A study in violet

In the shadowy subterranean reaches of the drama building, Gweneth West pursues intriguing mysteries with the deductive cunning of Sherlock Holmes. As head of costume design and curator of the department’s Collection of Historic Dress, West is on a quest to discover the secrets hidden in one of the most important university costume collections in the country.

“I love this kind of investigation,” West said as she described the object of her latest research.

It’s a perfectly preserved deep violet silk bustle dress she has dated between 1883 and 1887. The garment’s several pieces arrived hidden among three separate costume donations the department received from Four County Players Community Theatre in Barboursville.

The snug-fitting bodice was a stunning initial find with its standing collar, long sleeves and a pleated front piece of silk satin trimmed with brocade. Two later donations revealed several rolls of fabric that turned out to be sections of a matching skirt and bustle.

West, who admits feeling a sort of kinship with the women who wore the garments she studies, was inspired by the challenge of reassembling this drapery and learning something of the woman who owned it. Since the brown paper in which the skirt pieces were wrapped bore the handwritten inscription, “Mrs. A.G. Hyde, 21 E. 45th,” she refers to this dress as “Mrs. Hyde.”

Like the fictional private investigator Mr. Holmes, West fits together the disparate pieces of the garment and what is known of its past to reconstruct not only the complete costume but an image of the character that lingers around it.

“We suspect this woman lived in New York City,” she explained. “We assume the dress was either made for her or purchased through a department store in the city.”

From the little wear and tear on the fabric, West can tell the garment was probably worn only once, and never outdoors. The color tells her it may have been a widow’s mourning dress, or it may have been a gown for a second wedding or mother of the bride.

Similarly, she pieces together the life of a young man living in the 18th century who might have worn the oldest and most valuable garment in the collection. West calls this piece “Master Devan” for donor Chris Devan, who told West his grandfather “wore it over on the boat.”

West knew the minute she saw this cream-colored wool suit that the hand-stitched garment was much older than the former owner suspected. The piece was subsequently dated at 1795. Edward Maeder, curator of costuming at Historic Deerfield, a museum of New England history and art in Massachusetts, appraised the early frock coat and breeches at $15,000 to $20,000, commenting that the garment was the finest quality wool tailoring he’d ever seen from this period.

Actors do not wear the actual historic garments on stage. The clothing is usually too fragile and is used exclusively for study.

“It’s very valuable to the teaching process for designers to see real garments as opposed to drawings,” said department chair Bob Chapel.

“Students can learn about silhouette and style lines by looking at a book,” added West, “but you can’t really understand a garment until you touch it with bare hands.”

Both undergraduates and students in the MFA program in costume design study the details of the garments, then create patterns from the historic pieces that can be used to make the costumes worn by actors.

Though reproductions, these garments continue to reveal hidden stories when they are worn. Stepping into a costume takes an actor back in time to feel something of a character from the inside out.

Master Devan, for example, has a strong curve to the narrow sleeve that fits best when the arm is slightly bent. When an actor wears this coat, the garment itself tells him how to stand, how to move, what gestures might be appropriate.

“It’s an amazing collection,” Chapel said, adding that its value lies not only in economic terms, but also in its importance to the study of the history of dress.

Despite its value, the collection lacks proper storage facilities. Its nearly 1,500 pieces hang tightly packed on rows of racks in a room reached from beneath the Culbreth stage. A Fortuny dress, in fact, is on permanent loan to New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art because of lack of appropriate space here.

Someday, West hopes, the collection will be organized and preserved in acid-free storage boxes in a temperature- and humidity-controlled space and made available for study by people throughout the University and the region.

Meanwhile, she and her colleagues share their sleuthing and the richness of the collection through rotating exhibitions coordinated with drama department productions.

“It’s all theater,” she declared of our dress past and present. “It’s all about the impressions we make in the theater of our own lives.”

And that, my dear Watson, is elementary.