Books for Research

Battledress - The uniforms of the Worlds Great Armies 1700- present by I.T Schick

The Regency by Marlon Sichel

Mens Graments 1830-1900 - A guide to pattern cutting and tailoring by R. I. Davis

European Milirary Uniforms - A short History

The anatomy of costume by Robert Selbie

Prussian Cavalry of the Napoleonic Wars 1792-1807 by Peter Hofschroer

Tailoring of the Belle Epoque by W. D. F. Vincent

Men's 17th and 18th Century Costume, Cut and Fashion by R. I. Davis

The Cut of Men's Clothes 1600-1900 by Norah Waugh

Arms and Uniforms - The Lace Wars by Liliane and Fred Funcken

Uniforms of the Naopleonic Wars by Digby smith

My Journey so far

There has been a fair few positives and negatives during this whole process, however when I compare myself at the very beginning to where I feel I am at now in regards to knowledge and understanding of a new trade I feel that I have managed to gain much more than I had expected. I didn't always get the answers that I wanted, however I shouldn't disregard all the interesting facts that I had come across that I was not planning to find out in the first place. Military Tailoring is a very difficult industry to pry in to, and I didn't make it easy on myself. However, as a project mainly built as an investigative enquiry I fell that I have definitely made a successful amount of process. I was not expecting to be an expert on the subject by the end of this journey, but I now have a great deal of information on suppliers as well as tailors in the industry that I can always revert back to if I ever choose to continue this project in the future. It has been a very challenging module, which in a way I have been very glad of, because I can now feel some sense of satisfaction as I didn't 'take the easy way out'. I feel that I have only scraped the surface, and I have so much more to learn, and this project is by no means a finished product. I plan to make progress as well as finish my tunic in the near future.

Kapok Fabric

I decided to do a little research in to Kapok Fabric in regards to what was mentioned during my talk with Graham Hunter. He mentioned that Kapok fabric was used for military uniforms, however I did not catch what specifically for. This is what I came across:

Kapok fiber's essential attributes are many: buoyant, resilient, moisture resistant, vermin resistant and smooth, kapok possess powerful performance in a lightweight package.  It 's said that kapok fiber repels water like rain on a ducks back. When a substance does this we call it, hydrophobic. This hydrophobic quality results in the quick-drying, buoyant and moisture-resistant properties, which makes kapok fiber remarkable among natural fibers. Kapok fiber supports as much as 38.6 times its own weight in water. Buoyancy is lost slowly; with one test showing only 10 percent loss after 30 days of water immersion. No other natural fiber is better than kapok for water-safety equipment. When kapok fibers are put under tension they completely return to their original length when the tension is removed. Kapok fiber is devoid of nutritional content thus kapok fiber is vermin resistant. Kapok fibers are smooth and missing the scales of animal hair so it won't mat or felt easily. It weighs only one-eighth as much as cotton, is as warm as wool and is as smooth as silk.

http://archive.paradigmoutpost.com/kapok/kapok-fiber/properties-of-kapok-fiber-fibre

I can only assume that this fibre was used as a type of padding, as when I look it up it says:

Kapok has been used mainly as stuffing, as in life jackets, pillows, and mattresses and is not manufactured as thread or fabric.

  http://www.botgard.ucla.edu/html/botanytextbooks/economicbotany/Ceiba/

A talk with Graham Hunter

I arranged a trip over to the Britannia Panopticon to meet Graham Hunter. Graham has a wide range of knowledge within gents period garments and owns one of the largest collections of period garments in the UK. He has been very helpful with letting me in on some of his vast knowledge on Military Uniform, and seemed very keen himself to teach others about something that he has such a great passion for. I am very grateful for this visit because it has been interesting to hear information first hand from someone that can ultimately verify these facts.

The first thing that Graham mentioned was the company Gieves and Hawkes. This is a company that I have already come across during my previous research. As well as this, a good company for uniform embroidery is Hand and Lock. This is a company that I will have to research in to. He also mentioned Hainsworth, another company that I has already come across and ordered fabric from, which makes me think that the research that I have done previously has been quite successful if I consider it to be of a high standard from a practitioners point of view.

The pointed angle shape of the elbow is quite typical to find on a military jacket. you can also see how to chest on this tunic protrudes out, and as this is an officers outfits it has quite a bit of padding in this area.

silk lining

Uniforms copied civilian coats, and had a very similar cut. This is why you can apply period tailoring techniques to military uniform construction; it is all the same type of tailoring. Most uniforms would have been imported from Britain to around Europe. During the Victorian period, interlinings were more common than during the Regency period when there was less detail, and possibly only padding at the front. Chest canvas has been used for a long period of time as a structural piece to remove any hollows on the chest. Graham mentions ‘Kapok’ fabric, which is another things for me to investigate in to.  Most officers’ coats would be lined with silk, and facings where of wool, possibly doeskin. Graham mentions that with some of the coats that he has come across he has found leather, very similar to kid leather, behind the facings between the lining and the fabric. He says that this band of leather would be used to stop the edges from curling and keep everything flat and looking perfect.

