All posts tagged: events

Fabrications: Mark your calenders!

Do you like textiles and fabric? Of course you like textile and fabric!  That’s why you read this blog! Are you going to be in Wellington on Sat the 19th of November? If so, mark your calendars for Fabrications, an expo celebrating all things textile and fabric related. And I’m going to be there doing something new and exciting. I’ll be hosting a Antiques Roadshow type event, where you bring me a textile object of any type that you want to know more about, and for a gold coin I’ll tell you everything I know about the textile, except the valuation. What, what’s that!?!  Isn’t that the whole Antiques Roadshow thing?  It’s all about what an object is worth? Well, yes, kinda. I don’t particularly like the value-focused approach to antiques in the first place, and it works particularly badly when applied to textiles, which are the most intimate form of antiques: worn on our bodies, carried with us, the mementoes of births and marriages, celebrations and survival.  What a textile is worth is so …

Mark your calendars!

Mark your calendars for Saturday Sept 10th because I’ll be featuring at Wellington’s very popular Dr Sketchy, talking about historical undergarments while my ‘Timeless Beauties’ pose in corsets and bustles. If you aren’t busy ‘Squee’-ing in excitement, you may be wondering “What’s Dr Sketchy?” Dr Sketchy is life drawing for cool people.  There are branches all over the world, so in Paris or Tokyo or Topeka (OK, not sure if there is a branch in the last one yet) you can get together with a bunch of other awesome people from all walks of life, in an awesome, totally not boring art school location,  and draw even awesome-er models. Wellington’s Dr Sketchy has featured Roller Derby girls, Burlesque dancers, and Mexican wrestlers.  And now they are featuring me! And my Timeless Beauties (is that not the best phrase ever!?!) So come along to try your art skills, admire the models, learn a bit about historical undergarments & how they inspired artists from Boucher to Toulouse-Lautrec, listen to some great music, and maybe win a prize!

Scraps and snippets

What’s up in the textile and costume world? Well, first of all, just in case you have been locked in your closet admiring your pretty dresses and ignoring all the buzz, pre-orders are open for American Duchess’ dyeable leather 18th Devonshire shoes.  Order yours now and save $20 (and guarantee that you get a pair in your size!).  Pre-orders close 10th August. On a more local note, Wellington Auction house Dunbar Sloane is having a ‘Vintage Costume & Boudoir Auction‘ on the 10th of August.  Based on previous costume-y auctions at Dunbar Sloanes, things will either go for really good prices, or absolutely ridiculous ones.  I might go along to see if it will be the former.  And if you really have to have something in the catalogue – well, they do do phone bidding! Later in the month, on Aug 28, is the annual Auckland Vintage Textile Fair.  Lots of friends of mine will be there selling their wares.  It would be a great excuse for me to go visit friends in Auckland.  If …