Syposium Registration Now Open

We’re pleased to be able to open registration for the 11th annual symposium of the New Zealand Costume and Textiles Association. This year we’ve been able to provide great registration benefits to our members, so we hope you’re able to join us in Nelson in July for another great event. 

Here is the registration form for you to print, fill and return – Registration form9.5.12

Our keynote speakers are booked and looking forward to the event – Mary Kisler from Auckland Art Gallery, and Ann-Maree Reaney and Jill Kinnear, who will be coming to us fresh from a research trip to India.  We also have a great line up of presenters from New Zealand and Australia, and will be publishing details of this programme very soon.

Jo Torr exhibition extended

Those who haven’t managed to get to Jo Torr’s exhibition at Southland Museum & Art Gallery may be interested to know this has been given an extra month and will now finish on 31 May.

The Museum also has a WOW exhibit through until 17 June.

Upcoming lecture: War Brides

In conjunction with the exhibition Unveiled: 200 Years of Wedding Fashion from the Victoria & Albert Museum, Dr Gabrielle Fortune will present an illustrated lecture on how wartime austerity impacted on wedding fashion at Te Papa this Sunday at 2pm.

Specifically, she will be looking at the  wedding dresses of women who married New Zealand servicemen and travelled to the far side of the world to set up home. Between 1942 and 1950, Kiwi servicemen returning from Europe, the Middle East, the Pacific, and Canada brought home thousands of new brides, representing dozens of nationalities.

Claire Dunlop and Pilot Officer Allen Dunlop on their wedding day, 16 September 1944. Image courtesy of Claire Dunlop.

Although these women from different countries had quite different wartime experiences, most had a story to tell about their wedding dress: how they made the best of available clothing, and how they incorporated national icons or symbols into their dress, cake decorations, or bouquets.

Fortune explores an era when clothing coupons dictated fashion – brides had to choose whether to borrow an outfit, wear military uniform, or splurge precious coupons on a dress.

Gabrielle Fortune is a Research Fellow in the Department of History at the University of Auckland. Her research interests include the war service of New Zealanders in the 20th century, veterans, and war commemoration. Her PhD thesis examined the history of war brides coming to New Zealand.

Lecture: Soundings Theatre, Level 2, Te Papa, 2-3pm Sunday 15 April. Admission free.

Exhibition: Auckland Museum Identi-Tee project

 A blank T-shirt is like a blank canvas. Put words and images on a Tee and it becomes part of your identity. It’s how you share a joke with mates, challenge the establishment, express your beliefs, push a brand or support a band. Maybe it’s the way you show some love for whānau and friends or some pride for your neighbourhood and NZ. Wear the T-shirt and your story is out there. Auckland Museum is gathering the largest digital collection of T-shirts, with the help of the whole community.

Identi-Tee website - you can load up images of your own Tee's to the museum's Photo Gallery.

In a first for the museum, the digital crowd-sourcing project is running alongside an exhibition by the same name.

Identi-Tee: Taku Tihate, Taku Korero (My T-shirt, My Story) opens in the Tamaki Gallery this weekend.

To seed the digital project, Auckland Museum gathered stories at the Ngapuhi Festival earlier this year, Pasifika and Polyfest and from its own staff.

Identi-Tee co-curator Chanel Clarke, Curator Maori at the museum, says gathering these early t-shirt stories has confirmed the results of the exhibition team’s initial research.

“The depth of meaning attached to these t-shirts and their ability to trigger memories is significant. People attach a vast range of meanings to t-shirts; sometimes it’s simply humour or it can be a way to express a belief, sometimes it is about remembering a place and time, or it can be about identity or unity.”

“Common to the t-shirt stories though is a sense that the t-shirt is the enduring physical manifestation that captures and evokes meaning and memory long after the fact.”

“T-shirts can speak volumes with little more than a slogan or a logo, or a simple image.”

Exhibition developer Janneen Love says inside the exhibition photos of t-shirt-clad New Zealanders, taken by respected photographer Gill Hanly, provide an interesting lens on our past.

“We’ve got peace advocate Alyn Ware in a ‘Nukebuster’ tee with David Lange as nuke-busting hero. Other photos feature a young Pita Sharples in his Te Aute College Jubilee tee and a group performing the haka with t-shirts calling for an end to Waitangi celebrations.”

The exhibition also includes t-shirts from the museum’s collections and a film from visual artist Janet Lilo exploring the connections between t-shirts and identity.

People will be invited to share their t-shirt stories onsite in the gallery and Te Kakano Information Centre and online. The growing digital collection will also appear in the exhibition.

Click here for more information on the Identi-Tee project or to add your t-shirt story.

For more information, imagery or to arrange an interview please contact:
Melanie Cooper E: mcooper@aucklandmuseum.com M: 021 899 062

 

 

 

 

Dunedin exhibition: Eden Hore’s Couture Collection

 

Showstoppers at the Hotel St Clair.

