My youth was spent in suburbia where I grappled for straight A’s and wrote sappy lyrics for music-less songs. Eventually I left the comfort of my parents’ house and my rock star dreams for Guelph, Ontario, where I completed a Bachelor of Arts and Science in English, Psychology and Political Science. Later I moved to Toronto and immediately took enjoyment in the vast and eclectic array of arts-related opportunities and events; there is a seemingly endless cascade of ideas. I spend a lot of my time poking around thrift, consignment, and rare goods shops. The social and cultural history behind anything from clothing to magazines to bathroom décor is incredibly intriguing. And trifling but true, the act of getting dressed is one of my dearest pastimes. With much delight, I now find myself at WORN as Director of Events where I can put some of this affection to work.

Current Inspirations

So Vintage Patterns
Essentially, this is a giant, well-organized catalogue of vintage patterns to tempt you, your wallet, and your sewing machine.

ill seen, ill said
This blog comes out of Toronto and is written by Jane Flanagan. It features posts on artists, designer collections, beautiful photography, and other such treats for the mind and eye.

weardrobe
This website showcases people wearing cool things, and then links to their blogs, Etsy stores, etc. It provides good visual fun for browsing, but is also a bank of other fashion resources.

FORA.tv
Yes, I am directing you to a television website. Here is the thing; FORA is a collection of videos featuring passionate people discussing their ideas. The ‘Culture’ section is my favourite.

Miranda July
One of my favourite multi-media artists and her website showcases all of the reasons why.

Alice in Wonderland [Tim Burton, 2010]

Last week, WORN’s Editor-in-Pants tried to schedule a staff meeting. “I can’t come,” I told her. “I won tickets to an advance screening of the new Alice in Wonderland movie.” Apparently I wasn’t the only one who couldn’t make it and the meeting ended up being rescheduled. “Maybe you could write about the movie’s costumes for our blog?” she said, subtly reminding of how long it had been since I last wrote a post (her exact words being, “it’s been a long time since you wrote a post.”) I told her I would.
After my last class on Wednesday I bolted for the TTC, hoping to make it to the theatre in time for the 7 pm screening. Long story short: I was too late, and the doors were closed by the time I got there. “Well, that’s it,” I thought. “I’ll have no article to turn in and everybody in the entire world is going to hate me for being a terrible, terrible blogger and for making my editor reschedule the staff meeting for nothing” (sometimes I get dramatic when I’m tired). But gosh darn it, I had promised our good readers here at WORN an Alice in Wonderland themed blog post, and I am a woman of my word. So here you go:

Neco z Alenky [Jan Scankmajer, 1988]

It’s not like there’s a lack of anything to say on the subject of fashion and Alice. If I had a penny for every artsy film adaption, inspired runway collection, and magazine editorial entitled “Through the Looking Glass” I would have enough cash to buy not only my own movie ticket, but theatre-priced popcorn – and that’s saying something. I want to start this post somewhere else, however. After all, my own introduction to Lewis Carroll didn’t happen with a visually-saturated interpretation of his stories – no, not even the Disney one - but rather on a more literally literary level.

Alice v Strane Chudes [Efrem Pruzhanskiy, 1981]

When I was a little girl I spent many holidays in British Columbia, visiting my grandmother. She had this thick book called The Complete Works of Lewis Carroll, and before I could understand what they were about, she would read to me his poetry – the Jabberwocky, The Hunting of the Snark, and so on. For my birthday a couple of years later she gifted me with an illustrated hardcover copy of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, two stories I would read over and over again. Alice served as the gateway to the books I would learn to love reading as a kid: stories about children who were bored with their humdrum lives, finding a way to escape to a world of wonder; the likes of Narnia, Harry Potter, the Phantom Tollbooth and others followed suite in my readings.

The Wednesday Play: Alice in Wonderland [Jonathon Miller, 1966]

Growing up however, I had no magical cupboard of my own, no Platform 9 ¾, no mysterious tollbooth and no rabbit hole to escape through. Being introverted and more than a little nerdy, I continued to seek my own escapes through what I read, and eventually through what I wore. Discovering fashion felt a bit like entering Wonderland; the first designers I really fell in love with were those like Alexander McQueen and Viktor & Rolf: designers who, with their clothes, created a world of the fantastical where practicality took second place to imagination. It became really evident why Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland was a major inspiration point for countless photo shoots – at its best, fashion could share that notion with the story that the absurd is always so much more compelling than reality. I’ve tried to channel the more popular perception of Alice in my own wardrobe, occasionally donning that iconic cornflower blue dress and white tights when I run errands, causing my sister to ask “Anna, are you doing that weird thing where you pretend you’re a fictional storybook character again?” (Answer: yes. Yes I am).

