7 Questions With "Katherine Sewing" - Historical Fashion and Hair Blogger

 

Katherine runs the Youtube channel, blog, and instagram "Katherine Sewing", where fllowers learn about historical hair care and hand made fashion.  She loves learning about history in a deep sense, not just what happened and why, but what other perspectives there are on that, and what it felt like to live and dress in historical times.  She enjoys examining how their perspectives differed from ours, and how we can apply that to understanding our cultural blind spots today. Her website is https://www.katherinesewing.com/ 

1. How and when did you get  hooked on history?

I have a love of history in my blood. My Dad built the home I grew up in with a Victorian design and used historical stone masonry techniques. The earliest drawings I remember making as young child were of women wearing historical dresses, or women from ancient Egypt. I got hooked on vintage style as a teenager, and later full blown historical fashion as well as hair care in my early twenties. I felt disenchanted with not only modern fashion and hair care, but also many modern ways of "doing life".

2. What role does history play or has it played in your personal life?

I love delving into historical solutions to my modern problems, such as historical clothing and hair care techniques. Myself and most of the members of my immediate family all have a love of history and historical aesthetics, that show up for us differently.

3. How does history play  a part of your professional life/career?

History is the inspiration for everything I create and the subjects I research. As a late teenage I got into professional oil portraiture, inspired by the historical masters. Now I create online content around interpreting historical sewing, dressing, and hair care into modern day life.

4. Why is studying/knowing history important?

Studying history is important because it is the only way to gain a more complete perspective of the way our world and life is today. This allows us to critically evaluate practices and ways of thinking which would otherwise be taken for granted. Thus, studying history gives us more freedom to craft our life and worldview in the way that serves us best, rather than mindlessly accepting current norms which may have already been proven unsuccessful (or otherwise unsuitable for us) by history.

5. What is your favorite period or aspect of history to learn about and why?

I love learning about historical fashion, hair care, and art. I also have a love for classical literature. I am attracted to all of these topics because I feel that more effort, time and thought were put into these (and other) areas throughout most of history, due to their different primary aims in the past. I believe they were led primarily by the pursuit of beauty and excellence, rather than utilitarian, mass production, or commercial aims. Especially when it comes to literature, I feel that I can relate and find more substance in historical literature. As a Christian, I am also of late enjoying studying early Church history to better understand my faith.

6.  What is "Katherine Sewing" and how did it come about?

 "Katherine Sewing" is the online enterprise I have created, that first began as an excuse to prioritize and film my historical fashion projects. It has now evolved into the primary income source for my family, and allows me to share my expertise and inspire others in the areas of historical hair care, aesthetics, and creativity.

7.  what do you hope followers of "Katherine Sewing" take away with them?

I hope followers of "Katherine Sewing" come away with a love for beauty, and a willingness to take the time to  achieve it. I also hope they come away with an ability to think critically about our current ways of dressing and  caring for ourselves. I also hope to inspire women that motherhood is not a death sentence to our creativity, but  can rather be a source of inspiration.

7 Questions With Author Judy Pearson

 

Judy Pearson is a best-selling author, an accomplished presenter, and a graduate of Michigan State University. But her favorite title is “story teller.” With five books and millions of published words to her credit, she’s also a fan of history and intrigued by what motivates unsung heroes and heroines to act so selflessly.

Judy was named one of Chicago’s Most Inspirational Women, a Top Phoenix Woman to Know, a Warrior with Hope and a Phoenix Healthcare Hero. Judy and her husband live in Nokomis, FL, loving life and making one another laugh every day. Learn more about her and her books at  JudithLPearson.com  .

1. How and when did you get hooked on history?

My dad was a WWII pilot. And he also loved the “olden days of the wild west.” Consequently, television shows with those themes were a constant in our house. And he loved to regale me (and later my two sons) with extra tidbits about whatever he was watching.

2. What role does history play or has it played in your personal life?

Fast forward to my college years. I was a French major at Michigan State, was fluent in the language and spent a year at a university in Rennes, France. I enrolled in literature and history classes with the other French students, and spent every weekend possible visiting historical places in the country.

3. How does history play a part of your professional life/career?

Although I began my writing life wanting to be a novelist, when I uncovered the documents that led to my first published biography, Belly of the Beast, I was able to secure a top agent in NYC. His advice then still serves me well: there are lots of novelists, but if you become an expert in a time period, you’ll develop a following. And I’m fortunate to have done that.

4. Why is studying/knowing history important?

The classic reason is that studying history helps us repeating our mistakes. That’s true to a certain extent. But I have another favorite reason: the past is prologue. It’s etched into the brick facade of the National Archives building in Washington, D.C. (one of my favorite and frequent haunts). Everything we do today, personally and as a nation, is driven by our experiences in the past. Like a book’s prologue, it’s what drives our future.

5. What is your favorite period or aspect of history to learn about and why?

Oh man, that’s like asking me to name my favorite child! I began my career immersed in WWII. And that’s still a favorite. But my last two books and my current project are primarily set in the 1960s and 1970s. From a business standpoint, that’s a good era as baby boomers remember it and are prodigious readers.

6. You’ve said that you write “stories that inspire” about “unsung heroes”. How do you discover subjects for your books and what are the common threads that run through your subjects? 

It seems that my subjects find me. Some have unexpectedly turned up, as in the case of my first two biographies. The last two and my current project are part of a trilogy I’m writing completely out of order. Research for one led to the next and then the next. But the common thread is courage. We know about Amelia Earhart, George Patton, and Abigail Adams. But Estel Myers, Virginia Hall, Susie Leigh and Mary Lasker aren’t familiar names. And yet the courage of each changed the lives of millions.

7. Please tell us about your most recent book and, if you want to share, your next project(s)?

Crusade to Heal America: The Remarkable Life of Mary Lasker came out in September,  2023. She was a wealthy socialite, but spent every waking hour lobbying Congress for medical research funding. It’s because of Mary that the National Institutes of Health is plural and that President Richard Nixon signed the 1971 National Cancer Act. 

From that research (and research for the previous book, From Shadows to Life: A Biography of the Cancer Survivorship Movement) I learned about the three women in my current project. With a working title of Radical Sisters, it’s the story of how Shirley Temple Black, Rose Kushner and Evelyn Lauder used their breast cancer diagnoses to further the women’s health revolution of the 1970s, 80s and 90s. The target publication date is spring 2025.