Fit 2 Stitch

Peggy Sagers: For countless reasons, the world is beginning to appreciate the history of our clothing.

The events and time surrounding any garment's introduction impact the purpose and the way these garments were made.

Today on "Fit 2 Stitch," we look at the University of North Texas historical fashion collection, specifically at some of the handmade items.

We'll learn the role they play and the lessons they teach us about clothing.

These garments allow us to look back and see the strong statements that clothing has made over the years.

Handmade Collectibles today on "Fit 2 Stitch."

male announcer: "Fit 2 Stitch" is made possible by Kai Scissors.

male announcer: Reliable Corporation.

male announcer: Plano Sewing Center.

male announcer: Elliott Berman Textiles.

male announcer: Bennos Buttons.

male announcer: And Clutch Nails.

Peggy: One of the best kept secrets in the Dallas-Fort Worth area is up in Denton, and it's the University of North Texas.

It's called the Texas Fashion Collection.

It was started by Neiman Marcus, Stanley Marcus of Neiman Marcus, and it is a treasure of almost 20,000 fashion collectible items.

Now the reason I mention that is because we have Annette here today, and Annette is curator of the collection.

I went to Annette, and I said, you know what?

I really want to know about what's in that collection that the home sewer can relate to.

You don't have just designers, you have homemade garments.

What's the value in them?

Annette Becker: We are so lucky at the Texas Fashion Collection to have such a robust archive that includes all of the famous luxury brands and designers that most people think of.

But often the design innovation that comes from those spaces is equaled by people who are home sewers.

Sometimes those are people who have not been trained in the rules of what fashion design allows or doesn't allow.

And they come up with innovations that might not exist anywhere else.

Also, historically, not everyone has purchased designer garments to have in their wardrobes.

Even my own wardrobe is not populated by pieces with designer names on the labels.

So recognizing that most people historically have worn things that have been made at home or by local dressmakers, I think reminds us of the value of home sewing.

Peggy: I love that, I do, I think because I'm always wanting to stress the value of home sewing.

We wanna be validated.

So where do we start?

Annette: Well, we have a few pieces here today to look at.

One of my very favorites is this wedding dress that came to us pretty recently from the family of Burton and Juanita Wolf.

This is a wedding dress that was created in 1944 during World War II.

Peggy: Oh, wow.

Annette: And especially if we think about today, some of the few opportunities that people who aren't home sewers have to have a dress custom made for their own bodies, a wedding dress is usually that example.

Peggy: Sure, first and last a lot of times, you know?

Annette: It is so true.

And maybe we know people who have made their wedding dresses themselves or had a friend or family member make one.

We know the pressure that's put on that moment.

Peggy: Oh, yeah, because there's a deadline.

Annette: Exactly, so many of the home-sewn pieces that we have at the Texas Fashion Collection are wedding dresses because such care and attention has been put into making these.

This is a really special piece that was created from a Vogue special sewing pattern that was released in 1944.

And the maid of honor's mother is the one who actually constructed this for the bride between January and April when the wedding-- Peggy: Maid of honor's mother-- Annette: Exactly.

Peggy: Made the dress for the bride-- not even the bride's mother?

Annette: Exactly, a true labor of love.

Peggy: Boy, now that's us as sewers, you know, that we're always looking out for everybody else, I love that.

Annette: And we know this person was likely a very skilled seamstress because those special sewing patterns were made, not just for an entry-level sewer, but someone who had a lot of skill.

And we can certainly see elements of that in this dress.

I'm really struck, even though this is a very simple dress that was meant to be put in a suitcase, to be in a trunk on a bus to go wherever the enlisted groom's bus dropped him off, it was made to be very portable.

There was still, I think, pretty significant design decisions made.

So if we look, say, at the scalloped neckline here, we can appreciate that as a very subtle design detail that really elevates this style.

Peggy: Sure, as opposed to a V-neck.

Much more labor intensive by far.

Annette: Absolutely, trying to get all of those even, having them turned out.

Peggy: Yeah, seam allowance then inverted.

Annette: Exactly, exactly.

So to have that detail here-- and we can also see that on the sleeves, that detail is echoed here.

So even though this was created during World War II, when getting fabric was not easy, when there were restrictions placed on how elaborate even wedding dresses could be, the loving maid of honor's mother who made this still wanted to make sure this was a special dress for Juanita Wolf to wear.

Peggy: It's just really interesting.