For Dunedin’s iD Fashion Week CTANZ member Jane Malthus has curated an exhibition from the Eden Hore Couture Collection fittingly entitled Showstoppers! The exhibition is on show at Hotel St Clair (24 Esplanade St, St Clair, Dunedin), and features 12 showstopper gowns. Collected by James Eden Hore (1919 – 1997) and kept in glass-fronted wardrobes in a building near Naseby, they are a slice of fashion history yet they continue to inspire designers and creators.

Their designers were well known in the 1960s and 1970s for their flair and expertise.  Colin Cole and Kevin Berkahn had established couture businesses in Auckland producing day, evening and wedding dresses. Vinka Lucas, an émigré from Yugoslavia, specialised in creating evening and bridal dresses in elaborate fabrics imported from Europe by her husband.

Rosalie Gwilliam entered Gown of the Year, and Wills (later Benson and Hedges) Award competitions throughout the 1960s and 1970s, with considerable success, and worked as a fulltime designer for some of this time.

Maritza Tschepp won the Supreme Award in the 1977 Benson and Hedges competition, having not long graduated from the fashion design course at Wellington Polytechnic. She made her often ‘ethnic inspired’ designs under the Kasphara label. Pat Hewitt was a designer dressmaker based in Alexandra, commissioned by Eden Hore to make up ‘exclusive’ fabrics he had purchased. These dresses were labelled One Only.

Kevin Berkahn thought New Zealand fashion sufficiently world class to organise a travelling show in 1971 aimed at letting other countries know of the quality fashion design produced here. Called ‘New Zealand’s World of Fashion’ the show gained sponsorship from Pan-Am, and Berkahn toured Australia, USA and England with selected couture and ready-to-wear, including some of these dresses.

To attend Showstoppers, you need to book your place with the Hotel St Clair . In keeping with the nature of couture, it is an exclusive experience, and only 26 people are let in person session. Sessions take place at 3pm each day until Sunday 1 April. Admission is $10. Tel. 03 456 0555 or email events@hotelstclair.com. If you can’t make a 3pm session, just ask if you can slip in!

Keynote speakers announced for 2012 symposium

 

The Costume and Textile Association of New Zealand is pleased to announce the keynote speakers for the 2012 symposium, to be held in Nelson on Friday 20th and Saturday 21st July 2012. This year we are delighted to be hosting three speakers whose expertise will bring a truly international flavour to the annual symposium.

From Auckland we are welcoming Mary Kisler, Auckland Art Gallery’s Senior Curator (Mackelvie Collection, International Art). Mary will be bringing her knowledgeable eye to our theme of Town and Country. Her infectious enthusiasm for art history and her ability to decode the stories embedded within artworks is guaranteed to make for a highly entertaining keynote address.

From Australia and America, we are pleased to introduce Ann-Maree Reaney and Jill Kinnear, who will be presenting their collaborative textile/art project American Road Trip.

 

Four Corners dress from American Road Trip. Photograph copyright and courtesy of Ann-Maree Reaney and Jill Kinnear.

 

Ann-Maree is a practicing visual artist based in Brisbane, where she has had a considerable career both as an artist and an educator.  Jill is a textile designer and artist currently based in Savannah, Georgia, where she holds the position of Professor of Fibers at Savannah College of Art and Design. In American Road Trip, the pair have created a collaborative series of printed textile forms that are wearable, as well as contextual photographs and videos, which capture the essence of travel.  Using textile, structure and digital pattern, these collaborative works reflect an abiding interest in other cultures, experiences and the unique perspective of a journey.

REMINDER: Abstracts for papers are due at the end of this week, Friday 23 March. See the call for papers for further details.

We will advise you soon as to when registrations are open for the symposium.

Unveiled lecture: Vinka Brides 18 March at Te Papa

Modern Bride – Vinka Lucas’ Wedding Empire

Designer Vinka Lucas.

Join design curator and fashion historian Lucy Hammonds for a talk exploring the extravagant world of Vinka Brides on Sunday 18 March 2012, 11am–12 noon. The lecutre will take place in Soundings Theatre, Te Papa, Wellington. Entry is free.

Croatian-born designer Vinka Lucas opened the doors of her first Hamilton boutique in the 1960s. In the years that followed, Vinka and her husband David Lucas built their boutique into a wedding empire to meet the needs of the Kiwi bride.

Lucy’s lecture is presented in conjunction with the exhibition Unveiled: 200 Years of Wedding Fashion from the V&A, London which is on display at Te Papa until 22 April.

Lucy Hammonds is Curator of Design Collections at Hawke’s Bay Museum and Art Gallery. She has a special interest in New Zealand fashion design, and is co-author of The Dress Circle: New Zealand fashion design since 1940.