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Couture Costumes and Corsetry Green Policy
Couture Costumes has always been a "green" service. I have been an
environmentalist since heading the paper recycling program in grade school and
participating in solar living workshops though the Oregon Museum of Science and
Industry in junior high. Here are some of the ways Couture Costumes works to
protect the environment.
Reuse: Creating something new from something already existing has often been a design
challenge that I have embraced. For example, the Meat Ball Dress was made out of a rather unattractive circa 1960s wedding dress, an old taffeta
skirt, left over ribbon, and a bustle that had lost its dress. The 1630s Cavalier dress is another example of a dress that was destined for the dump and was rescued and
remade into a new, wonderful dress.
Recycle: Shopping for stock in an ongoing process. Almost all of the thread, elastic,
bias tape, twill tape and trims that I use are salvaged from thrift store,
garage sale and estate sales and the like. All of the machines that these
clothes are made on are second hand except my blind hemmer. All of the hangers
the clothes are hung on are salvaged. Many of the fabrics I use for mock ups,
interfacings and linings are salvaged. On a large project it is often not
possible to salvage the main components. An example of this would be the 1851 Day dress. The wool paisley and skirt lining were new but the lace dicky and cuffs were
made from old placemats. The tatted bows were made from thrift store crochet
thread. The waist band, snap tape, thread, sleeve lining and bone casing were
all salvage. Some times the nature of a project allows for more recycling. The Fire Fairy and Will o' the Wisp costumes are made almost entirely out of scraps from other projects and thing
people had given me.
Reduce: I want to provide people with the very best value possible. This means that I
want them to be able to use their costumes in as many ways as possible. The two
best examples of this are the Fire Fairy & Ruby 1870s dual purpose costume and Lady Elizabeth Villiers Dress which doubles as both a day and evening dress. Both costumes were made with
special feature that allowed pieces and layers to be used individually and in
more than one way.
Probably my largest environmental contribution is my Dickens' Fair costuming. Every year I hunt though the thrift store all year long for things
that can be remade into costumes for the fair and pass these along to other fair
participants. This year I have a large stock of drawers
and chamises
made from duvet covers and petticoats made from table clothes and quilted petticoats made from comforters.
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