Thank you for the many emails about the stories I’ve shared during the pandemic. We do hope they are somewhat entertaining in these challenging times. You probably miss traveling, as I do, so I try to include stories and links to photos from travels… please join me on this little fantasy trip.
Retail stores are being encouraged to start their Christmas marketing earlier than ever this year due to supply chain logjams. However Halloween is more popular than ever, and I really don’t like to be rushed past the opportunity to enjoy the costumes of the season.
I don’t really like horror films…I like the Halloween depicted in “Meet Me In St Louis“. In fact, I really love the costume ball/masquerade scenes in “American In Paris” and “Phantom of the Opera“. One of my favorite hobbies is visiting costume museums around the world, especially Opera costume museums and film costume exhibits. (Favorite: Theater Museum in Vienna, Austria.) The only thing that could out-dazzle any of those things is being in Venice during Carnivale.
Long before Cosplay was a thing, I was sewing my own evening gowns for embassy parties in Hong Kong, sewing for Halloween and later for Renaissance Faires, and then going to ComicCon and Starfest to photograph the absolutely stunning intricate character garb that attendees wore on the Saturday night Costume Contest….long before Cosplay terminology came into common use. As Cosplay developed into a widely recognized and accepted trend, I was thrilled!
One of my favorite costume lectures was at Starfest at least 10 years ago, with a civilian Klingon in full TV-worthy costume and makeup, explaining how he created his detailed armor and accessories. Not just with a straight face, but totally in Klingon character. Do you know what is the most useful phrase on a Klingon warship? – “nuqDaq ‘oH puchpa”e’?”
During my visits to New Zealand, I always went on a Lord of the Rings tour, and the last time I was there I spent several days in Wellington to attend the W.O.W. (World of Wearable Art) show, and tour Peter Jackson’s WETA studios and costume museum from LOTR and Hobbit.
If we go far enough back in my career, I can tell you about when I graduated from FIDM in Los Angeles. My senior project was worn to the Oscars that year, by a nominated director’s wife. I had an entry-level position lined up in Bob Mackie’s studio after graduation. Then there was a writer and director strike, and I did not have the luxury of waiting for the strike to end, so I worked at Joseph Magnin in Beverly Hills, as a personal shopper for costume people in the film industry.
After 6 months at JM, I landed a job designing silk dresses, which were manufactured in the same factory as Oscar de La Renta’s silk dress line. I became friends and then roommates with his head pattern maker in Hong Kong, but that is another story. (We are still friends!) However my love of beautiful fabrics, costumes, and lush textile design has a long history, and you see a part of that expressed in our carefully curated products for creative quilters and textile artists.
Thanks for sharing our service and my stories with your friends.
…sharing your love of fabric,
Luana and Paul
* The photos above are from a display of the Emperor’s porcelain in a museum in Vienna, taken in 2015, in a collage with current eQuilter fabrics.
