I'm calling this diary "History retrieved" because for too long history has been confined to dreary blather that can be magically crammed into 3 college quarters. All European history: 3 quarters; All Chinese history: 3 quarters. And of course the magic dates: 1066, 1492, 1776, 1914. Of course no one cares much about this rubbish, because it's canned, prepackaged and dull, dull, dull.
However, there are people who are bringing history back to life, they are seizing it from the grasp of the tenured ho-hums (apologies to anyone with tenure who is reading this, you're not one of them!). These are the people who are recreating historical dress and costumes, not just reading about history, but bringing it to life again. There is an organization called Costume-Con which is exactly what it sounds like. They organize competitions with all kinds of wonderful categories, but of interest to me is the historical section.
Check out the competition rules (which are graduated for skill levels, etc., so as not to discourage participation.) At the top level, recreation of an historical costume would require a significant mastery of an historical period.
There are a lot of dedicated people out there that are bringing history to life. Here is a splendid website The Fashionable Past, by "Katherine." She has produced a significant amount of work on historical costumes of a variety of periods. She has made about 50 different costumes. She reports for example:
I adore Russian history. I spent my last two years of college studying it and wrote an 85 page independent study with the important sounding title "The Empresses Marie and Alexandra, Image and Autocracy in Late Imperial Russia." So, making court dress seemed like a natural thing for me to do!
Court dress in Russia was a very specific thing, described by Pushkin as "the ladies' dress uniforms." It was introduced by Nicholas I in 1834 and loosely based on traditional Russian styles.
There's so much on Katherine's site. She made a an 1862 ball gown, but in mourning colors for the death of Prince Albert -- magnificent. Wonder what Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley might have looked like? Here is Katherine's award-winning 1818 regency dress.
History of course is being created every day, and recreated too. Here, The Costumer's Guide to Movie Customes, by someone who calls herself only "me", covers much of the beloved movies. She's also studied in detail the famous Sergeant Pepper costumes, and made a wonderful full set, complete with moustaches (and, for "John", wire-rimmed glasses. See here for the fun-filled goodness that arises. This is not a simple thing to do by any means, and you are looking at a lot of work and a high level of skill.
There's so much to talk about on this subject. Here's an extensive thread with nice pictures about the crew uniforms in Alien. It's quite amazing how a well-put together movie like Alien requires details such as uniform patches, uniforms that look realistically worn, not really 100% alike, as if they were purchased at different times by the characters -- all designed to make you suspend your disbelief.
So, one way or the other, history, and its close cousin, fiction, are being recreated every day by people in real life through costume.