it mostly done, but I needed to some pressing and sewing last night while we were having an online Shadowrun game. Which leads me to a rant…
< begin rant >
FOR MORE CLICK HERE…
CWotW – Bustle
The bustle was the evolution from the full bell skirt to a more streamlined, narrower skirt that was pulled up and to the back during the late 19th century. Where the bell hoop skirt was taken to extremes with it’s diameter at the hem, so did bustles with their radius at the butt.
Bustle Pads:
