The Making of a U.S. Marshal... Costume
This is part one of a two-part series in which I discuss how I made my two costumes for Tombstone. First, let's talk about my U.S. Marshal, Sierra Jones:
The influencing factors in Sierra's costume were...
1) The setting - 1881 in Tombstone, AZ. "Wild West" can typically be costumed much like late Victorian, allowing some variation for the fact that it would take a while for fashions to reach remote areas.
2) The character - as a U.S. Marshal, the character would want to dress practically. But she was also once a young woman who was engaged and dreamt of starting a life with her future husband, so she was at least somewhat typical of the period. She also wasn't a historical figure like Calamity Jane, who was recorded as having dressed in mens' clothes.
3) What costume pieces I had on hand already. Namely, I already had a late Victorian/Edwardian blouse I intended to use.
In brief, I wanted a costume that was practical but with some feminine touches, that was broadly representative of the late Victorian period. Given the loose guidelines of LARP costuming, I was willing to allow about a decade's leeway in either direction, but I wasn't, for example, going to wear my 1840s day dress.
Hat: ... maybe not the best item to start with. It was a cheap Halloween costume cowboy hat I bought for $6 from Savers. It was a last minute touch.
Blouse: The blouse was from my costume closet - it's Folkwear #205, the Gibson Girl blouse, made in an off-white cotton with lace inserts at the yoke. I made this last year for The Clockwork Cafe, wore it just last month for House of the Rising Sun, and decided to use it again. I had purchased Buckaroo Bobbins Romantic-era Blouse pattern to use for this shirt, but time constraints meant that I couldn't do that - but it would be another fine choice for this type of shirt.
This is also where I admit that this piece is more Edwardian than Victorian, but it gives the right impression.
Skirt: I constructed the skirt just for this event. The skirt uses Buckaroo Bobbins' Wyoming Ranch Skirt pattern. After making a mockup I was happy to see it needed no modifications, so I cut the XXL at mid-calf length in a small-wale tan corduroy. I found corduroy a joy to work with, and the only painful part of the process was making 30 buttonholes and sewing on 22 buttons!
One thing I experimented with on this piece was seam finishes of various sorts. Since I had made a mock-up, I knew where I could fit in French seams. When I had a little time afterwards, I experimented with zig-zagging over the seam allowances to finish them - which worked well on a stable fabric like corduroy, but not so well on some of my saloon-girl undergarments. I also clean-finished (a.k.a. turned and stitched) the inseam allowances, which I had not been able to French seam.
I am also glad I made a mock-up because I realized only after I had done that how the center back pleats are sewn. I did it incorrectly on the mockup, thinking there should only be one seam which connected all the layers, wrong sides together. Instead there should be two seams, to either direction (right or left) of the center back, which attach each pleat to the underlying fabric.
This piece, like the blouse, may be slightly later Victorian than would be strict, but the convenience factor won out.
(For those of you who don't sew, BB also sells ready-made versions of this skirt).
Vest: The vest was made from the vest pattern included with the Wyoming Ranch Skirt. It's so simple a pattern (3 fashion fabric and 3 lining pieces), I didn't bother making a mockup, but just cut the XL out of a thin, buttery-soft mottled brown pleather. While pleather doesn't fray, it is, I discovered, very difficult to pin. Technically I suppose I should have use tape or paper clips instead of pins, because the pins did leave small marks, but they are not noticeable on the finished garment.
The pattern includes fringe, but I decided to leave the fringe out both due to time constraints and because I didn't think I would like how it looked. I'm also not thrilled with the curve at the center back - the lining fabric is sewn to the fashion fabric with a non-existent seam allowance, which makes it curve nicely, but also means that the lining fabric is fraying slightly and a few threads are showing.
Again not really sure about the historical accuracy of this pattern, but the look works well.
Undergarments: You really wanted to know, didn't you? Well, it's important to note that these pieces were made to go over a corset. Is a U.S. Marshal wearing a corset such a good idea? Maybe not, but the Gibson Girl blouse wasn't going to fit without it.
So a corset it is. Now, I'm not crazy, and I've never made a corset. I get all of mine from River Junction Trading Company. I've never actually ordered anything else from them, but their corsets are inexpensive ($70 with shipping) and well-constructed. Sure, it's plastic boning in there, but I got five years of costume wear out of my first one before the boning started to come out of its casing.
All my undergarments, however, were really in service to my saloon girl costume, which I shall discuss next time.
Boots: These riding/motorcycle boots are actually my everyday boots. They just happened to work well for this costume, too. Why, yes, I do buy $100 leather boots from Ralph Lauren. Shut up, the last pair lasted ten years.
