Author: James Williams

The first thing to do in preparation for making a coat is to take good, accurate measurements. Since this is more of an introduction to coat making, I’m going to simplify the measurements as best I can to make it easier for you to get started right away.

All measurements should be taken over what you will wear underneath this coat, if possible. That’d mean a period shirt, trousers, and waistcoat if you have them. If not, I’d recommend adding maybe an inch to your measurements if just measuring over a regular shirt, for example.

A good idea is to tie a length of twine or ribbon around the natural waist so that all of your measurements are referenced from the same points. This should be tied around the waist at about the level of the naval.

While it’s possible to measure yourself – I do it all the time – for beginners I’d recommend having someone measure you if you can. If all you’ve got is your self, you’ll just have to contort your arms into various positions while trying to keep your body as straight as possible. For some of the more awkward measurements like the back width, I’d probably measure another coat or waistcoat that fit me well.

And in general, try to keep your body relaxed in its natural position when taking the measurements. Don’t try to stand extra erect like a dashing officer if you don’t stand like that in real life, for example.

With that all said, on to the measurements!

Measurements

There are a number of measurements you’ll need to take for your coat. I’ve included a chart in which you can right them all down for convenience. Listed out, you’ll need the following measurements:

1. Breast (written as half the actual measurement)
2. Waist (written as half the actual measurement)
3. Total Length
4. Back Length to Hip Buttons
5. Side
6. Chest
7. Width of Back
8. Sleeve
9. Sleeve + Back (optional)

Breast

This is the most important measurement and determines which size of graduated ruler you will use for your draft. Measure around your chest at the fullest point, just under the arms. Take note of the full measurement to choose your ruler size, but the measurement is written down as half of the total, since we are drafting half of the pattern on the paper.

Waist

The waist measurement is taken at the level of the natural waist, about even with the naval. Again this is written as half for use when drafting.

Total Length

Measuring down the center of the back, start at either the base of the collar or at the 7th vertebrae if you don’t have period clothing available (the bony part on the back of your neck). Measure from there, pressing the tape against the hollow of the back, down to the bottom of where you’d like the coat to be. This is mainly a check measurement to compare with what we’ve drafted later on.

Back length to Hip Buttons

Again starting at the base of the collar, measure down the center of the back to the position you’d like the back hip buttons to be, usually a couple of inches below the natural waist. This is another check measurement to compare with the draft.

Side

Put the measuring tape under your armpit, though not too high up, and measure straight down to the waist seam. Yet another check measurement!

Chest

Sometimes when drafting, especially with these older drafting systems, our body’s widths will not be perfectly distributed from front to back. This is a good measurement to take to compare with the front of your draft.

The chest measurement is taken across the fullest part of the chest, from armscye seam to armcye seam.

Width of Back

This is similar to the chest measurement, but taken straight across the back from armscye to armscye at a level just at the bottom of the armpit.

Sleeve

The sleeve can be a little troublesome to take, especially for a beginner, but it’s easy to fix during the fitting process if necessary.

To take the sleeve measurement, stand with your arm extended horizontally, and bend the elbow at 90 degrees. Measure from the armscye along the back of the sleeve, around the elbow, to just past the wrist (sleeves were longer in the 1860s than they are today).

You can also take the same measurement from the center of the back, that way you can compare the two measurements and look for any discrepancies. I’ve included a video demonstrating the two measurements.

How to Use the Measurements

As you’re drafting your pattern in the next section, take note of the various lines in red, and compare their lengths to the measurements you took. If they’re far off, it indicates something may be wrong, and that you should investigate before moving on and potentially compounding the problem. This can happen especially with larger sizes, above size 46 – 48.

As we reproduce the paletot worn by John Wilkes Booth, we’ll be referring to several photos I’ve found of him wearing the same style of coat. Being a rather infamous character of history, it was easy to find photographs from different angles, which definitely helps us out.

Generally speaking though, there are some great sources out there for period images that you could use for other future projects, and in this article, I’ll discuss how to find them and how to manipulate the images to bring out more details.

