DESIGNS FOR SITTING Exhibition, June 21

Fashion Follows Form: Designs for Sitting is a new exhibition opening at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) on June 21, 2014 featuring fashions from internationally acclaimed, Toronto-based designer Izzy Camilleri's IZ Adaptive collection. The exhibition showcases Camilleri's innovative, fashionable, functional - and affordable-designs that are among the first in the world created exclusively to meet the needs of women and men who use wheelchairs. Displayed alongside Camilleri's designs are 18th and 19th century fashions from the ROM's renowned collection, also created for a seated, L-shaped body.

Dr. Alexandra Palmer, the Nora E. Vaughan Fashion Costume Senior Curator in the ROM's World Cultures department, was motivated to collaborate with Camilleri after discovering the designer's shop in Toronto's west end. "Izzy has been called 'Canada's most PC (Perfectly Cut) fashion designer' for good reason. She has broken new ground by designing and creating pieces for maximum comfort, ease, and style for those who have traditionally had difficulty finding clothing that fits," said Dr. Palmer. "We hope this exhibition inspires visitors to think about the role fashion plays in our daily lives as well as the historical relationship between fashion and function."

www.queenieaustralia.com

The exhibition's Honorary Chairs are fashion media icon Jeanne Beker and journalist Barbara Turnbull who was Izzy Camilleri's first seated client. Ms. Turnbull became quadriplegic in her teens after being shot during a robbery while working as a convenience store cashier. She had asked the designer to make her a shearling cape and the challenges encountered while creating the garment motivated Camilleri to launch IZ Adaptive in 2009. Most fashion designers create clothing for a standing frame body, not accounting for the clothing and mobility issues of a person who uses a wheelchair. The IZ Adaptive collection is designed to be easily put on and comfortable for wearing all day in a seated position.

"I'm honoured to work with the ROM to demonstrate that fashion and style can be accessible to everyone. I hope this exhibition generates greater awareness of the obstacles facing physically challenged people and invites conversation around the issues of inclusion, dignity, sense of empowerment, and embracing possibilities," said Izzy Camilleri.

Included in the exhibition is a Camillieri-designed leather jacket, trench coat, wedding dress, and tuxedo-all of which defy traditional design and pattern-making conventions. These pieces are juxtaposed with historical fashions from the ROM's collection including a dolman designed to accommodate a large bustle, an 18th and 19th century side-saddle riding habit, and male 18th century breeches and modern early 19th century trousers. Fashion Follows Form also features Camilleri's iconic designs including the silver fox coat worn by Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada (2006).

Fashion Follows Form is on display from June 21, 2014 until January 25, 2015 in the Patricia Harris Gallery of Textiles & Costume. It shares the gallery space with Cairo Under Wraps: Early Islamic Textiles which features over 50 early Islamic textiles dating from the 8th to 14th centuries, including textiles collected by C.T. Currelly, the Museum's founding director.

The ROM's Accessibility Strategy is widely recognized for its leadership role in removing barriers to participation for visitors with disabilities. The Museum was awarded the2012 Excellence Canada Accessibility Award and the 2012 Canadian Foundation for Physically Disabled Persons Corporate Award.

About the ROM: Opened in 1914, Canada's largest museum of natural history and world cultures has six million objects in its collections and galleries showcasing art, archaeology and natural science. The ROM is the largest field research institution in the country, and a world leader in research areas from biodiversity, palaeontology, and earth sciences to archaeology, ethnology and visual culture - originating new information towards a global understanding of historical and modern change in culture and environment. For 24-hour information in English and French, please call 416.586.8000 or visit the ROM's. Tickets are available online. For specific questions or concerns pertaining to the ROM's Accessibility, call 416.586.8000 prior to visiting. For those who are deaf, deafened or hard of hearing, Bell Relay Service can be reached by dialing 711 or 1.800.855.0511.

