Tucked away on the western side of Shippensburg University Campus sits the Fashion Archives and Museum. This well-known and active museum of preserved historical garments has aided Carnegie Mellon graduate student Danielle Dulchinos to win first place in the Patterns of Fashion contest in London, England. The Costume Society funds this award in honor of the work of Janet Arnold, a dress historian and a founding member of the society who is known for her accurate pattern drafts of historic garments. The contest involves sewing one of Arnold’s pattern drafts published in her Patterns of Fashion volumes. With the help and expertise of the archives director, Dr. Karin J. Bohleke, Dulchinos became the first American student to win the prestigious competition.
Dulchinos, who recently graduated from the costume production program, has worked in theater, film, and costuming with a specialization in historical costuming, even though that kind of work mostly happens in London. Knowing about the contest for a while and wanting to enter it, Dulchinos finally went on the time consuming journey for her thesis. She ended up choosing a dress from the 1790s because she wanted a design that would challenge her and one that dated before the invention of the sewing machine. The dress has a lot of detail with pleating, embroidery, and ribbon work which Dulchinos stated she had not worked with much prior to undertaking this project.
“Embroidering was more technically challenging, but the pleating was more emotionally challenging,” Dulchinos said “The pleating took about six out of the eight Harry Potter movies to complete and the embroidery took about 80 hours.”
She stated how in the 18th-century, they did not cut anything so the fabric was very thick because of all the folding from the pleats. Finding a dress form for the pattern was its own challenge due to the shoulders sitting further back. People from the 18th-century stood with their shoulder blades closer together, resulting in a different posture compared to today. Also, to stay historically accurate, she used silk thread which was another learning curve because it is not as strong as polyester, so it kept breaking.
Dulchinos said Bohleke, the director at the Fashion Archives, helped immensely and was beyond generous with time, knowledge, and resources. Bohleke helped Dulchinos in keeping the dress as historically accurate as possible by giving Dulchinos antique hooks and baleen boning, which is virtually impossible to purchase now because it comes from the mouth of sperm whales.
“Shippensburg was really really wonderful and Karin is so hands on, helpful, and enthusiastic,” Dulchinos said.
She mentioned how the access to the archives was exactly what she needed. Dulchinos considered going to PennState for help with the project, but Shippensburg had the resources, knowledge, and the garment holdings she needed to study. She came to the Fashion Archives to examine closely examples of 18th-century dresses and their construction techniques.
After the technical challenges of making the dress, came the challenge of traveling with it. Dulchinos did travel to both New York and Los Angeles, and by the time she traveled to London, she knew what to do to protect her creation. She stated that while it was still very stressful, it was more stressful the first two times. The dress had its own AirTag and several garment bags and the flight attendants even hung the dress in the closet on the plane.
The entire process totaled to be around 350-400 hours. This included making the dress as well as conducting research, submitting pictures and a video of the process, and a 20 page written summary. Dulchinos said that she would do the process again and would highly recommend entering the Patterns of Fashion competition to other students.
“I definitely want to thank Karin for all her help,” Dulchinos emphasized at the end of the interview “I am very very grateful”.
Author:
Nicole Ocker, Class of 2025
Communication, Journalism, and Media Major
