Also, fancloth

Those clever folks in the USAF have invented fancloth. Bet they're going to use it for important war-fighting purposes, rather than letting us costumers have any. *grin*

Tip of the hat to Wheel of Time at Tor.com for the news.

Costume building blocks: On skirts, divided for riding

"Four dresses of fine blue wool, plain but well cut, were hanging in the dressing room, two of them with skirts divided for riding, and she changed into one with a full skirt and left the banded Accepted's dress folded in the wicker laundry basket."
- New Spring, Chapter 12

I have heard at a number of WoT events that we can assume the technology level of the Westlands to be somewhere on the order of that available in the real world in the late 17th or early 18th Century, with the exception of gunpowder. However, we need not take that to mean that the fashions of Randland are based squarely in that historical period. While that's a good place to start in your costuming explorations, some nations' dress doesn't reflect that, and a few pieces common across cultures are also out of place in that time. For example, take skirts divided for riding. Divided skirts are very full skirts that have been slit up the center line in the front and the back, with the halves sewn together to form something like a very wide trouser leg. Skirts divided for riding, or female characters bemoaning the lack of such skirts, have been with us from the beginning of the series. The quote above tells us of the "starter" clothes provided by the Blue Ajah for new sisters, which reflect the need to ride out and get involved with things, as Blues tend to like to do.

In our world, however, these garments did not come along until the 19th century. The first historical mention of divided skirts is in America in 1840, with a reformer named Mrs. Bloomer being roundly ridiculed in the press for wearing them, but the garment did not become popular until the 1880's, when it was presented at a number of exhibitions devoted to health and wellness in both America and Europe by the Rational Dress Society, a group promoting freedom of movement in women's clothing, who also spoke against the dangers of riding sidesaddle. Divided skirts were meant to enable horseback riding with legs astride, as well as bicycling. At the time, this was quite controversial - the medical journal The Lancet called divided dresses "a monstrosity of fashion" and "decidedly injurious", and Cassell and Company's History of the Year for 1882-1883 referred to the "masculine tendencies so strongly and painfully apparent" of the garment, and called such measures "an awful example of the departure from feminine characteristics".

Fortunately for the women of WoT, who seem to spend a great deal of time in the saddle, divided skirts are quite common, and not the object of complaint or ridicule. Even though Moiraine is pictured riding sidesaddle on the cover of Eye of the World, I find it difficult to imagine that these ladies rode in such a way, which is limiting to speed and dangerous to both rider and horse on rough terrain.

If you would like to construct your own divided skirts, the method is simple. You can alter an existing dress by slitting the skirt from the hem to just below crotch level along the front and back center lines (some dresses will have a seam here, making the alteration even easier). Then, turn the dress inside out, and pin the right sides of your cuts together to create wide "legs". Sew a simple seam up each side, and voila, divided skirts. You can also make a Western style divided skirt with this pattern from Past Patterns (although you will need to re-size it, as the pattern comes in only one size), this one from Modest Handmaidens, or this one from Folkwear (which may need to be altered for a little more fullness in the leg). These instructions from the blog "Utter Momsense" give guidance on creating divided skirts from scratch without a pattern.

Non-WoT References:
- The History of the Year, Cassell and Company, 1883
- Reforming Women's Fashion 1850-1920, Patricia A. Cunningham, Kent State University Press, 2003

Project Diary: Egeanin Sarna in The Great Hunt

"The first to climb up was one of the armored men, and Domon saw immediately why some of the villagers claimed the Seanchan themselves were monsters. The helmet looked very much like some monstrous insect's head, with thin red plumes like feelers; the wearer seemed to be peering out through mandibles. It was painted and gilded to increase the effect, and the rest of the man's armor was also worked with paint and gold. Overlapping plates in black and red outlined with gold covered his chest and ran down the outsides of his arms and the fronts of his thighs. Even the steel backs of his gauntlets were red and gold. Where he did not wear metal, his clothes were dark leather. The two‑handed sword on his back, with its curved blade, was scabbarded and hilted in black‑and‑red leather. Then the armored figure removed his helmet, and Domon stared. He was a woman"

- The Great Hunt, Chapter 29.


