What’s happening to buckram? ||
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- čas přidán 18. 05. 2024
- Discover what's happening to buckram in the world of millinery. Learn about this traditional material, its uses, and who's trying to keep it available in hat-making.
Diagrams of buckram/wire construction details in this video are featured in From the Neck Up: An Illustrated Guide to Hatmaking by Denise Dreher (1981).
Other useful links:
The Hat Magazine: www.thehatmagazine.com/
Parkin Fabrics: www.parkinfabrics.co.uk/
Hat Supply/Hats by Leko www.hatsupply.com/
This is the pilot of a "Buckram Alternatives" miniseries of project vlogs. Video links will be added as these episodes release.
French Canvas “church hat” for FAT HAM - Project Vlog
• Buckram Alternative: F...
Phifertex straw braid bonnet Project Vlog: • Buckram Alternative: P...
--Remaking Lydia Bennet’s Bonnet - #VirtualJaneCon Project Vlog [PREMIERING July 14 2024]V
--Millinery Buckram Alternative: Sinamay [FORTHCOMING]
#millinery #buckram - Jak na to + styl
I know next to nothing about millinery but I love to learn about every aspect of textile crafts ! Thanks !
You're welcome! This series of videos might be right in your wheelhouse then because I've been trying out several different options, none of which are exactly like buckram but would be decent substitutes, depending on the needs of the different applications. Thank you for watching!
I have just found you!!!! I have been looking for someone like you for years. I have been teaching myself from books all this time. I hope you keep this channel going for years to come.❤
Welcome, and I’m glad my videos are helpful! I have no plans to abandon this channel, although I can’t create content as regularly as I did when the pandemic shut my industry down.
Please comment with any questions you have on any of my videos-I try to respond quickly even when I’m not actively creating new content.
I am not a milliner or costumer, but I enjoy an extensive collection of vintage hats, as well as practicing many decorative stitching techniques. My mind immediately jumped to the rang of non-metal window screen materials, easily available, and how they might be managed and manipulated for millinery construction.
Thank you for this comment! Spoiler alert-I’ve been looking at non-metal window screening and I have a millinery favorite. A couple of the forthcoming videos cover this area of textiles!
Hi Rachael,
Love from Boston.
XO,
Daisy
OMG hi Daisy! ❣
A while back, I saw a show called the Chef's table. One episode was devoted to a guy who made gelato. He mentioned that many of the almond farmers in Italy were selling off their farms or choosing another crop. The reason was they were being squeezed out by middlemen selling the almonds to restaurants and other food businesses. The was able to work with the famers and restaurateurs to cut out the middle men. Hard work I'm sure, but inspiring.
Thank goodness! I’m an intermittent hat maker, but use buckram for other things building costumes. As a hobbyist I’ve been lost with no idea what to do. Thank you!
I generally think that there are lots of good alternatives, depending upon the application we would use buckram for. How else do you use it beyond millinery?
at George Brown college in Canada, they're slowly starting to shift to Fosshape, because buckram is really hard to get. I'm not even sure if the next batch of students will have opportunity to use buckram as a lot of places aren't ordering it because of the cost.
As cool as thermoplastics are, its...well...plastic, which has its pros for longevity and water resistance, but has its negatives on environmental impact being plastic.
Personally, I don't mind Fosshape cause wrinkles can be ironed back out, and it's easier to form back if there's a collapse in the crown or tip, but it makes me wonder how well it'll hold up long term through wear and tear over years.
Will it yellow? Will it stain other fabrics from the oils in the plastics breaking down? Will it go super brittle and just turn to powder inside the hat, like other foams used in costuming or puppetry? (like the original Muppets that have their foamy shell that just disintegrated) I guess we'll find out
The inorganic nature of thermoplastics is a valid concern and as you say comes with its pros/cons dichotomy. Fosshape has been used in costuming long enough (since the turn of the millennium so far as I know) that some of the first users might jump on here and let us know how it has held up! I'm curious to know too.
@kieraoona It's repulsive how everything it becoming plastic. That society has grown to accept this is truly disappointing.
Another industry felled by the modern age phenomenon of 'we don't know how to repair the [Victorian] machines'??? That's heartbreaking. I suspect burckram also gets used for needlepoint, so there's another part of the industry that's going to be scrambling for substitutions. Thank you for brining this to light. I'm looking forward to your series about the other options available.