ROM Textiles & Fashions: ROM Centres of Discovery are a way to experience the Museum's encyclopaedic collections. The eight Centres offer visitors opportunities to explore the ROM's collections of nature and culture; belong to a community that matters to them; and the chance to participate in leaning and discovery - both online and at the Museum. Newly launched, ROM Textiles & Fashions explores global textiles and fashions that interweave cultures and societies. Offering training and educational opportunities, this Centre is also a hub for new ideas, lectures, workshops, exhibitions, and publications. Visitors are invited to discover the rich heritage of the Museum's incredible collection of 50,000 objects from around the globe.

www.queenieaustralia.com/black-bridesmaid-dresses

Guelph woman mixes Nigerian roots with a passion for fashion

Stella Ngozi Hill was settled and happy in Nigeria.

As secretary to a chief bank inspector, she earned a good salary and enjoyed a secure home life, but there was one thing missing: Hill wanted to be in love.

Now she jokes about how you can never predict what will happen when you say a prayer, and for her, the prayer answered turned her life upside down.

"I wasn't married before, I was praying for a husband," said Hill, now a widow living in Guelph where she works a couple of part-time jobs and runs Fashion Extraordinaire, coordinating fashion shows of traditional Nigerian clothing for cultural events.

www.queenieaustralia.com/bridesmaid-dresses

Hill had been to Canada in 2004, visiting a cousin in Whitby. Two years later she decided to experience Canada at Christmas, with all the snow and holiday spirit.

Around the time, Hill had been registered with an online dating site but her heart really wasn't it. When a message popped into her in box, she usually hit 'delete,' except for this one day, just before she was about to embark on her second journey to Canada.

"I opened one, I just felt it was meant to be," she said. Yet there was still some hesitation on her part. "After awhile I responded to one of his messages, I was being polite."

That response started what became a long distance friendship and eventually marriage to David Hill, a British-born man living in Guelph.

When she came to visit her cousin Christmas 2006, it took several days before Hill felt comfortable contacting him. When they met, it was instant sparks. Her dream had come true.

"I thought about what my family would say," she said. "It was a tough decision. In my culture if the family objects, that's the end of the marriage idea." Luckily, her cousin very much approved of the match.

"I didn't want to go back to Nigeria," she said. "I decided to stay here. I could always go home again."

Hill had always been the adventurous sort, travelling to other countries on vacation, so moving to Canada wasn't too much of a stretch. The couple married in 2007, and in November 2010, her husband died from complications of a long-standing health problem.

They had been married less than four years. It wasn't enough time.

After his passing, Hill did not want to return to Nigeria and had to find creative ways of supporting herself, including part-time jobs. The idea of running a fashion show came about unexpectedly.

Hill met Jacqui Terry, founder of the annual Bring on the Sunshine event which celebrates African culture on Family Day at Forest Hill United Church in Kitchener.

"I said to her, 'Would you like an African fashion show?'" she recalled. "It just kind of came to me."

Given Hill's mother had been a fashion designer in Nigeria and her own closets were overflowing, she could easily outfit enough models for a show.

"I have tons of clothes and I like to dress up," she said.

That first show lead to a second and a third, then last year Hill organized a fashion show at the Guelph & District Multicultural Festival, inviting more than a dozen other cultural groups to model their own traditional outfits.

That show represented more than a dozen cultures, including Ukraine, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Mexico and Latin America, among others.

"It was very colourful," she enthused.

On the weekend of June 6-8, Hill will co-ordinate three separate fashion shows, two at the Multicultural Festival and one at a Waterloo event raising money for a Ugandan high school.

At fundraising events, Hill asks for volunteers from the audience who can choose their own outfits from her vast collection, including the intricately wrapped headpiece known as an akwa isi. Watching her twist and fold a single length of stiff fabric into the headpiece is remarkable, particularly when she pulls and tucks the ends then adds a sparkly pin to add drama.

The full effect of the flowing clothing in brilliant hues with the headpiece can be stunning and this is what keeps Hill coming up with new ideas for shows.