 My costuming challenge for myself this year is to produce a reasonable facsimile of Seanchan armor by Dragon*Con.  I chose Egeanin Sarna, as we first see her in The Great Hunt, because her appearance is reasonably-well described, and because I enjoy the character quite a bit, through all her ups and downs.  This series of posts will document my progress, and if all goes well, will end with pictures of the full costume by September.  

Okegawa-do, by wikipedia user Rama.

I started with some basic research.  The Seanchan combine elements of Japanese and Chinese costume into their clothing and armor.  In the above quote, we get some clues to the proper sort of armor from which to model a Seanchan costume - overlapping plates, steel-backed gauntlets, armor on the chest, outer arms, and fronts of thighs.  To my mind, this description fits the okegawa-do, an armor style that came in to use in the 16th century in Japan, and continued to be used in a modified form for at least the next hundred years.  The name means "tub-shaped", a description of the shape of the chest armor.  The okegawa-do is a "modern style" of Japanese armor - it is meant to protect the wearer against firearms as well as blade weapons.  That's somewhat out of place in the WoT world, since firearms are not in common use, but I can assume that armor that can withstand a blast or two would also be good when you're facing enemy channelers.  The photo to the right shows the riveted breastplate, steel-backed gauntlets, lower-body guard, and shoulder-guards, all affixed over a heavy cloth backing.  In some examples of this type of armor, you would also see metal plates in rectangular or hexagonal shapes sewed into the backing fabric for added protection.  This particular suit also has lacing rather than rivets on the haidate (the thigh protection) and sode (shoulder guards), which may indicate it originates in a transitional period between earlier armors composed of laced-together "scales" and the later plate armors.  I like that style, and will probably be using it for my Seanchan armor. 


The type of helmet that would most likely go with this sort of armor will not be appropriate to the Seanchan, or at least, not without a little alteration.  With the okegawa-do, I have seen open-faced helmets more appropriate to a Malkieri, or helmets with faceplates (called sommen) often shaped like the faces of demons or angry mustached men.  The Seanchan helmet, of course, will evoke the head of an insect.  Fortunately, the chapter art gives a reasonably good sense of what that's supposed to look like.  I like the thick rope tie holding the helmet on.  That's not displayed in the Seanchan helmet art, but I think it adds a sense of plausibility, so I will likely at least attempt the helmet with the tie, and we'll see what it looks like.  If it detracts from the insect-head look, it can't stay, but if it doesn't, I think it's pretty cool. 


Under the armor and quilted backing, either a full-length kimono would have been worn, or a shorter kimono and hakama, wide-leg trousers.  Personally, I prefer pants in all situations, so I'm inclined towards the hakama.  Excitingly, the look was sometimes finished off with a pair of armored tabi, shoes with a division between the big toe and the rest of the toes.  I'm not at all convinced yet that I want to replicate that, or that it is necessary.  Later in chapter 29, Egeanin picks out a merchant to demonstrate a point to Bayle Domon, and the man she indicates  "turned to her and bowed, hands on knees, eyes fixed on her boots."  Above all things in this costume, I am curious to see how one might make boots work with hakama and metal shin guards.  I suppose I'll find out. 

Costume building blocks: the cloak

April M. as Lanfear at JordanCon2011

Right on top of him, Mat added "Was his cloak black?  Could you see his face?".

