For those who have wanted to know how I design and sew costumes, the Lafayette costume was the greatest challenge yet. Last year was our first year to do Electronic Field Trips with Colonial Williamsburg.  When we experienced the Yorktown EFT, my son wanted to do a first person interpretation of Lafayette.  "Mom, can you make a Lafayette costume for me, p-l-e-a-s-e?"  I wilted.  I had recently completed our Year 3 Unit 1 costumes. Our Y3U1 unit celebration was over. I thought I was on a costume sewing break for a few weeks.  I gave this careful thought.  I had three days to make a Lafayette costume, from the time he asked to the time the kids would share their presentations with Dad on Sunday. I had no pattern for a Lafayette costume. However, my son was motivated to deeply research Lafayette's life and impact on Yorktown and reflections on liberty.  I couldn't help but want to encourage that.  Although my son was a deep thinker, intensely curious, asked deep questions and has always impressed generals (21st century and 18th century) with his knowledge base and ability to make connections, he avoids historical books.  Even though we don't use text books, but rather deeper historical books, many of which are story-like and are written at his level, his preference is to avoid them like the bubonic plague. If making a costume was going to encourage him to dig into history, then so be it.

        Although I did not have a Lafayette pattern, I did have a basic colonial coat pattern from the costume section of a contemporary pattern company.  I used that as a base.  Then I dug out photos from our vacation to Colonial Williamsburg when we got to meet "Lafayette" so I could attempt to recreate the look. Because the CWF puts great effort into making everything historically accurate, I knew that I could trust our vacation photos for research. 

    This was going to be more difficult than any other costume I had ever made for my son.  I know I keep saying that, but up to this point, they have been getting progressively more challenging. Well, I was up for the challenge! I ran everything by my son, because I knew my skills were limited and I would not be able to create a perfect look. But I hoped that I could come reasonably close and I wanted him to know I would do my best.

     My son wanted both the coat and vest. We had basically everything else. My son would reuse his boots from his Robin Hood/Musketeer/Oliver Hazard Perry costumes.  He would wear the infamous ruffled shirt that he wore for his Musketeer/Colonial boy/Oliver Hazard Perry costumes. In fact, it was during the analysis of the Lafayette costume that I realized this shirt my son hesitated to wear because of the ruffles, was identical in the sleeves to the actor's!  Ever since I showed that to my son, he has been pleased with this shirt choice.

  The breeches were actually school uniform pants, buff colored that we got at the store.  My son stuffed the bottoms of the legs into his boots.  The hat would simply be the one he already had.  I asked if he'd like to try to make the plume.  (Lafayette's hat is laying on the bench.)  Surprisingly my son did not want a plume. That turned out to be a good thing, because I was never able to figure out how to recreate that. And now when I'm at CW, and I see that plume on the hat, I analyze how that plume could have possibly been made. (Where ever I go, if there are costumes, I analyze them.  I didn't used to, but since I started doing costumes for children's choir years ago and now for our unit celebrations, it has become ingrained in me.)  While I worked on the rest of the costume, my son worked on his harness. After our vacation, my son had redesigned his sword to look like Lafayette's for his Y3U1 costume. As a result his Lafayette sword was ready to go. My son spent his extra time trying to figure out the harness for the sword that Lafayette wore. We compared that to how Washington wore his sword, which is different. In the end, my son decided to wear it similar to Washington. We did some google research on different types of historical harnesses to get ideas on how Washington wore it, which seemed easier to recreate than how Lafayette wore his.  We never did do the black cravat.  I don't remember why, but I think it's because we weren't sure how to do it.  It actually looks like a black turtleneck with a white cravat.  Or perhaps I ran out of time and forgot to get black fabric at the store. Anyway, we used the white cravat and not black.          

     First, I made the coat because that was the most important. Then I chose the fabrics. Obviously they had to be navy blue and buff. That was easy. Although the CW actor/interpreter told us he was wearing wool, that was out of my price range and color range at the store. Instead I purchased broadcloth because it comes in a broad range of colors and is inexpensive.  I cut two sets of the coat pattern. The outer layer would be blue and the inner layer would be buff.  Also I cut the pattern larger than the big boy pattern.  This pattern is from the same set as the Oliver Hazard Perry swallowtail coat, that I had made precisely the same size as the large pattern. When it was done, it was too short!Obviously my tailoring and fitting skills are not great, hence the Lafayette coat is extra large on him, despite the time I took to make sure it would be the right size. Oh well, it would fit him better one day.   (Now he is growing like a weed so it would be interesting to see how much better it fits him now.)

