Downtown Dressing (Hint: Don't Look Like a "Floozy")

Behind the scenes here, staff and volunteers are working on every detail to re-create where communities were formed on the frontier – in saloons, gambling halls, and bordellos. The exhibit Sin in the Sagebrush opens on Feb. 13, and will feature live, authentic portrayals of people you'd meet in a frontier town.

And the authenticity of their clothing goes right down to the pleating of a working girl's dress sleeve. Linda Evans, senior Living History interpreter, is directing volunteers Lora Fenter and Jane Lind, on sewing the shoulder of a dress. "To make it period correct, there should be fewer pleats," Evans said. "More pleats was the style in the 1890s, not the 1880s."

Intern Alexis Eudy was being fitted for the dress made of lightweight brown wool based on actual 1880s dress patterns. Each character will be fitted six times for each dress, which takes about 40 hours to make.

"In the exhibit, we will be talking about the lifestyles of women in sinful occupations," Evans said. "A woman of 'negotiable affections' who worked in a bordello had to carve out a way to mix in society with women as well as men. If she was in Virginia City, Nevada, and was going to the mercantile to get her Harper's Weekly, she would not have looked like a floozy."

By the 1880s, industrialization standardized most men’s sizes, so the men portraying people from that era can buy clothes from historical clothiers. But the women’s clothing is all sewn here by hand using natural fiber fabrics – authentic right down to the undergarments!

Stay tuned for more behind-the-scenes details. Next we'll tell you how we’re loading the dice.