Fabric for Soldier

Sourcing for the fabrics for the soldier has been one of the trickiest tasks as firstly we have been trying to match the fabrics from black and white photographs from the era (quite difficult) as well as photos from hire houses to compare colours but also getting it to match my perception of the war. A lot of the shirt fabrics I have found are either too thin but have a lovely texture or look too much like a daily shirt, my feeling is that the shirt would have been quite rough and have a slubby texture as they were mass made and worn day in day out. However, Rebecca who knows a lot about shirts agreed on the latest shirt fabric  we liked which was a white cotton twill - although this is quite uniform and neat it is thicker than other samples we had found and has a lot of potential for breaking down and possibly dying to give a 'worn' colour.

The Putties have also been quite difficult as they were obviously made for purpose at the time and no such thing really exists any more. However, from discussions and looking at historical sources from Emily we decided upon a wool serge that is cream in colour, again having a lot of scope for dying. It has a slight texture but will work well with the trouser fabric chosen. Emily's sample from a visit to 'History in the Making' gave us a good weight and colour to work with, as luck has it we found a sample book from Hainsworth's who sell fabric to make Historical re-enactment garments which had a sample almost identical. On inquiring the fabric was £20.65 per meter plus VAT which is still slightly under our allocated budget. We will get Amy to order these fabrics asap...success!

The fabric books including samples of the cotton twill (shirt) , wool serge (putties) and wool (trouser fabric) as well as Emily's original sample.