     The embellishments would be the challenge. I measured along the neck and sides of the coat, for an apporpriate sized strip of buff to line the edge. Pieces like this are normally cut on the curve, exactly as it should be. I am not capable of figuring that out. I cut on the lengthwise grain because I did not have enough fabric to cut on the bias.  I sewed it on to the edge of the navy, right sides together, then used an iron to carefully press the buff so that it showed on the outside of the navy. Then I took pins and pinned down the other side.  This worked fine on the straight part, but on the curve there were going to be puckers. I struggled quite a bit  before I finally just decided to go with puckers. However they would be neat puckers. I carefully pinned them down, spreading them out so (hopefully) they looked like I had meant for them to look like that. After it was pinned, I hand sewed it in place with tiny, neat stitches. 

     Then I took more buff to create cuffs.  That was easier. I measured the cuff and cut a strip of buff on the lengthwise grain, with a proportionate width.  I sewed the short ends together. Then I pinned it to the edge of the sleeve, right sides together and sewed it together. Then I folded it open and pressed.

     Next were the buttons. We analyzed all of Lafayette's buttons and their placement. That was a lot of buttons!  I had just spent a bit of money to outfit the Oliver Hazard Perry costume in buttons! My son said to reuse those buttons.  (GASP) Surely he jests!  After all that time I agonized over that costume, there was no way I was going to dismantle it. Also I had recently made it. Besides he might want to wear it for his costume for the Awana leadership banquet. (Little did I know we'd be living in Virginia by then.)   I bought the buttons. We ended up not using sleeve buttons, because I couldn't find enough and I didn't have time to shop all over San Antonio. We only had so many to work with and I told my son we needed to place them where they would be most strategic for a grand look.  That would be along the sides of the coat, instead of the cuff. Besides my son has a small frame and I thought that would be accentuated by all the buttons on the sleeves.       

     How to do the epaulettes?  I had no idea how to figure out a duplicate of the epaulettes. My son taught me how to zoom in on pictures on my photo editor program.  Of course when we took these pictures we had no idea we'd need them for costume analysis.  But the zoom showed that Lafayette had  fancy epaulettes. I felt constrained for time, so I duplicated the ones I made for the Oliver Hazard Perry costume. Also Lafayette had 2 silver stars on top of each epaulette. We had no idea!  We did remember that he was a major general, so 2 silver stars for each epaulette were needed. I hoped to find some nice embroidered ones at the store.  There were none. I did find silver button stars. I purchased those but when I laid them on the epaulettes, the stars were tiny in proportion to the epaulette.  Back to the store I went for silver lame. (pronounced la-may; I can't use accent marks on this keyboard) Then I took some paper and made a five pointed star.   Obviously  it was too large, so I kept carefully cutting it down by refolding the star and making a little snip. Then I'd reopen it and lay it on the epaulette until I got the proportion I wanted.  When the proper size was established, I used it as a pattern on the silver lame.  Then I adhered them to the epaulette with glue stick. Any other glue would have been too thick for the fragile, thin stars. Nor could I sew it on neatly, being fragile fabric on top of a cardboard base. However the gluestick does not stick as well as it needed to. The gluestick had to work.   

     Finally I pulled up the bottom edges of the coat and sewed them together. I kept telling my son that Lafayette didn't wear it that way but my son said that other pictures in books show it and he liked the look. So that's what he got. 

     I had a little time left to make the vest. Using another pattern for a colonial pirate in a small man's size, I resized this to be smaller. I used the Lafayette picture to see how long the vest should be in proportion to the rest of the body. Otherwise I followed the pattern directions.  In the end, the vest was huge on him. At least he can grow into it.

     Here is the final look. I sent the CWF Educational Outreach Department pictures and copies of my kids Yorktown presentations. In turn, they sent us a gift!  That was a great memory maker and it was a lot of fun. Now that we live in Virginia and go to CW quite often, my son has asked me to let him wear his Lafayette costume.  I told him there is only one Lafayette!  =) Actually I'm not sure how that would go over at CW, with him running around in a General costume.  I've seen other boys wearing one, so I guess it would be okay as long as he didn't tell people he was Lafayette.  Afterall, what would Lafayette think?