Tasha Tudor & Pleasant Company

My journey to historical costuming

I learned how to sew about twelve years ago, when I was a student at Glasgow. An older couple from Utah came to be missionaries in our church. Surprisingly, they had known my parents back in the early 1980s. The wife, Roberta Hicks, taught me how to sew. It had been a lifelong dream to learn how to create my own historical clothing. I don’t think I was ever interested in making contemporary clothing, I always wanted to make dresses from the past.

A couple of things have happened lately that have made me wonder about my lifelong journey towards learning how to make my own historical clothing, and why it is such a passion with me. The first was a letter my mother found from Tasha Tudor. The second is that within the past year, my niece has discovered an old American Girl doll of mine, as well as some of the clothes and accessories and she loves them.

My niece wearing one of my childhood dresses, holding an American Girl Doll that had also belonged to me as a child.

When I was about seven years old, the famous children’s writer and illustrator Tasha Tudor was invited to come to Provo, Utah (the town where we lived) to speak. My mother was able to meet her, and they struck up a friendship. They (and their dolls!) corresponded by mail, and my mother was able to visit her quite a few times. Their friendship became part of my life and my upbringing, and when I was about thirteen years old, I was able to travel with my mother and sisters and meet Tasha Tudor as well.

My mother, sitting in Tasha Tudor’s parlor, wearing one of her 1830s dresses!

It must have been around the same time that Pleasant Company was formed, and the American Girl dolls (I have just looked it up, the dolls were realeased in 1986, when I would have been four years old. I don’t think we were aware of them till I was seven or eight years old).

When I look back on both these things, coinciding in my life around the same time, I can see the effect they had on me. I longed to step into the past and wear the beautiful clothing that women wore in decades and centuries past.

This desire was strengthened, when as a fifteen-year-old, I visited my sister Heather who, at the time, worked at a living history museum in Newark Valley, New York. She had made friends with a woman named Tamara, who was very knowledgeable about historic clothing, and in fact owns a large collection of historic clothing herself. I dressed up (though not accuarately) when I came to the museum one day with Heather, and from that moment, Tamara was impressed with me, and gifted me with a 1920s sewing book. I remember thinking at the time that she was casting pearls before swine, but eventually, in my thirties, I did finally learn how to sew! I have remained friends with Tamara, and even though it did take me so long to learn, she has always encouraged and believed in me, which is something I really appreciate.

This is the dress I learned to sew on, from a pattern for an 1830s dress. My sister had started it years ago, and she sent it to me in Glasgow, where Roberta Hicks taught me how to sew and helped me finish it. May 2013.

Once I started sewing, I showcased my projects on a blog, some of which I’d like to share here in a “from the archives” series. Especially with the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth this year, I want to share some of the Regency clothing I’ve made over the years (and hopefully add some new pieces to the collection).

There is something powerful about wearing historical clothing, especially if you have period-accurate underclothing, such as stays or corsets. I remember in one of my archaeology classes, the teacher was discussing object agency, and the effect things can have on us, and he asked us all to bring in an example for the next class. I brought in my early 19th century stays (an earlier form of corset) and talked about how beyond the obvious structural effect of the stays, it also changes how you feel, how you carry yourself, etc. It connects you to the past in a tangible, tactile way that is powerful and, to me, very lovely. I am grateful for the interesting and generous women who have been examples to me and have helped my passion and my knowledge through the years.