I also noticed that at the bottom of this particular jacket there was a leather facing at the bottom, which is very interesting as I have no come across anything like this yet. I can imagine that this is definitely a dress uniform of an officer because of the quality of the fabrics, and also the leather facing gives it away. I asked about pocket lining and Graham said that it would have been either linen or basic cotton. I do believe that modern approaches use Holland linen to line the pocket, which is still similar.

Shoulders were always set back, this is a traditional style which isn’t used to the same extent in modern day suits. But some companies such as Gieves and Hawkes still like to keep they authentic look with their suits and still have set back shoulders.

Graham let me have a look at his samples from Hainsworth. Most of the samples were the same as mine however I did not receive doeskin samples, he mentions that if you want to be proper authentic, doeskin is the type of fabric you would go for, as it was used during the regency period as well as the Victorian. There are many different names for all the different types of wool that could be used when reconstructing a period garment such as melton, pilot cloth, however, twill is a modern type of fabric and is more unusual. It wouldn’t necessarily be used for a period tunic from the 18^th Century Napoleonic wars.

Here are some really interesting facts about uniforms:

Lapels in suit jackets came from Napoleonic military tunics. When the officers were too warm they would unfasten the top buttons on their tunics and would then fold the tunic tops open to create what we would call lapels today. This then became a popular fashion trend for men’s jackets ever since.

Another interesting bit of information, whether it is true of not, is that the reason you find buttons on cuffs is because when Napoleon found soldiers wiping their noses on their cuffs he decided to put buttons on them to prevent the men from doing so.

The reason men’s clothing fastens left over right, goes back to when soldiers used to draw their sword from their left side, therefore it was practical for their jacket to fasten left over right so as to prevent the jacket edge from catching as the sword was drawn. Also, because men used to have their servants dress them but the men would button up their own garments, where as women would have everything done for them including buttoning up their clothing. This meant that it would be easier for the servant who was buttoning up the garment if the buttons fastened right over left, hence why clothing for men and women are fastened in this way and still are!

I told Graham that I have been finding it difficult to differentiate between a costume piece and an authentic piece, and he mentions that the easiest way to tell the difference is that all the originals will have the original stamps on them.

In regards to the bottom half, the army wore pantaloons rather than breeches to differentiate themselves from the officers and the higher ranks. Officers wore buckskin leather breeches, commonly white, towards the end of the Napoleonic wars. More commonly worn after around 1815-20’s. Hussar trousers were a common type of fashion for civilians around 1815 with the braided details around the pockets being popular. As well as this, Hessian boots were very fashionable taken from the Hussar uniform.

As I have already said, during the Regency era there was less interlining materials used and generally only padding. However, it was mainly the officers that would have padding rather than the soldiers. A style of quilting used during the Victorian period Serpintine, which I have similarly seen on some of the tunics that are in stock at the Conservatoire. This answers my question as this must mean that these particular tunics that I have examined are probably authentic.

This 1880’s lieutenant tunic has no padding, has a basic thin canvas with a heavier canvas around the chest. It also has Russia braid around the cuffs. Graham mentions that ‘everyday’ uniform was not always padded, however full dress uniforms would definitely be padded to give the puffed out chest look.

This one is an 1890’s practical uniform. It is the simplest with no padding, no lining and no interlinings and interfacings. The reason for this would be because it is used as a practical garment that is worn everyday, there is no need to all the layers of interlinings as it would be too hot for the soldier to wear and very impractical. You can see as the years went on, how uniforms were developed for practicality purposes rather than for the look. Fabric went down in quality in the 1870’s due to the invention of the sewing machine, and uniforms were being mass-produced. The early sewing machine stitch is called the ‘chain stitch’ which is something that I didn’t know, and is what you would find on uniforms of that period.

Another interesting fact that I learnt is that only officers would have shoulder pads in their tunics/coats, and it was depending on the tailor whether he felt that his client needed shoulder pads. For example, if the officer had weak shoulders or even a shoulder that was significantly weaker than the other, the tailor would pad accordingly. This also applies to the general shaping of the uniform, depending on the specific build of the officer the tailor would judge the right amount of padding that would need to be used in order to create the traditional look.

