Spring 2010 Events
Sunday, May 16, 2010: Zonda Nellis: Vancouver’s Weaver of Fashion
Zonda Nellis, the iconic designer who helped put Vancouver on the international fashion map, recounts the history of her fashion design house and her thoughts on the aesthetics of dress. Her devotion to weaving superior fabrics, her creation of simple, elegant garments that display her hand-woven textiles to their best advantage, and the application of special treatments to ready-made fabrics that give the cloth a recognizably “Zonda Nellis touch” have all contributed to her rise to fashion design stardom. Ms. Nellis’s talk will be augmented with a slide presentation and a display of original garments that reveal the designer’s love of weaving and her respect for woven cloth.
Location: Hycroft, 1489 McRae Avenue, Vancouver Time: 2:00 pm
Tickets: $20 per person; $18 per OCMS adult member; $10 per OCMS student member.
Tickets are available at the door (general admission).
Sunday, April 18, 2010: European Haute Couture: Traditions of Excellence
The haute couture industry was begun by Charles Frederick Worth in mid-nineteenth century Paris. Worth promoted the use of the finest fabrics in the world that were cut with technical precision and then sewn and decorated by experts. Each garment was one-of-a-kind and created to the highest standards of workmanship. Twentieth-century haute couture maintained those high expectations, but politics and economics forced the industry to broaden its market by creating ready-made garments and even by selling design rights to mass manufacturers. The best of the ready-to-wear products formed what came to be known as “confection.” Claus Jahnke and Ivan Sayers, avid collectors and historians of fashion, will present a history of European haute couture. Using original garments by Worth, Dior, Chanel, Balenciaga, and others, they will illustrate haute couture’s intensive construction techniques, which make the inside of a garment as beautiful as the outside.
Location: Hycroft, 1489 McRae Avenue, Vancouver Time: 2:00 pm
Tickets: $20 per person; $18 per OCMS adult member; $10 per OCMS student member.
Tickets are available at the door (general admission).
Sunday, March 14, 2010: Fashions for Amazons: Sports Clothing for Women, 1850s to 1950s
As the Olympic spirit continues, the world sees women competing in many sporting events, but being excluded from others (like ski jumping). It is interesting to remember a time when women were expected not to participate in any sport that required serious physical effort. Sports were seen as manly and far too rugged for the delicacy of a woman’s constitution. Other than riding habits, which were usually inspired by men’s riding clothing, women had few garments designed specifically for athletic pastimes until the 1860s, when walking costumes first appeared. In the following decades costumes for swimming, skating, tennis, golf, and other sports came into popular use. Join fashion historian Ivan Sayers as he presents a display and slide show about Victorian sports costumes for women,which will be followed by a historical fashion show of original women’s sportswear of the twentieth century.
Location: Hycroft, 1489 McRae Avenue, Vancouver Time: 2:00 pm
Tickets: $20 per person; $18 per OCMS adult member; $10 per OCMS student member.
Tickets are available at the door (general admission).
FALL 2009 EVENTS
Sunday, December 6
In 2008, Joyce Maguire, Vancouver musician and youth choir director, bequeathed her important, massive collection of historical infant's and children's clothing and goods to the Original Costume Museum Society. With extraordinary enthusiasm, over many decades, she had collected christening gowns, bonnets, bootees, sailor suits, pinafores, books, photographs, toys, games, nursery items, baby carriages, and more with special concentration on the Victorian and Edwardian eras.
For this program, Ivan Sayers selects some of the rarest and most precious items from this international collection, including underwear worn by the boy who became King Edward VII of Great Britain, in order to explore the changing mores of infancy and childhood and in order to pay tribute to an avid, generous collector.
Location: Hycroft, 1489 McRae Avenue, Vancouver Time: 2:00 pm
Tickets: $20 per person; $18 per OCMS adult member; $10 per OCMS student member.
Tickets are available at the door (general admission).
