Hat sizer - Western Costume.

I love this woman's costume. We dressed her for featured-background work on Bel Ami, she was dressed head to toe in original stock.

The hat is detailed here and comes from Aram in Paris, the two piece, bodice and skirt, is from Angels Costumes in London. The bodice is tiny, I saw it when I was in Angels last week and it reminded me of this picture. Often the surviving clothes we use are difficult sizes for us to fit onto people, this naturally controls how often they are used and extends their life.

It's always interesting to see real clothes worn as they would have been worn. 

A perfect fit and still earning their keep 125 years later.

Diana Foster at United American Costume Co. made me feel very welcome.

Their collection is steeped in the history of old western films and has a very personal, family feel. Loads of great items, some of which I hope to find time to share the details of on Instagram.

I wish we made westerns in Europe more often, I was surrounded by clothes I would love the opportunity to use. Who knows, maybe there will be a spaghetti western revival and we'll all be off to Spain.

Anyway ... these shoes ... I feel sure now that these are the bulldog toes I blogged about last year.?

I am in LA this week pulling stock for our current project which is set in New York in the thirties. Even with a small budget I knew I had to come here to spend some money on authentic American clothing.

I have had an exhausting, exhilarating, ambitious week.

Betsey Potter whom I met on a job last year has been showing me around, driving very fast indeed but I think that's her way, regardless of my crazy schedule.

First stop was MPCC, Motion Picture Costume Co. 

This costume house has a great collection within their principal department.

Having recently purchased stock from another house called Repeat Performance, MPCC have kept a separate area for these principal rentals, so they've effectively got two tiers of quality. This principal collection is particularly well cared for, it contains all the small details and the stock feels very fresh, remember these clothes are nigh on 100 years old.

Some of the hats are just brilliant. I will blog some shapes when we unpack in London next week.

In the evening I went to meet Bill and Jean Gold at Repeat Performance where they have kept a small part of their original collection and this stock is for sale. They still buy too, I imagine they can't stop as they are very passionate about their stock. We had a great chat about clothes, filming, friends in common, and I purchased some garments which will hopefully nail a couple of scenes for me. Bill and Jean's boutique collection was of particularly special quality.

Their online shop is here,  it's worth a visit.

And on the way home we passed the Paramount arches. Doing a thirties film made this feel quite special, something I haven't really connected with before is the history of film making here in LA.

I am usually standing in the rain doing the gritty urban dramas.

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.