And her family somewhere decided that they could give it to the collection, that you would find it more value than what they would find by keeping it in their home?

Annette: Exactly, we're so lucky that the family recently offered this to us.

So it's only been at the Texas Fashion Collection since 2022.

This is one of our most recent acquisitions.

So the family that lives in Missouri reached out to us saying, we don't know if you take pieces that were made by home sewers.

Looking through your database, we see a lot of famous designer names.

But in reviewing this piece and seeing the integrity with which it was designed and created, and getting to have things like the sewing pattern it was made from and photographs of the bride wearing this dress-- Peggy: And you have all of that?

Annette: We do.

We're so lucky for that.

Peggy: Wow, that is-- so do we know-- you know, when I don't know a fabric or when I wanna know a fabric, a lot of times I'll burn it.

You can't burn a dress once it's created.

So how do you know the fiber?

Annette: So for this one, we are lucky that the bride in her wedding book listed some of those details because in the time this dress was so special to her.

So we know that this is a synthetic fabric.

So it's not silk because during World War II that was restricted.

And we can see this watered pattern that looks so unusual to us.

That's called a moire, and that's a, I think, slightly elevated fabric in many people's eyes.

Peggy: It is, sure, at least, especially at the time.

If you go back to that time, it was definitely more than a solid, it was kind of a little bonus.

It's just beautiful, but it looks small too, doesn't it?

Annette: It is very, very petite.

I guess, custom made for the bride, which, you know, is I think some of the joy of having a wedding dress custom made for you by a home sewer.

Peggy: Can you tell how tall she is just from the dress?

Annette: So the person who wore this was likely 5'4", 5'5", based on how this fits on our mannequins.

I can imagine that it wasn't made to be even an inch longer than it needed to be because the textile for this and the sewing pattern were a substantial investment.

We have notes that the sewing pattern costs $1, and the textile costs $11.

Peggy: The sewing pattern costs $1 and the fabric costs $11?

Annette: Yes, which in today's money would be around $240 total.

Pretty substantial, you know, today people spend-- Peggy: That is a lot.

Annette: Lots of money on wedding dresses.

The bride was very lucky to have someone who was willing to pay the money for the fabric and then put all of that time and skill and love into making this for her.

Peggy: Oh, no kidding.

This is just beautiful.

It's so exciting to see these.

We really appreciate you getting to share them with us.

Annette: It is really a joy getting to share these stories from our collection, especially because so many people just focus on a known designer name.

But recognizing that there are these other people in our collection that deserve to be valued.

Now we even have listed as a designer as Grandma in our database because Grandma and Balenciaga deserve equal celebration in our collection.

Peggy: I love that.

I love that.

I wanna be the grandma.

Since I'll never be Balenciaga, I'll take the grandma.

Tell me about the photos.

Annette: So we're lucky to have sort of a triangulation of materials around our next garment that we have in our collection.

So here we have some photographs that were given to us pretty recently.

This photograph shows Harriet Williams, now Harriet Peevee, who's wearing a really beautiful dress.

And from having the dress in our collection and other photographs, we know this is almost like a bell from Cinderella, bright yellow dress.

We can see this is a very formal event with all of these debutantes lined up with tuxedo gentlemen, almost as an afterthought in this photograph with how voluminous all of these evening dresses are.

Peggy: It is really interesting to see where the spotlight is and where the shadow is.

Annette: So we're lucky to have these materials because we can really think about all of the people who influence a garment being created.

Often if we just have a dress, we might have a designer label on it and we can sometimes focus on that person.

For this dress, it was created by Lilli Wolff, but Lilli Wolff isn't the only person whose hands and creative energy was involved in this being made.

So this is a photograph, and we have some other documentation, from the Brenham Mayfest.

Brenham, Texas is a place with a lot of German immigrants.

So Mayfest is a big-- Peggy: That's where they make ice cream, yeah, yeah, yeah, Brenham, Texas.

Annette: So for this Mayfest pageant, Harriet Williams was invited to participate and she was told she had to have a yellow formal dress.

So she and her mother went to Lilli Wolff, who was a dressmaker based in Dallas, to commission a custom garment to be made for them.

And here we even have, from Lilli Wolff herself, we have an assortment of sketches that were donated to us by Lilli Wolff and her partner, Matti Driessen.

Matti Driessen is another important name because Lilli Wolff grew up in the world of theater and made these incredibly elaborate creative designs that she sketched, but Lilli Wolff herself was not actually a seamstress.

