Check out the programme if you haven’t already done and Wellington’s an option on those dates.

To mark the publication of With Bold Needle and Thread Rosemary McLeod will give a talk The Secret Life of Aprons on Sunday May 19 10.15-11.15am at Auckland Art Gallery Auditorium as part of the Auckland Writers and Readers Festival.

Appreciation for items handmade is growing and embroidery and sewing are enjoying a renaissance of sorts with a revival of interest in vintage fabrics and techniques. Rosemary McLeod and Marilyn Daly, set out to recreate items for the book that had originally been created in the thirty years spanning 1920 – 1950. These delightful objects: bags, tea-cosies, aprons, cushions, and adornments are made from a range of materials such as felt, hessian, cotton and brightly coloured threads, wool, and buttons. Made with techniques such as quilting, patchwork, and embroidery the objects display an extraordinary freshness and vibrancy that has immediate appeal to both young and old.

My mission here is to reclaim the home-made… I also wanted to find out what it would be like, as a maker, to re-enter a time when the average woman, with average sewing skills, was expected to be able to make most of the craft projects in magazines.  Rosemary McLeod
What:    Adventures in Vintage Needlecraft
Where:   Objectspace, 8 Ponsonby Rd, Auckland
When:   The Window Gallery, 3 May – 8 June
The Vault, 11 May – 8 June
Gallery hours:  Mon – Sat, 10am – 5pm. Free admission.

The creations of Mariano Fortuny y Madrazo (1871–1947) are rooted in the rich Orientalist tradition of the nineteenth century. Born in Granada, but a citizen of Venice, he created fashions and textiles, as wellas photographs, prints, lamps and sculptures. Fluidity, the art of pleating, the refinement of chromaticism, luxury silks and metallic velvets characterize his creations—beautiful scarves in silk and velvet, timelessly elegant pleated dresses —inspired by the Orient and the Renaissance. He also  developed processes for dyeing textiles and fabric printing. His lamps and dresses recall the fabulous, exotic world of bazaars, harems and caravans that form an important part of the collective imagery of the time, a world his father, the Spanish painter Mariano Fortuny y Marsal, had contributed to creating.

Screening times:

Auckland…16/5 @ 19:00pm, 18/5 @ 10:15am

Wellington… 26/5 @ 18:00pm, 02/6 @ 16:15pm

Dunedin…08/6 @ 17:45pm

Full festival programme

More about Fortuny

Peplum suit, 1939

A useful resource for researching (or simply enjoying) 1930s fashion

Fashion History, Just a Click Away (on the link above!)

The Picture Collection of the New York Public Library and the Special Collections & FIT Archives of the Fashion Institute of Technology Library have recently started a digital archive of fashion drawings and sketches by André Fashion Studios.

Dr. Fenella France, Chief, Preservation Research and Testing Division, Library of Congress, will offer a public lecture on “What Covers (and Protects) our Past.” Dr. France was formerly Lead Scientist in Preservation Research and is an expert on textiles.  In 2010 France made a major discovery concerning the Library’s draft copy of the Declaration of Independence, in Thomas Jefferson’s handwriting with edits by John Adams and Benjamin Franklin. Using hyperspectral imaging equipment to distinguish discrete layers of ink using various spectra of light France revealed that Jefferson in the draft declaration initially wrote the word “subjects,” then carefully rewrote over it to make that word “citizens.”  She is an alumna of the University of Otago.

Her talk will take place in Commerce 2.03 at 5:30 pm on Wednesday, 8 May 2013.  All most welcome.

——————————————–

If you’re interested in how an Otago textile researcher got to the Library of Congress via the star-spangled banner, there’s a profile in a recent University of Otago Magazine.

Shigeyuki Kihara, Aquatic Centre, Tuanaimata, Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going? series, 2013, C-type print, 594 x 840mm. Photo: Evotia Tamua.

The latest Hocken exhibition features the photography and performance art of Shigeyuki Kihara, multimedia and performance artist, and recipient last year of  Wallace Arts Trust Paramount Award and also a New Generation Award from The Arts Foundation.

Undressing the Pacific includes photographs from Kihara’s latest most recent photographic series Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? (2013), which feature a Victorian mourning dress she uses in her photographic and performance art.

The exhibition runs at the Hocken Collections, Anzac Avenue, Dunedin, from 20 April until 8 June. There’s an artist talk at 10am on Saturday 20 April.

Also in Dunedin, you may be interested in Toitu’s new monthly craft collective initiative – bring your work down and talk to other crafters about your current projects.

Postscript:

Home Sewn is so very on trend that it’s even made it into august  pages of the Financial Times, in their recent article about the current resurgence of home sewing.  The exhibition will next pop up at the NewDowse from early August.

Zipcode DLE screen