We gotta talk about PERFECTIONISM in costuming : is historically accurate sewing perfect?

Good historical costuming is historically accurate, right? And that means perfect . . . right?! Tiny perfect hand sewing stitches, neatly finished seams, and no visible machine sewing ever. Except that's not what fashion history says, that's modern perfectionism! Whether or not you like your historical dress accurate or not, we gotta understand what's a real part of historical sewing, what's important for modern costume makers . . . and what's just perfectionism and superiority talking.

There's more to making a historically accurate dress than perfectionism! If perfect hand stitching makes you happy, then go for it! It can be really satisfying to look at pretty, perfect seams. But know that the vast majority of historical dressmakers didn't have that kind of time, whether they were housewives making clothes at home, or high-class haute couture designers like the House of Worth. Historical sewing techniques only valued pretty stitching when it had a purpose, which means professional historical dress makers had a keen sense of when historical sewing techniques like perfect hand sewing mattered, and when they didn't. Historical fashion is full of dresses made by machine, dresses with messy raw edges, dresses with visible machine stitching, and more. There's a reason the sewing machine was widely adopted by the Victorians as soon as it was affordable : because it made sewing so much faster that dressmakers and homemakers could spend that time on more important things, whether it was more ornate clothes or getting housework done.

What matters today isn't just your historically accurate costume and tiny perfect stitches, it's whether you're happy with it. Maybe your thing is fantasy costume design and historical accuracy doesn't matter! Maybe you need disability adaptations for your DIY costume that don't work with perfectionism! Historical fashion was made and worn by all sorts of people, and they all had more on their mind than counting stitches. Yes, it's good to know how to fix a messy seam . . . but it's not good for anyone to feel bad about the things they make, whether they know how to sew a dress by hand or always use a machine. Let's not let perfectionism ruin our fun sewing vintage clothing or going to a reenactment. Perfectionism isn't historically accurate, and even if it was, nobody likes a gatekeeper!

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