Nowadays, uniforms as well as replicas are mass produced in India, as it is cheaper labour, as well as cheaper to do metalwork. One book in particular that Graham showed was a book called ‘Uniforms of the British Army, Naval and Court’ by T.H Holding. It had some very interesting picture of period style tunics, and he managed to photocopy some images for me. This will be a book that I will definitely want to research in to in future as it looked like it would be very informative for my research.

Graham mentions that my attempt to construct a Hussar tunic is very ambitious for a first attempt, and that it may be wise to start with a basic uniform first. I understand where he is coming from, as I have already felt that this particular type of tunic is becoming quite complicated to interpret, as well as very expensive to make. If I had known this information sooner I probably would have chosen a much simpler style to construct, however I have already started to make the pattern. It is just unfortunate timing which cant be helped. I suppose these are the types of issues that you can be faced with when not knowing much about a particular subject in the first place. If I could go back I would have waited before jumping ahead, but I suppose it was hard for me to know whether I was going in the right direction or not. It definitely has been a learning curve for me, and in future I will bare this thought in mind when I am constructing a garment that I do not have much knowledge on. I will start with the basics before anything else.

All in all this trip has been such a great help in regards to my research, Graham is a very interesting man and I do hope to keep in contact with him in the future. I am glad to have put myself out there because now I have made contact within the industry for me to source in the future if I choose to continue this project further,

More useful tailoring links

http://www.styleforum.net/a/the-difference-between-fused-and-canvassed-suits-explained

http://www.uniquepatterns.com/education/sewing-insider/72

http://malepatternboldness.blogspot.co.uk/2010/08/peter-destroys-dissects-barneys-suit.html


http://davidetaub.blogspot.co.uk/2012/04/my-old-apprentice-tailoring-pocket.html

http://tuttofattoamano.blogspot.co.uk/2010_05_01_archive.html

Making the jacket

I decided to draft my own pattern for this project, because I liked the idea of challenging myself with trying to interpret the correct shape of a military tunic through my own personal knowledge and skills which I had developed. Constructing the jacket was not a necessity for this project, however I thought that I would like to display a little bit of what I had learned and introduce the starting point of my next step of this journey which will be continued after this module has finished. I plan to have achieved my appropriate pattern pieces through drafting a basic jacket block, and then through shaping the toile on the body to fit my models specific shape. I can imagine that this is actually done to some extent by tailors, however I plan to start with the basics
I would say that it is more of an experiment to help develop my skills and knowledge in pattern making, and so that I become accustomed to interpreting how structural garments such as a military tunic should shape and sit on the body.

My inspiration is primarily from the 7th Regiment French Imperial Hussars 1812. This photo is of a Captain of the 7th Hussars, however I am not planning to include the captains chevrons on the cuffs, and rather it being one chevron or a russia braid design such as the one that I had practised prior.

The dolman will be dark green, the cuff and collar will be red, and I am planning on having the lace & buttons gold rather than yellow. 

I want to look at this experiment as I would if I were making a bespoke jacket for a customer as a freelance costume maker so as to get a bit of experience with what professional freelance work could possibly be like. I started by drafting a basic jacket block to my models measurements which was simple enough. The basic jacket block does not have any shaping to it, which essentially gives me a sort of 'blank canvas' to work from.

Toile No. 1

Toile No. 2

Once I had altered my pattern pieces I produced the second toile. You can see how I have created the point at the front of the tunic, raised above the hips and shaped again at the back to a more subtle point. I decided to go for a shorter style of tunic, as when I refer back to the way in which they sat from looking at photos from the Napoleonic period, the dolman sat almost above the hips. This would be due to the dolman needing to be shorted than the pelisse length which would potentially be worn over the dolman of not fastened over the shoulder. I've looked at many different styles of a hussar jacket; some styles are considerably more like a jacket that is of a jacket length, however this was not the look that I was going for. I want the tunic to be much more shaped to the body.

 I am really impressed with the way that this fits. There are some areas that could do with a little more shaping in to the body however, I have to consider that there are many layers of thick fabric, padding and interlining that will be constructed together for the final piece. Therefore it would be wide for me to keep the shape and room for ease as it is to prevent problems in later on. It is difficult to judge whether the final fabric which I am using would sit in the same way as this canvas, because they are completely different types of thickness and weight. Ideally I would have used fabric that it more similar to the Pilot cloth fabric which I will be using for the final tunic. However, I did not have the luxury of spending lots of money on other fabric as the Pilot cloth itself was expensive to purchase. This meant I would have to make compromises in other areas, plus, canvas is much more accessible. For example, instead of purchasing new canvas I managed to take apart other toiles that I had made from other projects and use that material which saved me money. I think that it is important as a costume maker that works to a budget to interpret the necessary from the issues that can have alternative routes. Using this typical canvas fabric just meant that I had to keep the size slightly bigger rather than too small, so as when tack together the final fabric panels together I can adjust them to a better shape if necessary.