"If I see something on TV, I'll think 'I can do that' and will make a few sketches," she said.

Those sketches will be sent to Nigeria where seamstresses create the outfit and ship it back to her. She also picks up new outfits when she visits her homeland, and anyone she knows travelling to Nigeria has a standing order to pick up something new for the collection.

Several outfits in her shows are for sale, and Hill said she has been buoyed by all the positive feedback she receives from volunteer models.

"They come of their own volition to model and this is what gave me the confidence to continue."

www.queenieaustralia.com/red-carpet-celebrity-dresses

Northern Ireland's best fashion designers

Alison Clarke of ACA Models won Miss Northern Ireland 1982 and was runner-up to Miss UK in the same year. In 1990 she opened the now longest running modelling agency in Ulster after starting organising Miss Northern Ireland in 1987.

Asked to name Northern Ireland's five best fashion designers, she recommends...

Una Rodden, 50 Upper Arthur Street, Belfast.

QueenieAustralia bridesmaid dresses

The queen of Irish designers is based in Belfast's Upper Arthur Street. She's my favourite of all favourites, creating everything from stylish, classic and adaptable pieces to glamorous choices for every occasion. You can choose from a selection in her shop or have something made just for you. I trust her so much she even made my wedding dress for me.

Reudi Maguire, Malone Studios, Belfast.

Reudi is an exciting young designer who is getting himself a name for elegant and sexy clothes. He has a wide range of dresses that use plenty of black so there is something for any age. You will have seen a Reudi dress somewhere — he dresses a lot of local celebrities for red carpet and black-tie events.

Paul Costelloe

Although based in London Paul Costelloe is the godfather of Irish designers. He has had a shop and factory in Northern Ireland for years and so is a firm favourite here. He can adapt to any look, most recently having designed all the ladies' outfits for the European Ryder Cup wives. The range went from golf day wear to the opening ceremony formal glamour.

Grainne Maher Millinery, Ravenhill Rd, Belfast.

Grainne established herself first as a milliner and is now making a name for herself as an accessories designer. She has created the headgear for many a lady and her Pluck & Devour jewellery range is highly sought after. Her big moment came when Selena Gomez sported one of her lazer-cut pendants on stage at the MTV Music Video Awards a couple of years ago.

Shauna Fay

Shauna is up and coming in the Northern Ireland fashion stakes. She creates elegant evening gowns with fabulous beading and sequins and provided former Miss Northern Ireland Meagan Green's dresses for her appearance at the Miss World Final in Bali, Indonesia.

Disagree with these choices?

Give us your view by leaving a comment below...

QueenieAustralia cheap formal dresses

Fashion designer Katherine Hamnett calls emergency Roundup meeting in Hackney

Fashion designer Katherine Hamnett has called an emergency meeting this weekend, after spotting a council worker spraying the London Fields wildflower meadow with noxious Roundup pesticide.

Well known for her political T-shirts and ethical business philosophy, Ms Hamnett is “alarmed” at the council’s use of the chemical known as glyphosate, which environmentalists want to see banned and is linked to organ damage and infertility.

She has been handing out leaflets in the popular park warning people not to walk or picnic within 100 feet of the wildflower meadow because of the “poison” she says has been sprayed there.

Her leaflet reads: “Sitting on the grass, eating with your hands near an area that has been sprayed with herbicide is the shortest route to ingesting it bar drinking it straight from the bottle.”

www.queenieaustralia.com/bridesmaid-dresses

Ms Hamnett, who was made a CBE in 2010 for services to the fashion industry, said:

“As summer looms, and we can expect to see the return of hundreds of young picnickers sitting on the grass near sprayed areas, the issue is one of increasing importance.”

Hackney Council came under fire last year for the £40,000 a year it spends spraying parks and weed-free streets with glyphosate, which is marketed by biotech giant Monsanto as Roundup.