Sunday, November 8
By carrying our spare change, keys, identification, cellphone, pens, and supermarket coupons, handbags perform a utilitarian function that helps coordinate our lives. Throughout history, the contents of handbags may have changed, but the desire to ornament them has not. Since ancient days, handbags have been made of the finest leathers and the richest cloths. Some bags have been designed to be discreetly dignified; others have been outrageously gaudy. Embellished with beads, ribbons, and even gold, they have also been embroidered, painted, and bejeweled. Join Ivan Sayers as he presents a live fashion show and display covering the history and design of handbags over the last two hundred years and the place handbags have had in the fashionable woman's wardrobe.
Location: Hycroft, 1489 McRae Avenue, Vancouver Time: 2:00 pm
Tickets: $20 per person; $18 per OCMS adult member; $10 per OCMS student member.
Tickets are available at the door (general admission).
Thursday, October 1
Ivan Sayers, the popular, local fashion historian with an international reputation, is the "star" of an entertaining evening of historical costume with a cinematic theme. This special show illustrates the well-dressed lives of the wealthiest, most beautiful women in the world as seen on the silver screen. As a fundraiser for the Original Costume Museum Society, the event includes a silent auction, a three-course meal, and a vintage fashion show with models wearing the best of early twentieth-century glamour and sophistication, reminiscent of stars like Mary Pickford, Greta Garbo, and Betty Grable.
Location: 4500 Arbutus Street, Vancouver Time: Doors open at 6:00pm
Tickets: $50 OCMS members; $60 non-members; $400 for a table of eight.
Tickets are advance sale only; sale ends September 23. For best seats, book early.
Purchase tickets on-line at www.ocms.ca or at Lace Embrace Atelier, 219 East 16th Avenue, Vancouver.
Sunday, May 17
Historical epochs are fascinatingly chromatic. Indigo, cochineal, lac, brazilwood, shellfish purple, each shade has been vital to a world culture. Charllotte Kwon, owner of Maiwa Handprints Ltd. and director of the documentary "In Search of Lost Colour: The Story of Natural Dyes," will speak about historic colours, the rise of synthetic replacements, and the contemporary natural dye revival. Kwon is director of the Maiwa Foundation, which provides assistance to artisans around the world who maintain traditional skills or recover natural dye techniques. She travels extensively to research handicraft and has developed a textile archive and research library. Under her leadership, four documentary films, two publications, and a bi-annual Maiwa Textile Symposium have been developed.
Presented at 2:00 pm at Hycroft, 1489 McRae Avenue, Vancouver
Tickets available at the door: $20 per person
$18 per O.C.M.S. member | $10 per O.C.M.S. student member
General Admission
Sunday, April 26
Common sense tells us shoes are meant to be comfortable and to protect our feet, but vanity and fashion sense tell us that up-to-date style and design artistry are equally, if not more, important. During the twentieth century, fine leathers, elegant satins, and sensual velvets were embellished with perforations, beading, embroidery, and even jewellery, in order to make the foot beautiful, eye-catching, and provocative. Always popular fashion historian Ivan Sayers and a corps of live models will present some of the more remarkable examples of high fashion shoes, boots, and slippers from his personal collection, everything from high-top boots to sling-back sandals and from Cuban heels to no heels at all.
Presented at 2:00 pm at Hycroft, 1489 McRae Avenue, Vancouver
Tickets available at the door: $20 per person
$18 per O.C.M.S. member | $10 per O.C.M.S. student member
General Admission
Sunday, March 29
In the 1950s and 1960s Mary Maxim sweaters were one of the most popular Canadian fashion statements. All over the country home knitters were creating heavy sweater-coats featuring flying Canada geese, crossed curling brooms, or leaping salmons. Other wild animals, sports teams' symbols, patriotic emblems, and a vast assortment of icons (both Canadian and universal) were popular motifs. Tom Graff was the first person in the country to draw academic and aesthetic attention to these humble, but important, elements of the Canadian fashion scene and his presentation will discuss his reasoning, his collecting, and his conclusions. Come and share the afternoon with us. Bring your sweaters and tell your own stories of Mary Maxim.
