Hand-stitched buttonholes, lovely linens and reproduction fabrics have all been part of the “Dress like a Planter” summer sewing circle at Wolfville’s Randall House Museum.
Since June, participants from as far away as Halifax have gathered Thursday mornings to create 18th century costumes. The workshops began “in anticipation of the 250th Planter celebration,” museum curator and workshop leader Bonnie Elliott says. “We need to get going on our attire!”
Next year’s celebration of the 250th anniversary of the New England settlers’ arrival in the area is part of Sylvia Jacquard’s motivation for attending the circles. “Next year is Planters 2010 and I would like to have a costume to wear to the events.”
And 1760 is not the only year represented by the group’s costumes. Anita Campbell, Halifax, has been working on a gown representative of the 1780s or ‘90s, time of the second generation of Planters.
A different dress mindset
The sewing circle is a glimpse into another era, where clothing was an expensive and time-consuming commodity, with many fabrics imported from the other side of the world.
“We have such a throwaway society now. Clothes are cheap,” Elliott said. “At the time of the Planters, people stole garments and cloth and were severely punished for it.
“That’s always surprising for people to hear; you could be thrown in jail and receive 20 lashes for stealing a shirt.”
A great deal of women’s daily work would involve spinning, weaving and sewing. “People were constantly sewing,” Elliott said. Some women found the handwork rewarding and a pleasing part of their workday, especially sewing bees, because “their work was both very useful and gave them a sense of community.” Even now, hand sewing can represent a “reprieve in the middle of the day,” she added.
Unlike the historic garments they copy, not all of the circle’s costumes will be sewn by hand, Elliott noted. “I’m not a purist. You can combine hand and machine sewing to create a garment reflective of the period.”
Exact authenticity is challenging, because the material used then is not easily available now. Planters dressed in homespun linens as well as imported silk and cotton with block printed patterns.
Unraveling fashion mysteries
“We don’t have a lot of direct information on what Planters wore,” Elliott admitted. “As far as I know there are no extant garments left.”
Although a written description by travelers in the area does exist, historians seek clues to how Planters dressed by “looking at contextual sources, like what were they wearing in Connecticut at the time?” Portraits also yield insights, she added.
It helps there was a great deal of uniformity in fashion in the western world at the time, Elliott pointed out. “People looked to France and England as arbiters of taste, with regional fashion mixed in.”
Part of the historic endeavour is to adopt the “Planter mindset,” Elliott said; to imagine how a Planter would approach a sewing project. For instance, women might spin and weave a bolt of linen sufficient to sew a batch of men’s shirts at one time.
Patterns would not be bought, but may have been created by picking apart an existing gown or consulting a particularly skilled local seamstress. “Shoes would be imported,” she noted, “but a local farmer may have some knowledge of cobbling and repair shoes, make children’s shoes.”
Also interesting is the puzzle of how European fashions were transferred in rural Nova Scotia. Where did ideas of fashion come from?
“While men tended to have more information on clothing styles because they traveled more,“ Elliott said, information might have been transferred through newspapers and personal letters.
Historians are sure about one element of Planter attire; Sundays were a fashion event. “”People dressed up for Sundays,” Elliott noted. “Going to church was one of your main social activities.”
The “Dress like a Planter” sewing circle is scheduled to end Sept. 10, Elliott said. “If there is enough interest, we hope to continue the classes.”
For more information, see http://wolfvillehs.ednet.ns.ca/
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