Environmental campaign group Friends of the Earth (FoE) has raised concerns about glyphosate’s effect on human health, particularly on the endocrine system, and its impact on the environment.

The product sheet of glyphosate, which is the world’s best-selling weed killer and one of the most widely used herbicides in Europe, states it is toxic to aquatic organisms.

However industry bodies insist there is no evidence the weedkiller is harmful.

Ms Hamnett has arranged a meeting this Saturday to put pressure on all political parties with the forthcoming elections, and has invited London’s Green Party Member of the European Parliament, Jean Lambert, to speak.

Ms Lambert said: “We want to know what alternatives are being looked at, and even if you decide as a council to continue using it, should the public be being warned when you are using this, at least so those who don’t want to be near it are not in range, that kids aren’t playing on the grass nearby while spraying is going on.”

Kim Wright, the council’s corporate director of health and community services said the product had been declared “safe and environmentally friendly” by government, and it is used by councils across the country for weed control as well as being widely on sale to the public.

She added: “The gardening staff use glyphosate in the form of “round up pro-bioactive” to control weeds on paths and shrub beds, and in the case of the meadow in order to control the dominant local, more aggressive weeds that colonised the area.

“If these were not removed, it would reduce the chance of the colourful flowers that were intentionally planted from growing.”

The meeting starts at 12 noon at The Pub on the Park, Martello Street, London Fields.

www.queenieaustralia.com/red-carpet-celebrity-dresses

Designer Domenico Vacca looks into fashion's future

The Domenico Vacca label may be rooted in old-school southern Italian tailoring traditions of the past, but its founder, creative director and namesake is a social media junkie whose efforts on various film and TV products have him looking three to 30 seasons down the road. During a recent visit to his Beverly Hills boutique, he shared his thoughts on what fashion of the future might look like, the importance of Instagram and what happens when the guy wearing your tuxedo wins an Academy Award.

You've made suits for Jeremy Piven's Ari Gold character on both the HBO TV series "Entourage" and the upcoming film that won't hit theaters until mid-2015. Did you approach the projects differently?

Definitely. You have to think June 2015, you can't think March 2014. We kind of already know what's going to be trendy a year from now, so what I created for Jeremy [is what] you will see in my next collection, the one that comes out in the spring of 2015.

www.queenieaustralia.com

What will the suits of "Entourage" — and hence spring 2015 — look like?

Colorwise we have a lot of great blues, royal blues, very deep colors. We also did a great palette of browns and beiges. We also did a lot of Prince of Wales [checks] and plaids where we really pushed the colors a bit. ... We posted pictures of Jeremy on the set in some of the pieces to Instagram and people started reacting like crazy.

Speaking of which, you have a pretty robust social media presence. More than 24,000 people follow your Instagram account, and almost 37,000 follow your Twitter feed. What role does social media play in building a brand like yours?

It's amazing! And I'm completely addicted to it. I like to do the Instagramming myself — and then share it to Facebook and Twitter — because it gives me a lot of feedback and reaction right away. You know if you're on the right track. And it's a great way to be in touch. I used to spend more time in my stores, but now I'm traveling a lot and spending much less time with my customers, and I miss that in a way. That's where you get your feedback and reactions. So I think Instagram and Twitter really are filling in that gap. Now, in one shot, I can have a 33,000-person audience. Imagine how long that would take otherwise.

Besides "Entourage," what other film or TV projects have you worked on recently?

I helped do the wardrobe for a [TV] pilot called "Tin Man" — it's about [robots] in the future, in 2030, Shaun Toub is the lead actor.

What will men's fashion 15 years from now look like?

I still believe it will be about a slim silhouette [and] simple lines but with interesting details. One of the things we did was make the corners of the lapels on an overcoat Shaun's character wears in metal. They could be done in different fabrics and changed to match the color of the tie, like a pocket square. That's what I see. And everything is going to be less sloppy — and the bodies are going to be perfect. You can't tell me that in 2030 somebody can't come to me and say: "I can suck all your fat out."