So she would come up with these ideas and Matti Driessen was the one to actually execute them.

So if we focus only on a known designer, Lilli Wolff, who's only really known as a local dressmaker in Dallas, we're losing out on the story of this creative collaboration that happens with the person commissioning the garment with the designer and with the seamstress who's making that happen.

Peggy: Sure, and that was a partnership that was a very long term partnership, wasn't it?

Annette: Agreed, yes.

So they started out in the world of theater costume design in Vienna, Austria, and in Germany before World War II.

And it was really only after escaping the Holocaust that Lilli Wolff landed in Dallas and continued to work with Matti Driessen in this very productive collaboration.

Peggy: And even thought to be romantic partners as well.

Annette: Agreed, yeah.

Peggy: Wow, so go back to this for a minute, because I wanna just focus on-- I think, so many times home sewers, and I'm one of them, you know, it is our job to do the whole thing.

It's our job to be the Mattie.

It's our job to be the little-- you know, it's our job to do all of this.

And I don't think we have respect for how difficult that process is.

And that many of these great garments are a collaboration of really a lot of minds coming together.

Annette: That is, it seems like almost a requirement for really highly elevated pieces-- Peggy: I would agree with that.

Annette: That so many minds and hands are involved.

And sometimes, I think, home sewers are hard on themselves when they see a strength in one area, but then sometimes we have a habit of focusing on our deficits.

Even being able to see pieces in our collection and the ways that they can be celebrated, but also maybe could be improved slightly, reminds us that even when so many people are involved, nothing is ever perfect.

Peggy: Yeah, yeah, no, this is a great-- I love the stories.

It's amazing that you have all of this.

Annette: And we're so lucky to even have the dress here with us.

I think this garment is so fun.

Many people first think of Disney princesses when they look at this.

Peggy: I had a dress similar to this.

I call it my Chitty Chitty Bang Bang dress.

It was the time.

I mean, I'm not this old, but it was the time to have a big full--you know, we even have them today, the debutantes, the bar mitzvahs, we have all of those events.

Annette: This was made in 1958, a time when debutantes were expected to have full petticoated skirts.

We're even told by Harriet that she and her sisters had a closet that was just full of petticoats they all shared, much to her father's chagrin having that much real estate in their house taken up just by undergarments.

Peggy: I'm sure.

Petticoat junction.

Annette: But here we can see-- I think I can really imagine Lilli Wolff bringing this almost theatrical sense of design to this, that we have these big swags of fabric, this organza that's been draped.

Peggy: And this is silk organza.

Annette: It is silk organza.

Peggy: I mean, it just stands out beautifully.

Annette: It does so much volume.

Peggy: It does.

Annette: And we can see these velvet ribbons that have been laced through the entire garment.

We can see handmade silk flowers that embellish different parts of this dress.

You can almost imagine it being on a piece of paper sketched out.

And then how incredible that Matti Driessen was able to translate that.

Take this kind of bananas idea of having these velvet ribbons that serve as straps, but then also serve as decoration through the entire dress.

Peggy: Yeah, it's pretty genius.

It really is.

And, obviously, that creative collaboration, I think comes from just knowing one another really well, trusting the person you're working with, all of those different levels, I think, really come into play.

This is a really beautiful little dress.

This is a very small dress.

Annette: It is very, very petite.

Yeah, you can imagine the donor.

Peggy: I'm looking at that waist and that is very, very small.

Annette: It is very small.

We're quite lucky to be able to have pieces that represent even different beauty standards in our collection.

And even as we think about local dressmakers or home sewers, they're always responding to the wearer's body.

We might think about this as being small, but it was just the size that the wearer's body was at that time.

So there is no too big or too small when you're able to shape a garment to yourself.

Peggy: So then we talk about garments that are simply made by someone for someone just as a gift, and seamstresses do that, or they could professionally level go in and design and sew or do both.

But either way, cut yourself some slack.

That's our takeaway.

Annette: Absolutely.

Absolutely.

Peggy: I mean, I love this I just love the colors, and yet, not a wedding dress.

Annette: It is not a wedding dress.

So we might think about other special moments that people have in their lives.

Debutante events you mentioned, like, quinceaeras or like bar and bat mitzvahs, moments when people I think really celebrate the clothes that they're wearing as part of that moment in their life.

So, historically, those are really the pieces that end up being archived and celebrated at the Texas Fashion Collection.

Peggy: And I love that because they're so reflective of that timeframe.

