Here we have some items from the depths of the Emporium, which will be featured in the Vendor’s Room at Costume Academy 2013. If you are interested, please let our proprietor know and we are happy to set aside items for you. We hope to see you there!
We are pleased to share with you a Mother’s Day holiday feature post on one of our sister-sites, Overdressed For Life, by Moya Stone.
The Emporium proprietor was at Costume Convention 30 during Mother’s Day weekend in Tempe, Arizona, with the members of the Wench Posse from North Carolina, Washington state, the District of Columbia and Minnesota. It was fabulous to meet everyone in person and be able to share the fun, live, not just in photos e-mailed and posted on the internet.
We celebrated winning awards in the Masquerade by going to a local pub, hearing live music, dancing and enjoying the nightlife in the college town of Tempe. Our group presentation won a blue ribbon for Judge’s Choice and four of our members won individual ribbons for tailoring. We also met several incredible costumers from Idaho, San Diego and Vancouver, Canada! They received the “Spammy Award” – entitled Go Big Or Go Home — from the MNSOC (Minnesota Society of Costumers.)
Our ringleader, Laura Ulak, has written at length about our shenanigans that weekend over on her blog, called the Eleonora Project.
In the works are plans to attend both Gallifrey (the Doctor Who convention in Los Angeles) and Costume Con 31, next year in Denver, CO. Stay tuned!
Malvena Pearl’s Emporium participated in the Greater Bay Area Costumer’s Guild’s Costume Academy as a vendor this year on Sunday, March 4.
Jan brought her amazing, costume jewelry to our table and Ais helped us out a great deal with set up and customers. We had caramels from Bequet Confections, lots of printed inspiration, some hats, The Tarot of the Tailors and a nice selection of Mrs. Greenbalm’s products.
The other vendors were friendly and as always, gracious and fun to work with.
A hearty “Thank you!” to everyone who helped us out and who stopped by to say hello!
I escaped my work for a few days last week with a visit to the 23rd Annual Doctor Who convention hosted by Gallifrey One Network in Los Angeles. I was in my role as “minion” to my Wench Posse team members and boy, did we ever have fun! I got to meet two members of the Wench Posse, Alisa and Nell, who live far outside of California. And I also got to spend time with the lovely Glynnis, whom I met at Costume College in 2009, when I met the lovely Laura Ulak.
We all got along so very well it was our first time, ever, at this particular convention. We had a fabulous time. Alisa has written a nice summary of her Gallifrey experiences here.
I enjoyed meeting other Doctor Who fans from Montreal, Toronto, Boston, Pittsburgh, the greater Los Angeles area and even a few from San Francisco to whom I gave my card. Hopefully we’ll connect through the Bay Area Browncoats (Joss Whedon fans.)
Some of my favorite times at Gallifrey were sitting with the Wench Posse in the audience at panels and feeling what actor Mark Sheppard described so well: the shared love of the creative process that makes Doctor Who. You can tell that it’s really a labor of love on the part of the production folks, actors/writers, etc. That they become like a family and have all these in-jokes. It’s fun to see them banter together and to share these moments. The shared love and gratitude for the show that brought us together was so much “in the air” during the last couple of panels, it was almost overwhelming. It was like going to a really good concert or a wedding, where the entire room was having fun. Even when the question was awkward or silly, it kept moving and somehow, some of the youngest questioners inspired some really great discussions on the part of the panels.
The gratitude — or whatever it was — was a third entity, apart from the speakers (actor/director on stage) and the fans in the audience. I could especially see it/feel it when the eldest cast members encouraged each other, with humor and kindness, during panel discussions. It was there when Mark and his father Morgan and Camille Coduri (who played the character of Jackie Tyler) talked about being recognized while walking down a street in London, and kidding each other about being tough. And when Louise Jameson (actress who played Leela in the 1970s Doctor Who series) shared about her near-death experience, it was really amazing. I got a little teary.
The journey home for me was pretty unremarkable except that a very generous convention-goer named Mike helped me out with the shuttle transfers from LAX to the “Fly Away” bus that goes to the downtown Central train station, and then helped me find my way to the Gray Hound bus station. We shared our experiences of conventions, Doctor Who episodes, the writing of PG Wodehouse and travel. Since I haven’t heard from him via e-mail, Thank You Mike for giving me a hand in a city that was strange to me and for being a friendly and generous non-stranger.
My friend Laura is an inspirational seamstress with a great sense of humor. This photo above was taken at Costume College in 2009, when we first met. She’s on the right.
The Costume College experience was overwhelming to me. It was the first time I’d attended and the folks I knew there were all caught up in different aspects of it: the classes, the events, preparing for the events and taking day trips to local museums and schools around Los Angeles. I didn’t know I was going until the last minute and most of the classes were filled by then, so I sat in on several workshops and presentations and met lots of new people.
