COSTUME ON 4
May 14-15, 2022
Teachers
The Antique Corset Museum
Melanie Talkington
Melanie Talkington is a corsetiere and started her business, Lace Embrace Atelier in 1997. It all began with a passion for historic costuming and the elusive word corset - a garment that nobody could actually explain. This led Melanie to do her own research and begin collecting original Victorian and Edwardian corsets, taking patterns from them and creating reproductions. Her hobby quickly flourished into a business which is now in its 25th year.
The antique corset collection has grown into the Antique Corset Museum. The collection consists of over 350 original antique corsets dating from the 18th century to 1970, along with bustles and all items related to underwear. Items from the collection have been on loan to museums around the world, including the Musee les Arts Decoratifs in Paris, the USA and Canada. You can visit the museum located inside the Lace Embrace boutique in Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Chantal Filson
Founder/Dean
Confections & Novelties: Women's Hats of the Gilded Age (Bonus Class)
Breaking It Down: An Introduction to Distressing/Ageing Costumes (Bonus Class)
Precision Shortcuts: Tips & Tricks for Sewing Period Costumes
Chantal founded Costume On in 2020 after quarantine cancelled her summer plans for in-person workshops. The result was a thriving costume community that mingles educators, reenactors, costumers and historians for a new event that balances user-friendly academia with creative fun. No costumer left behind!
Costume On continues to evolve as part of larger plans for 1886, with a Master Class series and new additions each year.
What began 6 years ago with the purchase of a Victorian manor has begun to take shape. After two decades as a professional costumer for film/tv, Chantal is incredibly excited to move on to work in living history and focus on period clothing. She hopes to begin in-person classes and events at 1886 in 2023.
Denise Hendrick
A Lasting Beauty: Creating Silk Millinery Flowers
The Opulent Stitch: An Overview of 18th & 19th Century Ribbon Embroidery
Denise Hendrick started her costuming journey over 25 years ago. The hobby eventually led to an apparel design degree, followed by starting Romantic Recollections in 2005.
Since 2014, she's been offering designs and classes to help other costumers bring the beauty of historic embroidery and embellishment to their own projects.
Bevin Lynn
Bevin Lynn is an accomplished seamstress and tailor who enjoys making historic clothing in her free time.
Formerly the Coordinator of Interpretive Programs at Genesee Country Village and Museum and Costume Shop Manager, she has presented at national ALHFAM conferences and is a published author of several articles relating to historic costuming.
Jennifer Saxton-Rodriguez
Jenny Saxton-Rodríguez is an Associate Professor in the Theatre department at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley in southmost Texas, where she teaches costume design and construction, professional internship, theater history, and other courses. She has worked as a freelance costume designer and/or costume shop manager from the Midwest to the Northeast and Texas.
Favorite designs at UTRGV include scenery and costumes for She Stoops to Conquer;
costumes for A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Chemical Imbalance: A Jekyll and Hyde
Play, and She Kills Monsters; and scenery for A Year with Frog and Toad. While she claims Leelanau County, Michigan; Galena, Illinois; and Stephenville, Texas as her
hometowns (depending on what she’s feeling nostalgic for at the moment), she now calls the
Valley home.
Denise Wallace-Spriggs
Making Your Own Custom Hat Blocks: Improvising with Buckram, Cardboard & Wire
From Feather to Plume: Working with Ostrich Feathers for Period Looks
Denise Wallace-Spriggs is the Costume Crafts Artisan at the Tony Award winning Huntington Theatre Company in Boston, and has served in this role for 30 years. Her duties include working with designers to bring their designs to the stage.
She is the recent recipient of the Adrian Tinsley Award for Achievement in the Arts from her alma mater – Bridgewater State University and the Gerard and Sherryl Cohen Awards for Excellence from the Huntington Theatre Company. Her work regularly appears in Broadway and Off Broadway productions in New York and around the country.
Denise has taught millinery, and fabric dyeing and modification in the Boston University School of Theatre for over 25 years. She regularly offers workshops at other colleges and craft schools in the area as well as privately in her studio in Stoughton, MA.
RELICS IN SITU
Christy Gordon Baty
Erin Harvey Moody
Erin studied historical embroidery technique at the Royal School of Needlework, and her needlework has been displayed in several museum exhibitions. Erin has taught a wide range of classes, seminars and workshops focusing on historical needlework and fashion. Her education includes graduate certificates in Museum Education and Textile and Costume Collections Management.
Christy Gordon Baty is currently working on her Masters Thesis about the needlework of English women in the early modern era, fell in love with embroidery as a child and has been a teacher for over a decade.
Together, as Relics in Situ, Erin & Christy have written articles, academic papers, presented lectures, and given hands-on workshops focusing on English embroidery in the 16th and 17th centuries.