Following the holiday period, Te Papa is getting into full swing for 2012. The lifts are crammed, the phones are ringing, emails are flying and meeting requests are flooding in. Best of all, it also means that the 2012 Events Programme for Unveiled: 200 Years of Wedding Fashion from the Victoria & Albert Museum, London is about to take off. The programme comprises of floortalks, lectures, fashion shows and even a Conservation Clinic, all designed to enhance the Unveiled experience.
From February onwards, we will be offering lunchtime floor talks every Tuesday and Thursday at 12.15. On Tuesdays you’ll be guided by a Te Papa curator, and on Thursdays a well-known fashion figure will give their personal take on the exhibition. The following fashionistas will be your tour guides throughout February.
February 2: fashion stylist Sally-ann Moffat
February 9: fashion editor Carolyn Enting
February 16: designer Jane Yeh
February 23: milliner Amanda Nicolle
If you would like to book into either a Tuesday or Thursday floortalk email floortalks@tepapa.govt.nz Admission charges apply.
February also sees the launch of the Unveiled Lecture Programme, admission to which is free. It starts on Sunday 12 February at 2pm with an intriguing journey into the glamorous World of Charles Frederick Worth – Pioneer of Haute Couture with Maureen Montgomery from Canterbury University.
One of the most spectacular gowns on display in Unveiled is a wedding dress made for the American Clara Mathews by the Paris couturier Charles Frederick Worth (left).
In the latter half of the 19th century, a visit to Worth’s rooms at 7, Rue de la Paix had become compulsory for wealthy Americans visiting Europe. His gowns spoke of style, taste, and money at a time when display and appearances were everything.
Guest lecturer Maureen Montgomery invites you to glimpse Worth’s world through the eyes of his high-society American devotees. Come along to find out why these women were his best customers – ‘better than queens’.
Maureen Montgomery is an associate professor in the School of Humanities at the University of Canterbury. She is author of two books on women in US high society in the late 19th and early 20th centuries: Gilded Prostitution: Status, Money and Transatlantic Marriages 1870-1920 and Displaying Women: Spectacles of Leisure in Edith Wharton’s New York.
Sunday 12 February, 2012, 2-3pm Soundings Theatre, FREE entry
Other lectures include:
18 March: Modern Bride – Vinka Lukas’s Wedding Empire with Lucy Hammonds
15 April: War Brides’ Weddings – When Clothing Coupons Dictated Fashion with Dr Gabrielle Fortune