Sources for Original Photographs

With the internet, it’s possible to find all kinds of good period photographs these days to use as inspiration for historical reproductions. From a quick Google search, to using something like Pinterest, or Ebay, to going to more focused websites such as the Library of Congress, a high-quality image is only a few clicks away most of the time. Though do take care to check for copyright information – if it’s just for personal use most of the images are probably okay, but anything more take due diligence. For example, one image I found through Google of John Wilkes Booth wanted something like $400 just to be able to use the image–definitely frustrating!

The key is finding the largest resolution, highest quality images as possible, so as to gain the most information from the photograph. Though you can usually gain some information from even poor quality images if necessary.

Library of Congress

The Library of Congress has a great number of high quality images in their online collections, though it can be a little difficult to actually find what you’re looking for, and the website itself often has problems loading. I usually start my search from Google with something like “Library of Congress 1860s civilians” to at least get me closer before getting to the actual Library website. Their main page for Civil War images appears to be https://www.loc.gov/pictures/collection/cwp/ though I’m sure there are other ways to get there.

From there you can click through the various collections and often strike upon something good. I’ll leave that for you to do at your leisure though, as there are thousands of images to browse through.

I found this image of Charles Sumner which seemed to hold some promise, along with some other information about him, such as the publisher, medium, and rough date the photograph was taken.

You’ll notice under his image on the left there are several options to download the photograph. The JPEG versions are of the poorest quality, but the quickest option if you just want to take a closer look before making a decision to go forward or not. But the highest quality image is the TIFF image, and holds as much of the original information in the photograph as possible. I highly recommend downloading that option if you want to see as much detail as possible.

The image downloaded within seconds just now as I’m writing this, but yesterday I kept getting errors on the website. So I guess if you have problems, just wait a few hours for things to calm down and try again.

Google Images Search

Google Images is another great place to search for period photographs, though you do have to be more aware of copyright issues. Simply enter your search terms and click on ‘images’.

You can refine your search by filtering out the lower quality images by clicking on the Tools button at the upper right, and choosing Large under the Size option.

I was able to find a good number of images this way, including some from the Library of Congress that eluded me thanks to their clumsy system.

There are of course other search engines and websites you can search from, but these are my main sources, from which I can dig in to find further information on specific websites.

As you probably know, the basis for any historical clothing reproduction begins with diligent research into the styles, patterns, fit, and construction techniques of the time period. It occurred to me while commencing my latest project that it might be a good idea to go into the particulars of my thought and research process of the particular coat I am copying. In this article, we’ll go over the very basics of the various types of research one can get into for a historical garment, and in subsequent articles I’ll go more deeply into the various details that I’ve used to reproduce John Wilkes Booth’s paletot.

While I’ve broken the different types of research into four distinct groups, please note that they definitely do overlap in various ways depending on the particular project.

Costuming

The first type of historical reproduction (and I use the term loosely here) has a wide variety of historical accuracy and level of construction. You might have on the one hand the typical lowest quality ‘sutler row’ garment made in some factory overseas with just the minimum of ‘research’. You’ll often notice the poor quality entirely machine made construction, misplaced seam lines, and can tell right away that they were made from modern patterns. These types of garments might fool the general public who has no knowledge of historical clothing, but for most of us we know to keep well away. Often, those just starting out in the world of historical reenacting or living history will fall into this category unless they have a mentor to guide them – I know I did at first!

On the opposite end you might have clothing made for the theatre or film. These types of clothing could very well be made by extremely skilled and knowledgeable hands by those who have done their researched as per the rest of this article, but at the same time, allowances are made to allow for quick changing of costumes, perhaps adding a zipper or two, or in the interests of getting a better fit, the clothing might be based on a modern pattern with the stylized details added afterwards to make it look period correct.

Even I’ve taken this more of a costume approach to a garment or two on occasion. For example, I recently was commissioned to make a pair of 19th century trousers for a gentleman in Australia to wear at his wedding. While the construction itself was done entirely with historically-accurate techniques, I ended up using a more modern 1940s pattern (with his permission) to ensure a good fit, since time and expense prevented us from doing any fittings. The result was a pair of trousers that looked as though they were 19th century to the vast majority of people, even if a couple of the seam lines were slightly different.

