costume detail

Nat Turner and I visited three costume houses in Paris last week. It meant charging round at a crazy pace because we did it all in one day, rather ambitious, but we managed to spend enough time at each stop to get the gist of what's available over there for our date, 1912.
I was particularly keen to visit Catherine in Aram as I'd seen some of her stock before but had never visited the house. Her collection of original garments in often pristine condition was as good as I had hoped.
I suppose we are rather spoiled in what we do, items in the costume houses can be museum quality and we would be required to handle them wearing white cotton gloves should we be researching in an institution yet in our day to day work we regularly handle incredible pieces of original clothing, getting right inside and examining the details of the make. It's great practice to maintain a fresh eye for detail, as well as good fun.

Often the stuff just sitting around on shelves is enough to get me excited - Catherine's collection of shoe samples, still on the lasts, was fascinating.

By the way, Nat has just started his own blog - Costumology, worth checking out.