A love of theatre led to a home-based business for Kate Douglas of Yerington, who recreates clothing from five centuries ago to sell at Renaissance faires.
Douglas moved to Yerington 11 years ago, having passed through the town many times on her way to the Valhalla Renaissance Faire each summer at Lake Tahoe.
"I thought this would be a lovely place to live," she recalls.
With more than 40 years in wardrobe and costuming, the former Las Vegas resident had designed, manufactured and maintained the wardrobes at Las Vegas stage shows. She had worked as instructor in the Theatre Arts
Department at East Los Angeles Junior College and at San Bernardino State, taught set and costume design for the City of San Bernardino's Central
City Playhouse, and created costumes for dozens of plays and musicals.
But even with all that work, Douglas was a dyed-in-the-wood Renaissance faire aficionado.
She took a professional interest in the costumes others sold to faire goers and thought she could do better. So she designed her first cloak and manufactured a half-dozen to offer at the Las Vegas Faire. They sold like oatcakes. She has since designed a line of period clothing for men everything from tunics and jerkins to doublets and breeches that she's sold for 10 years.
"A lot of people use costume books. I use portraits," says Douglas. Henry VIII is a favorite subject, as are illustrations from 15th century Ireland, such as that of an Irish chieftain she found at a museum in Oxford, England.
"I also like photos taken when they dig up people from the bogs in their clothes," she says.
Along with historical accuracy, her customers mostly, the performers at Renaissance faire re-enactments want durability. Costumes must be easy to clean. People today like the ease of buttons and fasteners that were unknown 500 years ago.
While Douglas designs the costumes and cuts the patterns, she drives them down to an independent contractor in Las Vegas who does the assembly.
In Yerington, she's helped by daughter Kasey Nichols, and on-site at the faires by Maria Perry and Paul and Eirene Coleman, who staff her booth.
Douglas designs primarily peasant wear.
"Nobels take a lot of fitting," she says, "And that's not easily done online." Her customer base is 99 percent male, mostly because there's less competition than she faces with women's clothing. Cloaks are the best seller.
Customers pay up front when they place their order.
Finding period fabrics poses the biggest challenge, says Douglas, who eschews anything that looks made of plastic. Trips to the Los Angeles fabric district (next to the famed LA garment district) and to textile shows yielded the necessary contacts to keep her stocked in the right raw materials.
Douglas works 15 faires a year under her business name, "Designs by Kate," and many of the faires extend to multiple weekends.
That accounts for two-thirds of her sales, with the remainder coming from the Web site faireware.com, which yields about 325 orders each year.
Weather can be a big factor when working a faire. "I may sell no cloaks when it's hot," she says, "but one time there was a cold snap and
I sold out all 60 cloaks."
A typical on-site appearance nets sales of 15 to 40 complete outfits.
Sure it's a living, but it's the passion that drives Douglas.
"I love people who go to faires. It is the most wonderfully eclectic group of people I've ever met." The prevailing attitude is: 'If you want to play, come on out and play.'"