Let's go from far in the future to the recent past for a second. Perhaps your biggest red-carpet moment to date was in February 2013 when Daniel Day-Lewis wore a custom royal blue Domenico Vacca tuxedo with a shawl collar in black grosgrain to the Academy Awards. Does something like that translate into a measurable jump in sales?

The Monday after the Oscars, we sold 20 of those Daniel Day-Lewis tuxedos. People were just calling from everywhere saying they wanted it.

www.queenieaustralia.com/bridesmaid-dresses

BERNINA of America Presented a BERNINA 560 to Three Emerging Fashion Designers at Austin Fashion Week

BERNINA of America, the premier manufacturer of sewing, embroidery and quilting machines, presented three emerging fashion designers from Texas with a BERNINA 560 (B 560) sewing machine during Austin Fashion Week. Lindsey Creel of M.E. Shirley, Mallory Curlee of CurleeBikini and Adrienne Yunger received the B 560 during the Austin Fashion Week Awards event, Saturday, May 3.

"We wanted to recognize these emerging designers and assist them in their future endeavors by providing them with a high-quality, Swiss-engineered BERNINA 560 sewing machine," said Amy Gutierrez, Director of Marketing for BERNINA of America. "These three designers are true professionals. We hope the BERNINA 560 will enhance their creativity and help them produce their garments with precision and ease."

Introduced by BERNINA last fall, the B 560 features a five-inch high-resolution color touch screen to navigate its wide range of features and functions. It has a simple yet classic design that sewists will appreciate, along with 476 total stitch patterns, an automatic thread cutter and a stitch width up to 9 mm. The B 560 also offers an optional embroidery module and is compatible with BERNINA's cutting edge software, DesignWorks. BERNINA's DesignWorks Software Suite features the CutWork, PaintWork and CrystalWork components that can transform the B 560 from an embroidery machine into a mixed media tool.

QueenieAustralia formal dresses

"The BERNINA 560 has so many unique features and functions that it will make a significant difference in how we approach our upcoming design work," said Lindsey Creel of M.E. Shirley.

M.E. Shirley is a small batch womenswear line based in Austin. Designer and owner, Lindsey Creel creates and constructs each piece with the intention of making "someone's favorite piece" every time. M.E. Shirley is an ode to Mary Edna Shirley, Lindsey's great grandmother, and is based on the idea that we can accomplish anything we dream. Creel worked for a number of companies in New York, including Rachel Comey, before moving to Austin two years ago.

"I am thrilled with the versatility and variety of options that this new BERNINA 560 will offer to our swimsuit designs," said Mallory Curlee of CurleeBikini. "Being that I do sew each and every swimsuit myself, I am so eager to learn this machine inside and out. I look forward to elevating the detail and construction of our luxury swimwear designs even more!"

Mallory Curlee lived in Central America and returned to the United States with a passion for beautifully fitting swimwear. An avid swimmer and surfer, Curlee coupled her passions with the dream of becoming a fashion designer and formed CurleeBikini. She started her EcoLUX Swimwear line in November 2009, a few years after she graduated from Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in Los Angeles. CurleeBikini Swimwear is an Environmentally and Ethically Conscious, Luxury Swimwear Line that aims to inspire women of all ages to love and embrace their natural form.

Adrienne Yunger's involvement in fashion began at an early age after witnessing her grandmother's custom designs for dolls. She attended the University of Texas at Austin to study fashion design and retail merchandising, and then transferred to the University of the Incarnate Word in San Antonio, Texas, where she received her BA in Fashion Management and Design. Adrienne moved to New York and assisted in several fashion shows including a Vera Wang bridal show. She then moved back to Texas, where she worked as a bridal buyer assistant. She currently teaches fashion design and creates custom designs for clients. Handling beautiful designer gowns and working with brides expanded her appreciation for couture construction and details.

QueenieAustralia bridesmaid dresses