The Question of Bulk

Reposting an old article of mine, originally posted on Your Wardrobe Unlock'd.

The Question of Bulk

No matter what era we choose, costuming requires large amounts of research. With the internet and interlibrary loans, information is plentiful, easy to access and often cheap. The mountains of data also mean that there is a lot of data to process, with some details that are hard to understand at first or third glance.

Articles and sewing diaries are popular ways to learn about new developments and sewing techniques. There is always more to discover, not just about what was worn in our chosen eras, but also how to stitch garments together. From time to time, an article or sewing diary will make a passing comment about bulk before turning to another topic.

Bulk tends to be mentioned with all the cheer of stepping in dog droppings. The term is usually accompanied by the words “reduce” or “eliminate.” Why sewers dislike this thing is rarely elaborated upon.

What is bulk?

A casual reading of sewing journals suggests that bulk is an amorphous horror that can’t truly be reasoned with. What this evil does is rarely explained; the fear it awakens within the breast of a costumer is either immediately understood or is too incomprehensible an abomination. It’s best to take the words of those who have looked into the cloth face of eldritch horror.

Though it’s greater than the stitching mind can contain, bulk is stealthy enough to sneak upon the unwary sewer through fabric, patterns, thread, and even sewing machines. Not even finished ensembles are safe. Bulk can make a surprise attack, bursting into your life once petticoats and gown are donned. Though it can be driven back with the aid of scissors, needles and careful planning, it can never truly be vanquished. Even if a brave soul is able to beat the abomination from one piece of clothing, the threat remains, waiting to erupt once more in the next garment waiting to be made.

A less melodramatic definition of bulk is too much fabric taking up space where it isn’t wanted. Bulk may force seams to sit up when they should be lying down, waists to fatten, and otherwise wreck a silhouette. If pouring time, effort and resources into an outfit results in a blobby mess, it’s little wonder that a costumer feels like screaming, B movie actress style.

If bulk is the textile equivalent to a rubber suit monster, then surely it has no redeeming value. Every costumer must guard their stashes and clothing against the creature, rooting it out before the thing can take shape. Surely there is no time place or outfit that has ever used bulk beneficially.

Good Bulk

A long look at portraits, fashion plates and extant clothing shows that bulk has been used to great advantage over the centuries. To create a desire silhouette and enhance the effects of nature, strategically applied mass is key. Let’s take a look at some examples.

Henry VIII comes across here as a very horizontal man, with shoulders half as wide as he is tall. However, a close inspection of his upper arms reveals joints much further in than his clothes suggests.

Massive shoulders are tied into “power dressing,” the act of using clothes to look powerful and in command.  In Henry VIII’s case, his power dress also makes him look more masculine. The girth of the puffy elbow sleeves had the bonus of enhancing chest width, making him all the more macho.

Further down Henry VIII’s person, we find a lump of fabric below his belt. Known as a codpiece, this portion of a man’s hose is meant to cover the center front area. What once was a simple flap in centuries past was by this time a three dimensional testament to pride and genitalia. Not only were they stuffed, those who could afford it decorated their codpieces with puffs of extra cloth, like the king.

To look imposing and hyper masculine, Henry VIII added piles of fabric and wadding to his ensemble. Here bulk is an ally, not a monster.

During the reign of Elizabeth I, the ideal of manly clothing changed. Codpieces shrank while doublets protruded. The peascod style of doublet bulged out and down, achieving its shape with the help of wadded layers. Graduated stacks of fluffy lining would be stitched into the main lining, providing the desired rounded stomach.

For the fashionable man, the doublet topped a pair of trunk hose. Known to some costumers as pumpkin pants, this type of hose was designed to puff outwards. While it fullness was sometimes accented with decorative strips of cloth, the main secret to rounded hose were rolls of cloth or tubes of stuffing sewn inside the pants, adding bulk and shape.

Stylish women of the 1820s and ‘30s paid special attention to their skirts and sleeves. Our 1825 model displays small puffy sleeves and a skirt that stands out from her legs, its hem extravagantly decorated. The fashionable conical gown of the period stood out with the aid appliques, ruffles and rows of wadding stiffened their hems while decorating the skirts.

Balancing the triangular appearance of the skirts were the sleeves. They expanded outward, echoing the skirt while creating more surface area for embellishment. During this time, sleeves could be made of panes revealing puffs of decorative lining, gathered, piped, appliqued and caught with ribbons. The interiors of these sleeves were probably an explosion of seam allowances and thread. The sheer number of layers stitched together in a small space probably acted as boning, preventing the sleeves from collapsing.

