This weekend, I spent two days at Costume College both as an participant and a presenter. So what is Costume College? Well, it’s an event devoted to costuming in it’s many forms, whether historical, fantasy, or somewhere in between. Classes and presentations consist of both lecture and hands-on workshop formats and are all taught by volunteers. From my perspective, it give us an opportunity to present topics of interest to myself and otherwise get a view of current trends and ideas in the costume world.
Overall, it’s an interesting experience and one that I would highly recommend for anyone interested in the costuming in its various aspects.
Today was the big day for my presentation at Costume College and overall, I think it was a success. When I first decided to chose the topic of US Army Uniforms from 1915 through 1918, it was with a little bit of trepidation since the Costume College audience is probably 80% to 90% and I thus I thought that perhaps there wouldn’t be much interest. But at the same time, I also thought that from a fashion clothing perspective, it was a fascinating story to tell. But in the end, I was pleasantly surprised.
I chose to use a combination of a PowerPoint presentation (yes, I know, “death by PowerPoint” 🙂 ) and two friends of mine who came wearing various uniforms and accessories to help give people a better view of the actual parts of the uniform. Also, just as an aside, all of us are members of Company G, 364 Infantry which is a member unit of the Great War Historical Society, an organization dedicated to preserving the history of the First World War.
Although we had an early time slot of 9 am, we had pretty good attendance although the room was about half-filled with perhaps 30 people. In a way that was good in that I was able to have to utilize my assistants to the best advantage to help demonstrate my talking points.
I had a good time doing this presentation and I am looking forward to presenting some more topics for next year, 2017. 🙂