All posts filed under: Reviews: resources, books, museums

Unveiling unveiled: how a fashion exhibition travels around the world

A few days ago I was lucky enough to be invited to a very special media event at Te Papa in conjunction with Unveiled: 200 Years of Wedding Dresses. At the event we oversaw the opening of the crate containing the spectacular 1933 Norman Hartnell dress worn by Margaret Whigham, later Duchess of Argyll (yes, that Duchess of Argyll) for her first wedding. The whole media event is part of a wider movement in the museum world to ‘de-mystify’ museums – to allow the public to see a little of what goes on to make exhibitions happen, and to display fragile objects. It’s a movement I heartily approve of: I feel the more we know about historical objects, the more we will feel connected to them and responsible for their care. I’ve worked in museums, and been intimately involved with the transport of objects and exhibition install, but the wonder of seeing an exquisite, fragile, quite old object travel huge distances and go on display never fails to thrill me. Every time is a privilege, …

Friday Reads: Flora Klickmann and her flower patch

Published by The Dreamstress

I have a confession. Sometime I buy old books in op shops just because the books are pretty. I know. This is usually a really stupid habit, because our house is quite small, and I generally have to give the books back to op shops when I realise they are less fun to read than to look at. Sometimes though, my “Oooh…bookey pogey bait” habit pays off, because I end up buying books that I have never heard of which turn out to be fantastic. One of these fantastic and unexpected finds was two books by Flora Klickmann: The Flower-Patch Among the Hills and Between the Larch-woods and the Weir. I really almost didn’t buy the books. They were $5 each, and I’d never heard of Klickmann. And they weren’t actually that pretty. But I did, and they are fabulous. Klickmann was the editor of the Girls Own Paper in London, and the first book (The Flower-Patch) started out as articles for the magazine. This means that both books are more a series of anecdotes …

Friday Review: Bryan Gaskin Fabrics in Palmerston North

Published by The Dreamstress

John Cleese famously dubbed Palmerston North the ‘suicide capitol of NZ’ and advised that a visit to the city would inspired anyone to be able to do the deed. If you are a fabric and textile enthusiast there are only two reasons that a visit to Palmy would only inspire you to end your existence. You might do it if you were completely overcome with fabric fabulosity and couldn’t stand the wonderfulness anymore. Or perhaps you might need to permanently alter your social standing if you spent so much money on fabric that you decide it would be easier to kill yourself than to face your significant other when they see the bills. One of the main reasons for all the fabric fabulousness in Palmy is Bryan Gaskin Fabrics, 402 Main Street, Palmerston North (just off The Square) The Good: BGF’s stocks…well…everything. They focus on bridal and evening fabrics, so the selection of laces, beaded fabric, and silks of every variety is spectacular. Being bridal specialists, they have a lot of white, but their stock …