Only a few years later in the 1830s, sleeves grew so large and heavy, armscythes dropped over the shoulders towards the biceps, wailing their defeat. While sleeves reduced the amount of piping and other embellishments on their surfaces, they needed help to keep from sinking in on themselves. One solution was to wear down stuffed undersleeves beneath a dress. Essentially tube pillows, they kept sleeves fashionably bulbous.

Skirts too grew plainer and larger at this time. Women took to wearing petticoats piled one on top the other. The extra fabric beneath the gown added bulk to the hips and legs, supporting the skirt while helping the waist look smaller. To make the small of the back look even tinier, women started to tie extra ruffles around their waists, above the petticoats.

For decades, skirts kept growing. The bell shaped bottom half remained stylish for a number of years, leading to an arms race to determine who would become a walking dome. Petticoats piled on top of petticoats, their combined presence providing a soft pedestal for a frock skirt.

Around the 1860s, fabric concentrated more on a woman’s buttocks, creating the bustle style. It wasn’t enough to have petticoats and wire enhancing one’s back. Ribbons, bows, puffs and other embellishments helped to create elegant centaur women. Partially due to the industrial revolution and mass produced cloth, late Victorian clothes promoted extravagant use of fabric, evidenced by contemporary fashion plates, portraits, and extant examples. Not only was drapery used to enhance the back, bulk in the name of ruffles and other trim was ideal, adding weight to hems and drapery and allowing them to hang fashionably.

A more subtle form of Victorian bulk are bust pads. Where the corset ends and décolleté begins, there sometimes aren’t enough natural assets to keep a bodice smooth. Like the Elizabethan peascod, these are made by basting together graduated layers of wadding. They are then incased into a cloth case and tacked into the bodice, providing a smooth outline and ample looking bust.

Bad Bulk

Bulk has been used to great effect over the centuries, and modern costumers still add extra material to their clothing to achieve a desired appearance. Perhaps bulk isn’t a rubber suit monster, but a misunderstood being with a heart of gold.

To take this rose colored approach is to grasp only a part of bulk’s nature. Costumers have reason to be wary of this creature. Most sewers have at least one item in their creations that is lumpy or misshapen where it isn’t supposed to be. (poorly set skirt) There are other ways bulk blunders, making costumers want to chase the thing with pitchforks and torches.

The most visible manifestation of misplaced bulk is a skewed silhouette. A slender waist may widen by an inch or more. Armscythes, with more fabric than they can hold, end up caught around the bicep. Instead of feeling like a queen, the wearer feels frustrated at the culmination of months of work.  

When using a sewing machine, a vomit of threads or stitching too many layers together may lead to an unpleasant surprise. If the needle hits the cloth at the wrong angle and the wrong speed, it can break. The needle may simply bend, or bits of it can splinter and go flying in several directions, including the face. Hearing the ping of sharp metal bouncing off an eyeglass lens is a heart stopping experience.

With hand sewing, sewing through bulk may lead to stabbed fingers. While pushing a needle through a piece or two of cotton broadcloth is fairly simple, navigating the same needle through a rolled hem of duchess satin interlined with quilted canvas is an exercise in frustration. Too much density holds the needle still while the sewer fills the air with profanity. The more force used on the static needle head can cause the blunt end to puncture one or more fingers. Pain is irritating, as is blood on costly materials.

Navigating pins through bulky seams is another occasion for a filthy mouth. While pin heads offer some protections from stab wounds, the effort of weaving a sharp point in and out of unyielding cloth leads to sore hands. Even using a thimble is no guarantee of safety, as the force needed to push the pointy object may cause the sharp to slip and gouge you in an unprotected place.

If bulk fills the inside of a finished outfit, chafing might occur. The body may rub back and forth against the cloth throughout the day, creating sore spots. No matter how much effort and love goes into a garment, or how beautiful it seems, the best ones are comfortable to wear.

Similar to chafing is bunching, where too much cloth gathers in one place to be comfortable. Bruise colored patches where the fabric dug into flesh is alarming to see.  This discomfort can also take away from enjoying an event.

Enough cloth and wadding against the skin can be pleasant under the right circumstances. A thick cloak and several petticoats may be perfect for and outdoor event in the snow. The same number of petticoats, crucial to holding out skirts in the correct outline, may backfire during an event that demands heavy activity, such as a ball. Sweatiness, heat rashes and smelly underthings may ensue.

Even if a garment with bulky seams sits comfortably on your person, cleaning the clothes may become a headache. If your costume is machine washable and made of absorbent cloth, it might dry out unevenly. The costumer will need to remember to avoid putting the clothes away with spots still damp. This may invite mold, ruining the garment and whatever it touched.