I met Laura in a board room in the hotel that was set aside for Costume College attendees who needed to complete a sewing project. We needed space outside of the room we were sleeping in to “make it work,” as they say on Project Runway. It was also a place to show up and get help, if you needed help. It turned out that we spent hours in that room and stayed up very late. There were many people sitting around the table. I was assisting a young woman who had talked her mother into flying in from Canada to go to this weekend-long event. She needed help with a lovely 1870s-era dress (a la Anne of Green Gables) for the Gala the next night.
Meanwhile, Laura was sitting down the table from us, making very funny remarks and completing a truly amazing outfit. Laura’s outfit was a Tudor era woman’s costume made in modern fabrics out of camoflage-patterned parachute silk trimmed in reflective tape. She said she had a posse back home that usually offered a lot of help and I think she was missing them. I would have been missing them, if I were her. So we ended up in this room, working side by side with other costumers. I really liked her approach and her friendliness. That feeling of “we are all in this together.” If it isn’t fun, let’s find a way to make it fun, or heck, just move along. Let’s remember why we are here. She looked great at the event the next night. But the best part was the process: making something and sharing that experience with someone who laughs with you, is willing to help and share stories while you sew.
We kept talking all weekend, into the wee hours. She even let me crash in her room and we found that we shared a love of science fiction. It turns out that Laura had been making costumes with –and for– her friends for many years. They had a regular “Day of Wrong” tradition at their Renaissance Fair:
Laura said her group also attended the Dickens Fair in their area and were active in organizing costume events. She said she’d been making a living sewing Santa Claus outfits and called herself the “accidental seamstress.” I met a lot of people that weekend but Laura and I kept up our dialogue.
After Costume College we kept in touch via e-mail, shared our stories and tales of what was happening in our costuming and creative lives. She made me an “honorary member” of her posse, even though I live several states away. She and her husband came to visit California and we got to have dinner and enjoy a great visit. Her blog is called the Eleanora Project and she’s documenting her birthday and all the creative hoopla leading up to it, as well as her ongoing costume projects.
Here’s the latest photo of one of Laura’s recent creations for a holiday Steampunk event:
Now that I no longer have a Feline Overlord named Roo, I am an official Minion of the Wench Posse. We have found that we have a lot of fun talking, planning projects, sharing materials by mail and just egging each other on. Through Laura, I’ve gotten to know several other incredibly creative, weird, fun-loving and fabric-obsessed people. In 2012, we have plans to meet up at two different costume conventions where I will get to meet several of Laura’s Wench Posse in person. I plan to assist them them with the assembly of a project or two. I am so looking forward to that!
Laura is a kindred spirit. And I am very grateful for her friendship. Happy Birthday, Laura!
In the past few years, I’ve made an effort to either volunteer at the Dickens Fair in Daly City, California, or to spread my enthusiasm about going to the Dickens Fair to other folks. I’ve made a bonnet or two for this occasion and assisted a number of friends with their outfits. Here’s a photograph from 2005, one of the first years I went to Dickens Fair with pals Beth (on the left) and Aimee (on the right). I made Beth’s gray and plum-colored outfit, my outfit, helped Aimee embellish her jacket and skirt; and I made both my bonnet and Aimee’s bonnet.
If you like live music, live theatrical performances, dancing, games and general holiday fun set in the time of Charles Dickens’ city of London, then you may want to go to the Dickens Fair. Happy Christmas!
Happy belated Bastille Day to one and all!
I wanted to share some photos of a unique gathering of costume enthusiasts that was recently held at the Bellevue Club in Oakland, CA. It was An Evening at the Petit Trianon, set in 1789. There is a large group of photographs via the Guild’s Flickr Photo Pool and they have a Facebook page.
The lovely and talented Claudine de Montigny brings us some great information about how she constructed her beautiful and detailed outfit for this event on her blog, Idle Hands. Lady Heather offered me a her ticket and I was able to attend the event. (I was poised to sit outside the event, on my historically correct wooden crate, wearing peasant garb, knitting) It was wonderful to see so many enthusiastic party goers and craftspeople enjoying themselves.
Vive La France!
This bonnet is for a dancer who is doing workshops to perform in Fezziwig’s at the Great Dickens Fair in San Francisco. I built it from buckram, millinery wire and cotton fabric. I’m sewing it by hand. For inspiration, I used several sources. The Dickens Fair folk provide guidelines for costuming for their event here. I also found many books to inspire me at Costume College, two years ago. One is a British publication entitled, “Hats and Bonnets” by Althea Mackenzie with photography by Richard Blakey, published by The National Trust, London, UK, 2004. The photos and descriptions of hats and bonnets are wonderful. I’m looking forward to embellishing this bonnet with ribbon, trim and lace, to match the dancer’s dress, that I embellished for her earlier this year.
And it was fun!
Here are some photographic highlights