- Cathy (&, accidently, Steve), Ottawa/Bytown/Pimisi
I gather needlepoint canvas is still available-it’s similar to buckram but the finishing process is different and that is apparently a big factor in its scarcity/disappearance. Thank you for watching!
I've been looking for substitutes for buckram because of cost and availability. I'm not having much luck, but I'm going to give the plastic canvas a try. Thanks for the tip.
@@jackiejames4551You're welcome! It's genius in the application my colleague uses it (outdoor summer theaters/rennfaires), plastic canvas. I've got several more episodes in the works on this topic, because I've spent all semester angsting about teaching my fall millinery class and I'm choosing to make lemonade, as it were. So, if you try plastic canvas and don't like it, maybe one of the other things I've tried will appeal! Good luck, regardless.
@@LaBricoleuse I'll be looking out for those videos. Thanks.
Your suspicions are wrong. Buckram is not used in needlepoint. Sincerely, a needlepointer.
I don’t believe that they don’t know how to repair the machines, it’s probably just too expensive for them. And that’s a shame.
It’s the same with some tailoring supplies, to my luck we still have suppliers for that here in Europe but it’s getting harder to find them.
Hopefully that company you mentioned figures something out! Plastic might have its advantages but shouldn’t be a solution if there can be another option.
Agreed, if “the machines are broken,” someone could repair them, but maybe not for what the owners wants to pay.
I wonder if an open-weave fabric (a mesh or coarse canvas or netting, maybe the mesh used for counted cross-stitch?) could be painted with glue. PVA would be ideal as it makes a coating of plastic that would help the mesh hold its shape when dried? I havent worked much with milliners buckram but i loved loved using it.
(A piece of plastic over the head-form then the mesh, shape it then add the glue and dry it.)
Not the same as using the proper stuff though!
If the mesh or fabric was glued as a flat sheet and dried, it would later be able to be cut and shaped with heat, a hot-air gun?
Spoiler alert: the first episode focusing on possible substitutes (coming soon, still editing) is about a type of coarse canvas...
And I think the idea of adding a stiffener to a textile that's atructurally similar (like Aida cloth) is a great possibility for some applications!
I wouldn't want to do it for theatrical millinery because it's time consuming on the front end, and time is often in short supply for stage performance costume creation.
A great idea though, especially for those working with either no deadline or a long enough construction period to test it out!
@@LaBricoleuse I'll be watching for that!
I like lenomesh. It’s a nylon material, that comes in many densities/weights, one of which is very similar to medium weight buckram. Seattle Fabrics, pre Covid, l think it was $15/yd, 63” wide. Very strong, waterproof, l haven’t tried blocking it, but it doesn’t ravel, so you can lap your seams, and get remarkably subtle shaping! They only have it in black. It takes paint. It’s also used for sacking in lighter, more open weaves, and those “gimme caps”, with the mesh backs.
I started talking to a fabric merchant l know, who had started having specific materials made in India, trying to get her intereted in making buckram….I’m not sure how convinced she was…
Thanks for that lead! I'll check it out. Looks promising from the swatch image/details i can find online.
Please let me know if and when you find a North American supplier of buckram.
I will be overjoyed if this happens! 🤞
I haven't shopped there in ages & have no idea if they have competitive prices but I used to get buckram and sinamay at California Millinery Supply in the LA fashion district area. I'd be curious to know if they have had to change, too, or if they manufacturer theirs but maybe on a smaller scale or...?
I look forward to your explorations of alternatives & remain very glad of your sharing your expertise here on yt. Thank you.
Recent Yelp reviews indicate that it's moved and open by appointment only? I remember shopping there when I lived in LA in 2005 but it sounds very different now.
www.yelp.com/biz/california-millinery-supply-los-angeles#reviews
It looks like needle point backing.
It does! The texture is different, there's clearly some kind of finish that stiffens it and I considered buying needlepoint cloth and testing stiffening finishes. The cost/time involved ruled that option out though.
Alas, another product traded for plastic. How truly disappointing.
You may be glad to hear I'm experimenting with some non-plastic natural substitutes! And admittedly some synthetic ones too. But yes, agreed, so many things have been replaced by plastic substitutes it's very disappointing.
This is really sad because plastic is so terrible for the environment.
Yes, it’s awful.
I am testing at least one natural biodegradable substitute and I don’t think I’ve tested everything that could be used in place of buckram so maybe this will inspire others to look further than plastic options.