Presented at 2:00 pm at Hycroft, 1489 McRae Avenue, Vancouver
Tickets available at the door: $20 per person
$18 per O.C.M.S. member | $10 per O.C.M.S. student member
General Admission
Sunday, January 25
Colleen Miller is the owner of Button, Button, Canada's only button shop. For thirteen years her Gastown shop attracted button lovers far and wide. This afternoon she will recount the history of the humble button, an artifact common to all cultures and demographics, doing its job of holding us together, adding embellishment, yet often not noticed until it is missing.
Ivan Sayers will enrich Miller's presentation with an assortment of eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth century garments illustrating the beauty and variety of buttons.
Presented at 2:00 pm at Hycroft, 1489 McRae Avenue, Vancouver
Tickets available at the door: $20 per person
$18 per O.C.M.S. member | $10 per O.C.M.S. student member
General Admission
November 2, 2008
In the 1960s, there were three distinct "looks" in women's fashion. The first, from 1960 to 1963, was dominated by the bouffant Parisian styles of the late 1950s. The second was the mod/mini style popularized by Carnaby Street in London. The final style was the counter-culture, hippy wardrobe of San Francisco.
Join Ivan Sayers as he discusses 1960s fashion and fashion icons, like Jacqueline Kennedy, Audrey Hepburn, and Twiggy, while showing original garments from the Original Costume Museum Society's collection, including garments by Dior, Balenciaga, Heim, Givenchy, Cardin, Desses, Patou, Connolly, and Mary Quant. Vancouver designers, such as Lore Maria Wiener, Vera Ramsay, and Evelyn Roth, will be represented, as well.
Presented at 2:00 pm at Hycroft, 1489 McRae Avenue, Vancouver
Tickets available at the door: $20 per person
$18 per O.C.M.S. member | $10 per O.C.M.S. student member
General Admission
October 16, 2008
Fashion Show, Dinner and Silent Auction Fundraiser, featuring Ivan Sayers
6:00 to 9:30 p.m.
Sun Sui Wah Restaurant | 3888 Main Street, Vancouver (CLICK HERE TO SEE MENU)
$50 for Members, $60 Non-Members (set dinner included)
Door Prizes!
Advance Tickets Only!
Contact via email:
Phone: 604.418.1433
From Lace Embrace Atelier: 219 East 16th Ave., Vancouver
October 5, 2008
The Costume Designer's Process:
From Concept to Camera
As movie and television industries increasingly strive for higher standards of historical accuracy in their productions, the authenticity of period costumes becomes essential. The creative challenges of developing realistic period fashion, be it glamorous or everyday or even fantastical, have led to a growing interest in theatrical costuming as a career.
Jane Stills, costume designer and Chair of the School of Motion Picture Arts at Capilano University, will discuss training, options, and opportunities in costuming for stage and screen.
Illustrating her presentation will be a display of actual wardrobe pieces worn by movie and television personalities.
Presented at 2:00 pm at Hycroft, 1489 McRae Avenue, Vancouver
Tickets available at the door: $20 per person
$18 per O.C.M.S. member | $10 per O.C.M.S. student member
General Admission
September 21, 2008
Ivan Sayers celebrates the 150th birthday of British Columbia with an illustrated lecture and display of original clothing typically worn by men, women, and children in the 1850s. Newspapers, magazines, and letters brought the colonists news from the world they had left behind, including fashion updates on fabrics, colors, and stylish shapes. Early BC photographers documented the local fashions worn by politicians, business people, brides, and grooms. Photographs of farmers, fishers, loggers, and miners also show a sense of colonial style.
For those thinking of constructing a period reproduction, costumer Patrice Godin will complete the afternoon with suggestions for patterns, fabric choices, and hair styles that fit an 1858 theme.
Presented at 2:00 pm at Hycroft, 1489 McRae Avenue, Vancouver
Tickets available at the door: $20 per person
$18 per O.C.M.S. member | $10 per O.C.M.S. Student Member
General Admission
