Clothe Your Characters

Clothe Your Characters is a writer’s resource for authentic dress and grooming, right down to the underwear and details neglected by most clothing retrospectives. Drawings may accompany the text but the whole point is to provide the words writers need. This approach will save writers many hours of research. Seeing both the images and the words will help writers visualize and verbalize their characters, who will then no longer seem to be walking around naked.

ARE YOUR PERIOD CHARACTERS NAKED?

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 DO YOU REMEMBER 1959?

"Now where are those spectacles?" She shuffled through the clutter on her desk, pushing aside the magazine with Marilyn Monroe in "Some Like It Hot" on its cover.

WHY ME? & WHO, ME?

After thirty odd years as a professional costume designer in theatre, I know how to research an historical period and how to draw. I have long been aware that costume histories were notoriously sparse on twentieth century clothing.

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Did you ever see that cartoon commercial where the ladies are quilting paper towels with knitting needles? I only saw it a couple of times before somebody got the message that they really should be using sewing needles and thread. Some poor animator made a fool of himself (and his advertising agency) on national TV because he didn't know how quilting was done.

A young writer in my critique group made a similar mistake in her manuscript by having a young woman in the 1950s call her glasses spectacles. Blew her authenticity right outta the water. I caught it because A, I'm old enough to have worn glasses in the '50s and B, I was a professional costume designer for thirty years.

"You know these things," she cried, "But where do I find them?" The group decided I should write a 20th century clothing guide for writers. Easy for them to say.

But not that hard for me either. Being both a veteran costume designer and a writer, I'm the only person I know of who could do it! My original concept was a single volume covering the 20th century and the non-fiction book proposal won several contest ribbons. However, the first decade grew to 50,000 words and 398 drawings. The total century in a single volume would require wheels and cost the annual budget of a small country.

So, how does this work?

You fill out short questionnaires about your character and the scene for which you need help and submit your completed questionnaires to me. I send you an invoice through PayPal. You pay the PayPal invoice and I email you the information you need,  accompanied by any drawings that would help.

The first questionnaire focuses on the needs of a specific character in a specific moment/situation in your story - say, a 42-year-old widow preparing for her first date in twenty years. I will not dictate a specific outfit for your character but give you general descriptions of the sort of clothing your character would wear. Check out the options on the RATES page if you need more information up to general research assistance about the clothing of the time and place of your story.

Do email me with any questions about the service or the invoice. If you choose not to pay the invoice, it ends there.

Please visit the RATES page and the QUESTIONNAIRE page to better understand how I can help you enrich your period writing.

Pepper Hume

This sweet wedding portrait shows my grandparents, Claude and Blanche Hambleton Adams, married near the beginning of the twentieth century. Her dress is very fashionable for Independence, Kansas, with its flounced yoke, bag front and bishop sleeves. She made it entirely by hand.

With the pompadour hairdo and a standing collar like this, earrings were seldom worn. A cameo or brooch at the center front would do.

Below are Jane Caroline Fenton Hambleton and James Galbrech Hambleton, parents of the bride. He's wearing an old-fashioned frock coat and his Civil War medals. Older men at the beginning of the century still wore the full beards and short hair of their prime. The hint of "leg-o-mutton" about her sleeves is also old-fashioned but she is up to date with that bag front. Still, no new-fangled pompadour here!

By the way, neither Blanche nor her mother were anywhere near five feet tall.

This is my Aunt Claudene holding my Uncle Millard, both born in the first decade of the twentieth century. Little boys wore dresses almost until they started school, and nearly all dresses were white in the summer. The fact that he's wearing socks - called half hose - instead of full hose dates this about 1910-12. It could be later, Independence wasn't exactly high style. Notice her white boots and full hose.