Sonja Strathearn was a young mom in the ’90s at home with three little children when the BBC’s adaptation of Pride and Prejudice introduced her to Jane Austen. Sick of her old black and white TV, she had just splurged and bought a color TV on credit, with a VCR. When the story of Elizabeth Bennet and Mr. Darcy came across her new screen, she said she fell in love.
“I'd never heard of Jane Austen. I didn't know anything about Regency England, but it just was this wonderful fantasy, this beautiful fantasy, as well as a great story, and I was completely hooked,” Strathearn said.
Over the years, she went back and read Austen’s books and watched more of the adaptations of her work. But three years ago, Strathearn took her fan status to a new level when she found out about Jane Austen festivals held in England. Hundreds of Austen fans put on their Regency-era best and parade down the streets of Bath, attend lectures and dance.
“I thought, oh, I can make my costumes,” she said. “And I can actually go to a ball.”
Strathearn had sourced some costumes from an independent film she was working on and decided to take up sewing her own historic attire.
“I had not successfully made a dress before. I tried,” she said. “But I did have a sewing machine, so I thought, ‘This is my art project, I am going to learn to sew.’”
Today, she has a closet full of gowns, word dresses, petticoats, corsets, gloves and hats galore. Through attending festivals, Strathearn has met pattern makers who design historically accurate patterns based on clothing artifacts from the era, with special detail paid to features like the diamond seam on the back of Regency dresses.
VIDEO: Take a tour of Sonja Strathearn's closet
"It's like a little club within the world of people who love costuming and love Regency, and it's super fun,” she said.
Strathearn has attended three festivals in Bath, twice with her husband, whom she met on a production of Fiddler on the Roof in 1987. One of her best memories from her visits was a magical moment at a ball.
“There was one dance, it was particularly beautiful and I feel like we just got in sync, like everyone in our little group of eight people, because they're in sets,” she said. “We had some good dancers around us, and we felt graceful. We felt like swans.”
Sometimes Strathearn gets comments on Facebook that she was born in the wrong era, but she said she definitely doesn’t want to go back to that time. She just has a great appreciation for the aesthetics.
“It's like an exhibition for an artist,” Strathearn said. “You're creating the items, but then you get the performance element, where you get to wear them and interact with other people. So it's like this double artistic endeavor.”
And yes, she knows she has taken her obsession to an extreme, but it’s also connected her with friends, both in Iowa and around the world.
“What I'm doing is completely frivolous and so selfish, but it gives me so much joy and pleasure,” she said. “And I've had a little sewing circle at my house with some friends who are also learning to sew."
One of her friends recently completed her first corset, petticoat and dress. Her advice for anyone wanting to do something similar is that you can teach yourself these skills to bring your fantasy to life.
“Even if you’re on a budget, you can create something totally dreamy and enjoy it.”