I mean, the colors used, a lot of the details that are used in those timeframes, and even the patterns and the sketches that you have are just incredible.

But, you know, I remember a time in sewing when it was Vogue, and you mentioned Vogue on this other dress.

Vogue had this high-end selection of patterns and some of them even had a label where you could put a label in there and do all of that stuff.

You have some of that in your collection.

Annette: We are so lucky to have over a thousand sewing patterns in our collection.

And we have made the decision to just scan the fronts and backs of them, which provides a lot of information if then someone might-- Peggy: Usually the date, too.

Annette: Exactly.

Exactly.

Peggy: The date is on the back typically.

Annette: So during the pandemic, I scanned all of those myself-- Peggy: So that's what you did during it?

Annette: Which is how I ended up finding this really incredible Vogue American Designer series pattern.

And I thought the style was really interesting because we have a photograph of a model wearing this bright, bold, yellow dress, but then we also have this illustration of perhaps a more tame, demure version of this design with shorter sleeves and a more muted color palette.

And I was struck by this, just thinking about what it means for Calvin Klein as a designer to not only have a ready-to-wear line that he sells, but then also to have sewing patterns that people could purchase.

I was really shocked to realize that in our collection, there's a relationship between this pattern and this actual dress that we have in our holdings.

Peggy: You have this dress?

Annette: Yes, we have this dress.

Peggy: So this dress is this dress?

Annette: Yes, this is something that I was not aware of until finding this connection in our collection that historically many designers, especially American ready-to-wear designers, would make their design creativity stretch further and that they would create a design and then turn it into a ready-to-wear garment that in this case, Shelby Marcus purchased and added to her wardrobe.

This was manufactured in New York.

But also Calvin Klein decided to make this design as an abstract idea accessible to home sewers to make themselves.

So if you had the skill, the talent, and the wherewithal, you could have a Calvin Klein yourself.

Peggy: Okay, so time out.

I gotta make sure I'm understanding that because that changed.

Okay, so let's go back.

Do we know a year on this, roughly?

Annette: So there is a date on the back of this pattern that says 1988, which aligns with the year that we expect this to be from.

Annette: So Calvin Klein would have made this in his ready-to-wear collection, and then also put out a pattern so that those women who wanted to could make and sew the dress for themselves.

Fascinating, because Mrs. Marcus bought this dress ready-to-wear and did not make it herself.

And you have both, but it was not given by the same person because this person didn't make this dress-- I'm just understanding that.

Annette: Correct.

Peggy: So just as it evolved, say late '90s, that I know about because I was familiar with Vogue and the people who ran it and owned it, and a designer would never put his pattern in an envelope.

They decided that that was compromising their-- or giving away trade secrets, or you know.

And, you know, and I'm wondering if that's kind of where the home sewer started to feel a little less than, you know, it was beneath them where this was better.

The design itself was better.

They wouldn't put it in a pattern.

They'd put Calvin Klein patterns there, but they weren't the ones that were in ready-to-wear.

Where this is proof that what was in ready-to-wear was actually in the pattern?

Annette: Exactly, and honestly, I think that's why there's such a relationship between creators today and fashion archives like the Texas Fashion Collection, because our memories only go back so far.

And we can think to those moments that honestly feel like a diss to home sewers, creating then this divide between these high design pieces made by known designers and people making garments at home.

But historically, there was a much closer relationship.

Peggy: I agree with that.

There was.

I remember back in the '50s and '60s, there was a close relationship, but I wonder if it wasn't even so much a diss, because I kind of feel that way too, but if it was just a business decision that why would we-- we have this dress, we've made this dress, we've spent a lot of time and money fitting this dress, why would we give away the pattern?

I don't mean give away, but especially sell the pattern for such $1, whatever it was at that time, I can really see where that practice business perspective probably had to come to a close.

Annette: I think you're right.

I think there is also something to brand names being licensed and brands, instead of moving from just one designer as creative director and having a lot of control, to fashion designers being part of these internationally run businesses, that they do have to think about a relationship with home sewers in a different way, because it's fiscally or from a brand management perspective, what they feel like is necessary.

So I often find it quite refreshing to go to these more historic relationships between designers and home sewers and recognize that they really maybe saw each other as being in conversation rather than on two sides of a divide.

Peggy: Sure, sure, sure.

I wanna go back to this sketch for just a minute.

Because when you got this dress and you got the sketches, you had an ability to go, you did because you're the curator, you had an ability to go back and research and pull all these pieces together.