Walt Disney’s Alice in Wonderland [Geronimi, Jackson & Luske, 1951]

My grandmother passed away last month, on the same day that McQueen did. Going back to her old apartment in B.C., I found her Lewis Carroll anthology (it seemed so much bigger when I was a child!) as well as a couple of tattered, fading books a relative had salvaged. Among them was her first copy of Alice, a copy which, according the scrawl in the front, had belonged to her own grandmother. It doesn’t surprise me that this book has been passed down through so many generations and yet continues to stand the test of time: another year, another half dozen photo shoots, another film adaptation – this one in 3-D, no less. I still haven’t had a chance to see Tim Burton’s version (at this rate it looks like I’m going to be shelling out for a full priced ticket) and I know it won’t be able to live up to the image of Alice I’ve constructed in my head. At the very least, I hope it can serve as the jumping-off point for a new generation to fall in love with all things Wonderland.

Alice in Wonderland [Cecil Hepworth and Percy Stow, 1903]

I’m Sticking With You from g steg on Vimeo.

During a recent visit from her home in Alberta, regular contributor Hailey Siracky not only joined the WORN team in Toronto for an all-staff meeting, but very graciously agreed to unburden WORN’s managing editor of a few things that were clogging up her dresser.

To completely misquote Aristotle, friendship is a single soul dwelling in two closets.

Ha.

I can name more than a few reasons to watch and revisit the 1965 film Doctor Zhivago: the cinematography, the passionate love story, the incredible acting and, of course, the costumes that won the film the 1965 Oscar for Best Costume Design. With its lush costumes creating a stunning depiction of the time period’s trends, the gripping tale takes the protagonists from a lavish life of leisure to the poverty of war. Set against the Russian Revolution and subsequent civil war, the film takes place mostly between 1912 and 1921, creating a vastly different view of pre and post-revolutionary Russia.

Geraldine Chaplin plays sweet and supportive Tonya, Yuri Zhivago’s step-sister turned wife. Her introductory scene shows Tonya hopping off a busy train from Paris at the Moscow train station in a fitted, pale pink dress and overcoat with matching fur hat and grey muff. The costume garnered much attention from Director David Lean, a stickler for details in the film, who insisted on a few revisions to the design before it hit the set. In Doctor Zhivago: The Making of a Russian Epic, Costume Designer Phyllis Dalton explains, “That was a sad argument I had with the Director at the time because I designed that same costume in pale grey with a black fur hat because I thought she would be so sophisticated she would want to go with the utterly grown up thing, and a rather tight skirt that she could hardly run in, which was very in in Paris in those days.” Geraldine Chaplin recalls the conflict, saying that Dalton then had a white version of the outfit made, which Lean rejected since it made Chaplin’s teeth look “too yellow.” Dalton goes on to say, “David didn’t say he didn’t like it but he was quite adamant that he wanted a pale colour. He said ‘try pink’ …and it’s the most beautiful outfit in the whole film.” The look is elegant early 20th Century Parisian, a chic yet glamorous show stealer. Among the details Lean is known for implementing in his films, he is said to have made all his actors wear period undergarments beneath their costumes for added authenticity, though they were never visible in any of the film’s scenes.

Julie Christie stars as Lara, Zhivago’s mistress, muse and true love. Though Lara is an innocent young woman at the start of the film, her entanglement with a political fixture and notable womanizer named Viktor Komarovsy finds her in a flashy red number that Christie wore rather reluctantly. Claiming that she hated red and the way the dress made her feel, Christie initially refused to wear the revealing, vixen-esque gown, with its black tassel trimming and long satin gloves. “’It’s not a dress you would have worn, or Lara would have worn,’” Lean says he explained to Christie. Lara’s lover Viktor forced her to wear the dress, demonstrating his complete power over her actions, securing Lean’s belief that the costume was fitting for the particular scene. Whether it’s a crisp white puff sleeve shirt and floor-length skirt or a lavender evening dress with a matching bow tied in her hair, Lara’s costumes are some of the most enchanting in the film.

The rich, opulence of Russian culture at the beginning of Doctor Zhivago works in stark contrast to the latter part of the film, where communism takes power. The characters somehow look simple and even stylish in their tattered clothes and fancy furs, which are functional for the bleak cold. Through it all, the film’s title character, played by Omar Sharif, dons a classic fur hat and long belted coat with large lapels, as he braces himself against the cruel Russian winter and dominant Soviet rule.

-Anna Cippollone