I decided that due to the shape of my model, I wouldn't create as much of a pronounced chest as traditionally. There is a slight shaping to the centre front, which I found to sit better than any more unnecessary shaping. I decided to take the route of fitting the jacket to the models own shape rather than focusing on general shaping that I have found on period military tunic patterns. Although they are a great help towards my judgement calls, it is important to realise what suits your client best, which is what I learnt from Graham Hunter. 

I swithered about having a back seam, because when I investigated in to different tunics I noticed that most of the time there isn't one. However I personally preferred the look of many different panels at the back. If I were making this costume historically accurate I would be more inclined to specify whether this is an element that I could definitely incorporate in to my garment or not. However, I look at this as more of a trial to see what stage I am at exactly when it comes to constructing a jacket of this nature, and realise what steps I would need to take and consider in future to develop my skills even further and to an even more professional level.

Due to factors out with my control I was not able to continue any further with the tunic. This was because my Russia braid which I had ordered three weeks ago still hadn't arrived. Even after there being a 5 working day guarantee delivery and sending countless emails, it goes to show you can't always foresee issues that may arise. This has had a knock on effect in my progress because I cannot yet construct the tunic without having stitched the braiding on to both tunic fronts as singular pieces. Having the fronts flat and detached makes the positioning and stitching of the braid much easier rather than if the jacket was completely constructed together.

This wouldn't be ideal if I were making this costume for a customer that needed it by a specific deadline. However, this process is about trial and error, and I have learnt that in future this particular company isn't necessarily reliable for their time keeping and it might be wise not to order from them in future. It has been a difficult journey for me because in this context because I haven't experienced making a costume of this style before therefore I have had little knowledge on fabrics and suppliers. All the knowledge that I have gathered has been through investigative means and has taken a long time to culminate. However, the good thing about this project is that it has let me experience what it is like sourcing and buying from suppliers, as well as being able to start building up samples and a network of suppliers that will be of great use to me in the future. I think that it is very important as a costume maker to accumulate a list of reliable suppliers as well as a samples book so that in future it will be much simpler process due to this previous investigative experience of. As I said, this project has mostly been about investigating other than anything else, so that for similar future endeavours I will have a clearer starting point and route to go down. This means that in future it will be much easier for me to plan exactly when and where to purchase fabric from so as that I can expect and rely on everything arriving at the right time. It has been a valuable lesson in time management, and how crucial this is when making a costume for a customer.

A Chat With Graham Hunter

I have recently been in contact with Graham Hunter, who works at the Royal Britannia Panopticon in Glasgow, via email in regards to military tailoring. Graham has been collecting period garments for over thirty years. Graham has one of the largest collections of period costume in the UK and his name can been seen at the end credits of such films as "Arragon" and "Last King of Scotland" as well as TV programmes such as the popular "History of Scotland".

I managed to chat to him over the phone about his insight in to military uniforms and they construction. Major problem these days is finding good quality fabric for reconstructing period military jackets. For a costume that he most recently made he had to order the fabric in from Paris which was not cheap. He says that personally he is very pedantic about authenticity and accuracy.  The problem is if the give a pattern to a modern day tailor, they will make the uniform with modern techniques. Graham states that from what he can gather from over his years of collecting, the method in which a tailor constructs a military uniform is entirely down to their own personal preference. There is no right or wrong way, as long as it creates the desired effect. He says that if you look at 18^th century tailoring, you can find that some uniforms have quite poor quality stitching, in comparison to Victorian uniforms due to the invention of the sewing machine. However in saying this, Officers costumes usually are beautifully made.

 He mentions how difficult it is to find broadcloth and wool Melton of a good quality and of a reasonable price. Not to mention how all the trimmings and braid are extortionately priced as well. It is a difficult project to make a costume completely authentic unless you have the money. I have found this to be very true along my journey, even if being made as a costume piece. He mentions ‘’ who are company providers of fabric for many period films such as Master and Commander.

Before the 18^th century most linings were made of rough cotton or even linen, it wasn’t until later that cotton sateen lining was used. Sometime officers coat linings were made of white silk, and coat tail linings were generally a wool fabric.

We have arranged a meeting at the Panopticon in a couple of days where he will show me some of this military tunic collectable items, which should be very interesting.