Hand Drawn Collar patterns of Early 20th Century Detachable Collars Pt1: Four Wing Collars and a club Collar, the Ashbourne-2

One of the things that has weirdly defined my life is that pretty much since I went to college and first got serious about costuming I have been working on writing a costume book. It never gets finished, but I make lots of components for it. In the 1990s this morphed into The Costumers Manifesto web site, but back around the late 1970s and early 1980s it was just a few random things that interested me. Detachable hard collars have always had a fascination for me and so in those pre-Internet and pre-home printer/scanner/copier days I set out to make life size drawings to be used as patterns of my then small collar collection (back when it still fit in a single large cookie tin) in imitation of my hero Janet Arnold. These were laboriously hand drawn with a Rapidograph, a high maintenance technical pen that is the ancestor of my now favorite Signo Uniball pens.

My collar collection c. 1983
Diagram of the ends of 4 types of early 20th Century wing collars, suitable for using to make patterns.
Ashbourne-2 Collar
Ashbourne-2 Collar Drawing

The idea with all these is that since both sides of the collar are identical, you can use them to form a pattern that you can lengthen to the needed size so long as you have the basic shape. In all cases seam allowance must be added!