All posts filed under: Miscellenia

From Ruffles to Rebellion: a Katherine Mansfield fashion show

This is shaping up to be a wonderful year of events and speaking opportunities for me. First there was the Katherine Mansfield Garden Party in Hamilton, and in July I’ll be in California for Costume College, but in between I’m extremely excited about an upcoming talk and fashion show in collaboration with the Katherine Mansfield Museum here in Wellington: From Ruffles to Rebellion: a heritage fashion show Sunday 10 April 2pm Old St Paul’s Tickets $15 I’ll be exploring Mansfield’s life through her clothes, bringing to life the characters in her stories, from Laura in her lace frock and ‘Spanish’ hat in The Garden Party, to the Modern Soul in her stays (which she oughtn’t to wear), Rosabel’s fashionable fantasty outfit of The Tiredness of Rosabel, a swimsuit for By the Bay, and Mrs Norman Knight of Bliss in her infamous banana peel dress. Plus more! It’s going to be fabulously fun and delicious, and I do hope you’ll come! Follow the link above for tickets! (this is a pinned post, so scroll down for …

Let’s stop perpetuating the myth that women are bullies – a rebuttal

Published by The Dreamstress

I’m going to take a little break for sewing and cats and fashion history to have one of my rare rants about something that matters hugely to me. First, a caveat: It’s well after midnight. I’m writing this because the prompt for this distressed me so much that I couldn’t sleep. I’m not supposed to be blogging tonight. I’ve got two dresses to hem, put fasteners in, and do a ridiculous amount of applique on before I get on a plane tomorrow. Oh, and a hat to make. I’m not supposed to be blogging, I’m supposed to be sleeping or sewing and I’ve done too much of the latter and haven’t had enough of the former. So this won’t be my most well-written or eloquent post, but it is, nonetheless, important. A blog post entitled ‘I won’t be *that* woman’ is doing the rounds of Facebook. At first I read the post and thought ‘Yes! Totally! Let’s not bully! Bullying is bad!’ But the more I read, the more I realised that she’s not just …

Costume College 2016 – I’m going! And need ideas!

Published by The Dreamstress

As I mentioned in an earlier blog post, I’m going to Costume College 2016. CoCo (as it is called) isn’t actually college – it’s pretty much the biggest conference for costumers (particularly amateur-ish, historical-ish ones) around. I’ve wanted to go to CoCo for years, but I’m in New Zealand, and it’s in LA, and that’s a long (aka expensive) way to go.* This year I was privileged enough to get a full scholarship to Costume College, and a really good deal on airplane flights to the US, which has made it possible.** In addition to going to CoCo, I’d actually like to teach a couple of classes. I’ve brainstormed a few ideas, but I’m having a combination of tall-poppy-avoidance panic and ‘let’s have a brilliant idea’ induced brain blank (my brain is like a cat. Tell it to have a brilliant idea and it glares at me and turns its back and proceeds to wash between its toes with great dedication). So, if you were going to a big Costume themed conference, with a variety …