Ewin looked uncertainly from one of them to the other, then spoke quickly when Mat took a threatening step.  "Of course I could see his face.  And his cloak is green.  Or maybe gray.  It changes.  It seems to fade into wherever he's standing.  Sometimes you don't see him even when you look right at him, not unless he moves.  And hers is blue, like the sky, and ten times fancier than any feastday clothes I ever saw." 
- The Eye of the World, Chapter 2

Good for keeping you warm, keeping the dust off your fine clothes, doubling as a blanket, or proclaiming your status, nothing beats the humble cloak.  Warders wear a cloak made of (my eponymous) fancloth, a color-changing camouflaging fabric woven on a ter'angreal look from the Age of Legends.  Gleemen wear cloaks covered in fluttering patches.  Children of the Light wear white cloaks with sunbursts embroidered on the breast.  Nobles wear embroidered cloaks, lined in silk for warm days or fur for colder weather.  Commoners wear plain woolen cloaks, often ragged at the hem.  In general, the cloak is a long garment, draping from the shoulders to the ankles, with an attached hood.  Cloaks typically close at the neck, and may also have a series of button or frog closures down the front as well.  Cloaks in the Wheel of Time typically seem to have pockets, large enough to contain pipes, flutes, packets of herbs, provisions, and all sorts of other such things.

Kimberly G. as Asmodean

A basic cloak can be constructed in the course of an afternoon, if you have a sewing machine.  There are several commercial patterns for suitable cloaks available: for example, Simplicity 9887 makes a hooded unlined cloak in two lengths, Simplicity 5794 makes a lined hooded cloak that's a bit fancier, and Folkwear 207 makes a very full traveler's cloak with several different hood styles.

If you're feeling adventurous, however, you can also make a cloak from a pattern that you draft yourself.  There is an excellent tutorial for a simple half-round cloak here.  For WoT costuming, you'll probably want to leave out the capelet here, and you may want to deepen the hood, depending on what sort of character you are portraying.  While most mentions of hoods in the books indicate that a hood is deep enough to hide a face, noble Andoran cloaks seem to favor a very deep hood indeed, possibly a liripipe, although generally WoT clothing seems to hail from a somewhat later historical period.  Still, when Rand meets Elayne for the first time, he notices:
"A deep blue velvet cloak lined with pale fur rested on her shoulders, its hood hanging down behind to her waist with a cluster of silver bells at its peak.  They jingled when she moved."
- The Eye of the World, Chapter 40

Tip for cloak comfort: Cloaks can be quite heavy, especially those that are fuller, made of heavy material, lined, or covered with gleeman's patches.  This can mean that the cloak will pull its clasp into the neck of the wearer - quite uncomfortable and possibly dangerous.  You can minimize this by either closing the cloak with several clasps down the front of the garment (perhaps a cloth tie at the top of the neck, with a metal clasp or two below it), or by sewing metal washers or fishing weights into the hem of the front of the cloak.  If you're going to weight the cloak in the front, try taping the weights in first and walking around before you sew them in.  Too much weight in the front can be nearly as uncomfortable as too much weight in the back, and there's no need to cause a problem in the process of trying to solve a problem.

Not *the* beginning, but *a* beginning

As I'm writing here today, I have recently returned from JordanCon 2011 (a.k.a. Consaken, or, as designated by acclaim during the convention, ForsaCon).  At the convention, I was inspired to start a resource for would-be Wheel of Time costumers.

You see, a lot of us at JordanCon looked fabulous.  I've been attending Wheel of Time-related events at conventions since 2006, and I can tell you, the costumes I saw at JordanCon 2011 were leagues above the Wheel of Time costumes I saw at Dragon*Con in 2006 (mine included!).  But still, the folks in costume were a minority.  In a panel about building detailed costumes, people were asking things like "How long does it take to make a costume?" and "How do you know what it's supposed to look like?" and "What if I don't know how to sew?".

I want to help those people out, because I want to see them in costume at the next convention.  There are lots of road blocks to costuming: it can be expensive, time-consuming, or intimidating.  It can require skills that you don't have, or equipment you don't own.  But it can also be immensely rewarding, as you develop skills and confidence, connect with other costumers, conquer the challenges you set for yourself, and finally, show up looking fantastic.

On this blog, I'll be posting a number of different types of information: picture and text references for various characters and groups, tutorials on "costume building blocks", resources for finding the materials you'll need, historical information relating to the real-world cultures that the WoT cultures are adapted from, pictures of costuming endeavors, and project diaries for the pieces that my partner and I are currently working on.

Thanks for reading, and I hope you'll enjoy the blog to come!