Fashion Plates

A good first step to improve your knowledge is to study fashion plates of the period. These could be found in a variety of magazines and publications, catering to everyone from ladies at home looking for the latest fashions with Godey’s Magazine and Lady’s Book, which was extremely popular during the mid-19th century and featured illustrations and even patterns for women’s wear, to trade journals such as the Tailor and Cutter Magazine that focused more on pattern drafts for men along with the illustrations.

And of course there were many other magazines and sources for fashion plates during the period. I used to have access to a French website with thousands of men’s fashion plates from I believe the 1830s through to the 70s or 80s, which I really need to find again.

These fashion plates are great for getting ideas for your historical clothing, but it does come at a slight disadvantage. If you try to copy one exactly, you may discover that they really were more artistic representations rather than exact copies of garments worn during the period, and you run the risk of making a garment that is more a product of the imagination than one based on historical practice. Look in particular at how thin the waists are, or the way some of the clothing drapes – it can get ridiculous! That said, they’re an excellent resource for inspiration, especially in conjunction with the two options below, and I’ve got more than a couple of saved for future use, such as a hunting ensemble I found years ago in one of those French fashion plates (sorry I can’t remember the name!).

Photography from the Period

Studying original period photographs is by far the easiest and surest way to make an accurate reproduction, and something that is pretty much accessible to everybody. With the invention of the camera in the early 19th century, by the 1850s and 60s, photography was becoming more and more common, and offers us a superb glance into what was worn during these years. While to some extent, people tended to dress up and pose for the camera, there are plenty of more informal photographs to be found of, for example, men at work, and it’s possible to gain a great deal of information from such images on what and how they wore their clothing.Studying original period photographs is by far the easiest and surest way to make an accurate reproduction, and something that is pretty much accessible to everybody.

Most of these photographs are just a quick web search away. In particular, the Library of Congress has thousands of old photographs on its website, which are very easy to download in extremely high quality and resolution to examine more closely. It’s also possible to find websites dedicated to clothing construction with images detailing the various aspects of the garment, which can be an invaluable resource. In next weeks edition, I’ll be delving into how to get the most out of these period photographs and showing you the process with which I went from photograph to drafted pattern, going into detail the decisions I made from the information I had at my disposal.

Studying Original Clothing

Of course, nothing beats the study of original clothing in person to be able to learn about the construction of 19th century clothing. The only trouble is the difficult one might have to go through to be able to study them.

The easiest way would probably be to look out for various conferences and workshops on historical clothing, sadly not very common these days. About a decade ago I had the opportunity to attend several conferences and examine by eye and photograph hundreds of pieces of original clothing, which have aided me greatly to this day. By seeing the clothing in person you can see just how each piece was constructed, at least for the most part, and develop a good sense on how to construct just about any piece of clothing out there.

Another good option is frequenting antique shops, especially in historical areas pertaining to your interest. I know in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania there were a couple of shops I frequented, one in particular had a beautiful Federal enlisted frock coat for sale for an absurd amount of money that I got to stare at through the glass case and make mental notes. Likewise I was able to pick up some late 19th century clothing at nearby antique stores for much less money, which I still have to this day to be able to refer to and perhaps some day make reproductions of. There are also those digital antique shops known as Etsy, Ebay, and Pinterest which can often give you some surprising good finds.

Finally, there are also museums and historical societies at which you could also view a great deal of period clothing, though mostly through glass cases as well. Depending on the museum (usually the smaller ones are more open to this) and how friendly you are with them, you might be able to get the opportunity to examine some clothing in person, though great care needs to be taken not to damage the clothing in any way.

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In conclusion, in reproducing a particular piece of original clothing, the actual process involves a little bit of each of these options, save maybe the first. For example, I’ll see in a photograph a particular coat I’d like to reproduce, draw on my knowledge of clothing construction from examining original garments, draft an appropriate pattern based on my measurements, and perhaps take a little bit of inspiration from the fashion plates along the way for various accessories or accompanying clothing. Remember that each person’s journey of historical tailoring is different, and we each pull from different areas according to what we have access to, and our own preferences with regards to style and construction details, leaving us with unique garments that have our own mark upon them while maintaining good accuracy for our particular time periods.