Ways to reduce

Is problematic bulk an unavoidable fact of life for costumers? Perhaps coping with the eldritch thing is the price we must pay to feel like a pretty princess of yore. Sweat, chafing and lumpy silhouettes might be a small matter compared to taking on the costume of our dreams.

There may be no way to eliminate all unwanted bulk from our clothing, but that doesn’t mean we should resign ourselves. Our costumes are labors of love, which is why we strive making our clothes looking and feeling their best. Let’s examine some strategies to help streamline our clothing.

When working with a gown or other item with many layers, such as lining, interlining and fashion fabric, material congregates at the seams, becoming hard to manage where the seams cross. One way to combat unwanted lumps is to clip excess fabric. For corners, this can be as simple as snipping off the tips at either a diagonal or at a right angle. Edges can also be clipped off excess fabric, shortening the seam allowance of one or more layers and making the seam lie flatter, depending on how it will be finished.

For those loathe to clip allowance, lest the action weaken the seam, another alternative is to choose thinner material. Interlining doesn’t have to be thick denim or canvas. Weaves like organza are sheer but stiff, adding body while keeping a slim outline. Depending on the outfit and the period, choosing a lighter fashion fabric may also help, such as selecting tropical wool over suit weight, or voile over broadcloth.

How a seam is finished also impacts how bulky or slim the completed outfit will be. French seams, stitching all the allowances together with a serger or zigzag stitch, or binding with bias tape will make the allowances sit in a thick ridge. While some clothes use this to their advantage, for the most part these will get in a costumer’s way. Reducing or flattening seam allowance while finishing a seam helps keep bulk under control.

One method of creating a minimal finish is flat felling. In this process, the allowance is ironed to each side of the garment, the ends turned under, then sewn into place.  A similar method involves hemming each garment piece separately before whip stitching everything together. Those who want to do their best to keep the bulk monster at bay may also want to consider merging pieces together to reduce the total amount of seams in a garment, or to use thread and thread alone to finish edges, rather than turning the raw edges under.

Another area where bulk may fly out of control is to pleating and gathers. To cram a pile of fabric in a small space and have it look elegant can be daunting. One wrong move can leave a massive lump that shouldn’t be there. This is where we look to tailors and seamstresses of yore.

Hemming separately before whip stitching the edges together is a great help when pleating fabric. When fabric is pleated, the cloth is tripled. Stacking pleats one on top of another adds mass, intensifying if the material is lined. Stuffing the cloth into a seam allowance or may result in an ungainly look. The edge where the two seams meet is usually only a few threads deep. By sewing the pleats after hemming, the seam remains slim while providing spring to the gathered fabric.

However, too many pleats stacked one on top of the other may still be a pain to sew in place. One of the more famous variations of hem and whipped gathers are cartridge pleats. Unlike box or knife pleats, gauging uses an accordion fold to bring cloth together.

How deeply the pleat gather up depends on the thickness of the cloth and how much it needs to be compacted. They can be as fine as the millimeters apart to two or three inches deep. On the side of the fabric that is to be gathered, the cloth is marked at specific intervals to indicate where the needle goes. After the fabric is drawn up, it’s stitched to the bodice or armscythe via on the folds closest to the outer edge. For more details, please see the links below.

One other method of drawing up cloth is a whipped frill. A whipped gather is a multitasking feat that hems and condenses cloth in one fell swoop. It starts with a piece of fabric with its hem pinned in place. The needle pokes through the top folded edges in a spaced whip stich and condensed. The tightness of the gathers can be adjusted as needed, depending on how taut you pull the thread, or how much slack you give the cloth. One downside of whipped frills is that the gathered edge becomes quite dense, making it best for thin unlined material, small scale gathers and decorative ruffles. (Whipped frill example)

Conclusion

Bulk is not the scary monster it’s made out to be. There may be times when bulk congregates where you don’t want it to, but it’s not an enemy. Like many tools, it can be used for good and for bad.

What people remember about bulk is when it goes wrong. It may chafe, bunch, or make a beautiful outfit look awkward. You may end up with miles of fabric that needs to be gathered in a fist sized spot, with no idea how to rein it in. In these cases, scissors and a glass of wine seem like the best option.

In many eras, mass is crucial to making a beautiful silhouette. At its best, well placed bulk may shrink waists, widen shoulders and otherwise take over where nature has left off. Other periods seek an artificial look that can only be accomplished with ruffles, drapery and tightly stuffed cloth.

With the right design and sewing strategies, bulk can work out in your favor. Choosing a pattern that works, knowing the best fabrics, pleating and seam finishing methods go a long way in making your costume hang just right.

Happy sewing!