As someone who replicates historic sewing patterns, this discussion has been of great interest to me.
When producing patterns for the public from original source material, there are a lot of decisions to be made. How true to stay to the original, whether to draft pieces for parts that weren't originally included - such as facings and trims, to grade or not to grade . . . the list is endless, and doesn't stop at merely what to do with the pattern pieces. There are the often the so-called instructions (sometimes only three lines long!) to consider as well. Someone also brought up the issue of sewing a pattern to test it before publishing. Part of the problem with many replicated patterns, is not only that they are not well produced (hand drawn tracings), poorly documented (information missing), unedited (markings missing or incorrect), but that the buyer's expectation of what they are getting is mis-matched with what the seller is offering. Unfortunately that is not discovered until after the purchase, or while trying to construct the garment. Many of these companies stay in business, because there are few sources for patterns from these eras. Despite being well-known for offering an inaccurate product. I was very lucky to recently acquire many years worth of Harper's and La Mode Illustree's, with pattern sheets from 1863 through 1901. They are currently in the process of being electronically digitized, and should be available soon. Regards Janyce Hill www.vpll.org _______________________________________________ h-costume mailing list h-costume@mail.indra.com http://mail.indra.com/mailman/listinfo/h-costume
