For OryCon 2002 I had originally intended to make a Barryaran dress green uniform, based roughly on the Soviet wave-green parade uniform. But my fiancee convinced me instead to make something more recognizable.
I decided I could do something a bit different; House Vorkosigan livery. It's described several times in the books, but the details can be reduced to: the uniform is brown and silver; it's the same uniform for family and retainers, differing only in the quantity of decoration; the collar and sleeves bear the Vorkosigan badge; it is worn with brown riding boots.
Since I'm a completist, I wanted to figure out (roughly) what the other uniforms would look like. Miles, as the heir, wears the penultimately decorated uniform; only the Count his father's would be fancier. Also, there would probably be a uniform for younger sons, and several grades of retainer.
I looked at the badge designed by the people who made the butterbug hand puppet, but decided that it was too complex to fit on the collar. I also wanted to integrate the basic elements of the badge (three mountains, a maple leaf) into the rest of the decoration, rather than add them on last, as they would be had I embroidered separate badges. I'd also been looking at a book called Dress Regulations of the Army, 1900, for the British Army, back when every regiment had a different, and very elaborate, dress uniform. I wanted decoration on the back seams like some of the uniforms in that book, because it seemed particularly egregious.
I decided on a tunic with a high collar, that closed up the front with hooks and eyes (so I could run braid down the front, like a WWI german koller tunic, worn by a branch of the cavalry), and riding breeches of a sort of cossack shape.
The brown wool and brown silk for the lining came from Stone Mountain and Daughter in Berkeley. The wide silver braid was bought online from Tartantown, a supplier of things Scottish, in Canada. The narrower braid (russia braid/soutache cord), was bought at Britex Fabrics in San Francisco. The epaulettes and aguilette are ex-East German, bought on Ebay from Fred's East Meets West, the epaulettes being from one of the cheap service branches, since I was going to re-cover them in brown fabric.
The pattern was heavily modified from the original, Vogue's tuxedo pattern 2383 (used because that's what I had on hand), with details of the breeches being taken from a pattern I took off of the East German riding uniform breeches I used for the Barryaran undress green uniform.
At the point where I decided to integrate the maple leaves into the basic decoration, I ran into difficulties; how could I keep the soutache cord in place while I sewed it down (by hand), an operation that required access to both sides of the fabric. It took several tries and much cursing before I figured out a system that worked:
- First, I took my paper template of the maple leaf and chalked
an outline in the appropriate place.
- Then, I marked the outline with thread, as the chalk details wouldn't
survive the handling of the fabric.
- Next, I pinned the part of the fabric I was working with to a
piece of cardboard, and pinned the soutache cord to the fabric and
cardboard, using most of the pins in our house. (Each curve, no
matter how short, required at least a pin at each end and one half
way along the arc.) (The picture is of the soutache cord added to the tails
of the coat, not the maple leaves, but the theory remains the same.)
- With a curved needle, and high-contrast thread, I basted the
soutache cord to the fabric, removing the pins as I went, and trying
to poke my fingers on the pins as seldom as possible.
- Finally, I sewed the soutache cord in place.
Here is a picture of the body of the coat, before I started work on the maple leaves. The curved braid follows the side-back seams, which were much further forwards in the original pattern.
And from the inside, showing the interfacing and pockets.
After the body of the coat was assembled, I decided it did not have nearly enough silver braid on it! I added some more soutache cord around the pocket openings.
Also some in the chest area, where cossack coats have loops to hold rifle cartridges. I liked this idea because it gave the uniform more of a cossack look.
The sleeves got their share of braid, of course, with more of the maple leaf pattern in soutache cord.
This would be the braiding for Lord Vorkosigan, of course. Count Vorkosigan should have something even fancier; I would probably add another row of braid, or put the second row in a zig-zag pattern rather than straight. For younger sons, just one row of wide braid, and for retainers varying rows of soutache cord.
The collar has a very stylized three mountains on it, made from the wide silver braid. I experimented with different ideas, but this one seemed the best. It was also one of the last things that got done, when time started to become pressing.
The epaulettes are detachable, the tongue of the epaulette fitting through a loop at the tip of the shoulder, then held in place by the button.
Finally, here are pictures of the jacket, front and back, with the epaulettes and aguilette in place.
The front was closed by hook-and-eye tape, and for the lining I used brown silk. I added four inside pockets, as can be seen in the picture, but I forgot that doing up the hooks and eyes is so troublesome that the inside pockets are nearly useless.
As I mentioned earlier, I wanted breeches in a very Russian shape, so I modified the pattern I took off of a pair of East German riding breeches. I'm very happy with these - the shape is exactly what I wanted, and the construction is very nice.
written by Chris Bertani, 23 June 2003
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