Badge: The GMs provided the badge. But River Junction has some badges that might work for similar purposes.
Gun/belt: Borrowed from lightgamer.
The influencing factors in Sierra's costume were...
1) The setting - 1881 in Tombstone, AZ. "Wild West" can typically be costumed much like late Victorian, allowing some variation for the fact that it would take a while for fashions to reach remote areas.
2) The character - as a U.S. Marshal, the character would want to dress practically. But she was also once a young woman who was engaged and dreamt of starting a life with her future husband, so she was at least somewhat typical of the period. She also wasn't a historical figure like Calamity Jane, who was recorded as having dressed in mens' clothes.
3) What costume pieces I had on hand already. Namely, I already had a late Victorian/Edwardian blouse I intended to use.
In brief, I wanted a costume that was practical but with some feminine touches, that was broadly representative of the late Victorian period. Given the loose guidelines of LARP costuming, I was willing to allow about a decade's leeway in either direction, but I wasn't, for example, going to wear my 1840s day dress.
Hat: ... maybe not the best item to start with. It was a cheap Halloween costume cowboy hat I bought for $6 from Savers. It was a last minute touch.
Blouse: The blouse was from my costume closet - it's Folkwear #205, the Gibson Girl blouse, made in an off-white cotton with lace inserts at the yoke. I made this last year for The Clockwork Cafe, wore it just last month for House of the Rising Sun, and decided to use it again. I had purchased Buckaroo Bobbins Romantic-era Blouse pattern to use for this shirt, but time constraints meant that I couldn't do that - but it would be another fine choice for this type of shirt.
This is also where I admit that this piece is more Edwardian than Victorian, but it gives the right impression.
Skirt: I constructed the skirt just for this event. The skirt uses Buckaroo Bobbins' Wyoming Ranch Skirt pattern. After making a mockup I was happy to see it needed no modifications, so I cut the XXL at mid-calf length in a small-wale tan corduroy. I found corduroy a joy to work with, and the only painful part of the process was making 30 buttonholes and sewing on 22 buttons!
One thing I experimented with on this piece was seam finishes of various sorts. Since I had made a mock-up, I knew where I could fit in French seams. When I had a little time afterwards, I experimented with zig-zagging over the seam allowances to finish them - which worked well on a stable fabric like corduroy, but not so well on some of my saloon-girl undergarments. I also clean-finished (a.k.a. turned and stitched) the inseam allowances, which I had not been able to French seam.
I am also glad I made a mock-up because I realized only after I had done that how the center back pleats are sewn. I did it incorrectly on the mockup, thinking there should only be one seam which connected all the layers, wrong sides together. Instead there should be two seams, to either direction (right or left) of the center back, which attach each pleat to the underlying fabric.
This piece, like the blouse, may be slightly later Victorian than would be strict, but the convenience factor won out.
(For those of you who don't sew, BB also sells ready-made versions of this skirt).
Vest: The vest was made from the vest pattern included with the Wyoming Ranch Skirt. It's so simple a pattern (3 fashion fabric and 3 lining pieces), I didn't bother making a mockup, but just cut the XL out of a thin, buttery-soft mottled brown pleather. While pleather doesn't fray, it is, I discovered, very difficult to pin. Technically I suppose I should have use tape or paper clips instead of pins, because the pins did leave small marks, but they are not noticeable on the finished garment.
The pattern includes fringe, but I decided to leave the fringe out both due to time constraints and because I didn't think I would like how it looked. I'm also not thrilled with the curve at the center back - the lining fabric is sewn to the fashion fabric with a non-existent seam allowance, which makes it curve nicely, but also means that the lining fabric is fraying slightly and a few threads are showing.
Again not really sure about the historical accuracy of this pattern, but the look works well.
Undergarments: You really wanted to know, didn't you? Well, it's important to note that these pieces were made to go over a corset. Is a U.S. Marshal wearing a corset such a good idea? Maybe not, but the Gibson Girl blouse wasn't going to fit without it.
So a corset it is. Now, I'm not crazy, and I've never made a corset. I get all of mine from River Junction Trading Company. I've never actually ordered anything else from them, but their corsets are inexpensive ($70 with shipping) and well-constructed. Sure, it's plastic boning in there, but I got five years of costume wear out of my first one before the boning started to come out of its casing.
All my undergarments, however, were really in service to my saloon girl costume, which I shall discuss next time.
Boots: These riding/motorcycle boots are actually my everyday boots. They just happened to work well for this costume, too. Why, yes, I do buy $100 leather boots from Ralph Lauren. Shut up, the last pair lasted ten years.
Badge: The GMs provided the badge. But River Junction has some badges that might work for similar purposes.
Gun/belt: Borrowed from lightgamer.