We will always see the past through the lens of our own aesthetic; just look at the prevalence of facial hair in historical dramas these days.
I have a number of issues with reproduction but the main one is that most of it is a pale inauthentic smudgy imitation of the real thing. We will always choose pieces from the past that most appeal to our modern taste: the past is not a bad taste, frump free zone. A bit of proper research is not very difficult and it is possible to choose and recreate pieces that are true to a period and that appeal to a modern audience (Peaky Blinders I’m looking at you). Production inaccuracies like invisible zips in 1940s dress also irritate me to an irrational degree, but maybe that’s just me being a pedantic kill joy: what does it matter if people love them? As I say to my clients, nobody actually wants to look like their grandmother, but they do want an essence of it.
Bespoke Edwardian lace with square neck
As someone who has been doing some reproduction of late this is an important question, if a piece is accurate down to the last stitch is that enough? After all most of my brides aren’t a size 8… However that garment, regardless of how pretty, made of authentic vintage fabric and an original patterns didn’t see the blitz. Original dresses are accidental time machines, the tiny stitches of a long dead seamstress, confetti captured in a hem, even a wedding cake crumb capture a moment in time that a reproduction cannot even aspire to. The trick is to distill the past without destroying its essence, be faithful to the essence and just a little bit of a pedant.
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