Artists and Sewists and Fashion, Oh My! (Artistry in Fashion 2011)

Yesterday I attended my first Artistry in Fashion event, held annually at Canada College in Redwood City - it will NOT be my last time!

Some of the strongest impressions that I had:

• The attendees were mostly women, probably mostly 30-ish on up, and I was struck by the fact that so many truly beautiful women were all gathered in one spot.   Not glossy-magazine beautiful, but beautiful in the sense that they carried themselves with confidence, dressed with attention to detail, and exhibited a creative, artistic flair in clothing and accessories that showcased an authentic attitude of "I know who I am".
• The designer/artist booths!  Oh my gosh - overwhelm!  I think there were almost 100 booths, and every. single. one was filled with amazing artistry - clothing, fabric, jewelry, accessories.   It's juried, and done well!
• The Canada Campus is a lovely one - especially on a warm & sunny day.  The designer booths were all outside (& me without sunscreen or a hat - yikes!)   Apparently quite a bit of construction has been going on there, & I think it will be a lovelier campus when some trees have grown up & brought some more natural beauty back, but it was a perfect place for an event like this.
• Of course, the people/friends/fellow sewists!   It was such a great venue to keep running into people I've met through my local sewing group, meet some bloggers for the first time, and be introduced to some wonderful new sewing friends :)
• I don't think I've ever been to a fashion show before....this may not have been an international runway event, but seeing the designers' works showcased, and Lyla Messinger's patterns presented, was really inspirational!  Lyla was the featured speaker, and while I missed her talk, I made up for it by inspecting everything in her booth (and chatting with her a bit, and, of course, spending some $$ there!)

I could have spent time taking pictures of the amazing work displayed & the lovely women I saw, but I pretty much forgot that I had my camera with me, because it was much more fun to just chat with everyone & play with all the goodies first hand ;-)

What I came home with:

My birthday present!   OK, it's not for another month, but birthdays are supposed to start early & end late anyway, right?  These are  felted scarves from harlequin feltworks, and I love love LOVE them!!!!    Made of all natural fibers (silk and wool), and with eco-friendly processing to boot.  It doesn't get much better than this!

Here are a few of the infinite ways you can drape these scarves:

I can't wait for scarf-wearing weather!!!!   By the way, many of the designers have lines that are carried in museum stores and higher end clothing stores, and the prices at this event are deeply discounted in comparison!  Update:  Holy Crap.   I just looked at the online prices of these scarves.  I knew I was getting a good price, and I'm not even going to tell you how much I paid, but I will say this - if you want an INCREDIBLE bargain on one of these scarves, come to AIF next year!

One of my favorite vendors was the button lady, "Missing A Few Buttons".  She has no web presence, but oh my gosh does she have buttons!  I could have spent a mortgage payment at her booth (readers may have noticed by now that I have a bit of a button fetish - especially if they're vintage)

I picked up a few glass buttons from the 1800's, and my favorite - some Victorian "perfume buttons":

What's a "perfume button",  you ask?  (I didn't know either).   The colored bits in the metal buttons are velvet, and the well-dressed Victorian lady would put a drop of perfume on the velvet, so that she could take a delicate whiff of her nice perfume as she walked through the sewage-filled roads of town.    I think I will say no more.....

And, as I mentioned, I stocked up on a few goodies from Lyla Messinger (LJ Designs):

Some patterns, a fun-looking Tips & Techniques book, and some Riri zips designed by Lyla (closeouts at a GREAT price, so I couldn't resist.....)

I usually avoid posting a pic that's THIS unflattering, but at least you'll get a sense of how quickly a warm, sunny California day can shift to freezing-arse cold evening when the fog rolls in with a chilly wind:

Trying to stay warm with shams...

And I can only dream of looking as elegant and gorgeous as Margy, even with a cold wind whipping our hair about:

Artistry in Fashion, I will return!   Until next year......