Budding fashionistas, it’s time to sharpen your scissors and heat up your glue guns for the biennial Raglan Art to Wear competition.
The popular wearable art show is on again at the town hall in June and organiser Jean Carbon says the catwalk always comes alive with stunning creations from Raglan locals and competitors from out-of-town.
This year, workshops run by Liz Hosking will help budding costumiers to overcome the dreaded designers’ block and get creative with all manner of material.
Liz has competed for many years in the Hamilton ReStyle competition and in 2010 she took out the supreme award with her mermaid-style gown, which was three-years in the making and fashioned from 2500 bread bag tags.
“It’s great to win but it’s more about the process for me,” she says.
Increasing environmental awareness is important to Liz and one of the workshops’ aims is to think about using environmentally-friendly resources as well as items that might ordinarily end up in the landfill.
Liz says she hardly ever uses a sewing machine to create her garments and piecing together some materials requires a bit of ingenuity.
“I created a costume with a friend one year and we needed to use a glue gun, I was surprised that she had never used a glue gun before.”
Liz hopes the workshops will encourage people to tap into their creative side and enter the competition.
“Most people have got some sort of creativity and the workshops can help people develop concepts, source materials and think about the process.”
Also new this year is a matinee show in Sunday, June 3 to present the children’s awards in addition to a matinee and evening show to present the adults’ awards on Saturday, June 2.
Jean says the popularity of the show has increased since its inception 22 years ago and with the extra show hopes to cater for entrants’ family and friends, as well as the rest of the community and visitors to Raglan.
The idea for the competition came to life from a conversation between well-known textile artist Yanny Split and Jean after a summer school workshop in 1996.
“We had a fashion parade after the workshop and she (Yanny) said this is your baby to carry on,” Jean says.
The workshops, held at the Raglan Old School Arts Centre, start on Sunday, March 18 with an introduction to design, followed up by courses on April 8, 22 and May 6.
For more information or to register for the workshops contact Liz on 027 695 1655.
Janine Jackson