But that's what you do.

You are the researcher person who goes and pulls all this together.

So if this pattern cost $1, and that was '30s, and this pattern cost-- Annette: So we have a price on the back of it.

I think it's $10.50.

Peggy: $10.50, some 30 years later.

It's ten times inflation.

That's quite a bit.

So this day it should be $100.

So if we went to the same inflation rate, it's really cheap today.

Annette: Yeah, agreed.

Peggy: That's interesting how the price changes stopped.

This was very aggressively priced.

But I do remember Vogue, you know, my mother sewed with Vogue because they were just so respected.

They were so-- they were the Neiman Marcus of sewing per se.

And it was so upper edge of all of that.

And you mentioned, how many patterns do you guys have?

Annette: We have over a thousand in our collection.

Peggy: Of home sewing patterns.

Annette: They're really incredible tracking back as early as the 19-teens when sewing patterns were made.

The lack of information about how to put the pattern pieces together, even cut them, honestly blows my mind.

Peggy: Sewers have been complaining about this for years.

So you're right in there.

I know you're not a sewer.

So if you can see the disconnect, can you imagine what a sewer had to do?

But I interrupted, go ahead, I'm sorry.

Annette: Well, there's just so much expertise that I think was assumed, historically, that home sewers had because so much clothing was made at home.

There was almost an assumption that home sewers would be working at a near expert level in many ways.

It's also really beautiful seeing some of the collections of sewing patterns we have at the Texas Fashion Collection.

Many of them have come through just a few donors.

My favorite example is a collection of patterns where you can track someone as a teenager making clothes for themselves.

And then you can see when maybe they found a bow and started introducing some men's patterns.

And then even some children's wear patterns that were added a few years later.

So seeing that as a collection of materials that tells someone's life story, I think is so beautiful and reminds us that clothing is so deeply personal.

Peggy: It is, it is.

And I think to that home sewer, that home sewer has definitely felt that connection.

For them to give up the wedding dress, I'm sure something must've happened where they felt like it was better with you than with someone-- you had mentioned wedding dresses.

About how many wedding dresses would you say you had in the collection?

Homemade wedding dresses, just roughly.

Annette: Homemade wedding dresses, I'm guessing we have only a few dozen, to be honest, but of all the types of garments we have that were made by home sewers, that is the category that's most well represented.

I think part of that is because people hold on to wedding dresses because they value them so much.

And, honestly, I think of the things that people think that are made by home sewers, those are the ones that maybe people think deserve to be in an archive.

But we also have pajamas and debutante dresses and children's clothing that were made by home sewers that the only information we're given is that grandma made this, or my great aunt-- I can't even remember-- Peggy: That's where you have the grandma file.

Annette: Exactly, exactly.

Peggy: I love the Grandma file.

That's the file.

Won't be Balenciaga, but I can be grandma.

Annette: And we're so lucky to have these perspectives represented in our collection because, as much as famous designer names get people excited, a lot of people have had clothing made for them by someone they care about, and that's a human connection that you cannot discount.

There's nothing more special than someone spending time and expertise to make something that you get to wear on your body.

Peggy: Sure, sure, and, you know, I mean, the interesting thing to me is it does bring together-- I'll bet if you gathered together those wedding dresses that were homemade, you could really nail the periods and what was going on with society at those times, just like we do with designer fashions.

You know, I know we've talked about how designer fashions reflect the culture, the environment, the society, things that are going on at the time.

I would imagine that home sewing dresses do the same thing.

We don't have to actually have the history there.

We can almost see it going by as it happens.

Annette, thank you so much for being here.

I just can't say thanks enough, I just love your head and what's in it and all the knowledge.

Annette: Well, thank you, Peggy.

I appreciate it.

Peggy: Thank you.

To purchase or to alter?

That is the question.

Many of us have to purchase and alter.

Either way, knowing the correct methods of construction gives us greater confidence in our sewing.

Next time on "Fit 2 Stitch," Nataliya Desheva shows us her best secrets for professional alterations.

Be sure to join us.

male announcer: "Fit 2 Stitch" is made possible by Kai Scissors.

male announcer: Reliable Corporation.

male announcer: Plano Sewing Center.

male announcer: Elliott Berman Textiles.

male announcer: Bennos Buttons.

male announcer: And Clutch Nails.

male announcer: To order a four DVD set of "Fit 2 Stitch" Series 13, please visit our website at fit2stitch.com.