As part of the INVOKING VENUS, Feathers and Fashion exhibition at the Beaty Biodiversity Museum, Fashion historian Ivan Sayers has given an artist talk on the use of animal products in historical western fashion and featured items from the collections of Ivan Sayers and Claus Jahnke.
If you have missed his presentation on March 22, 2013, watch the video recording here:
Ivan Sayers will be hosting the last two upcoming INVOKING VENUS talks:
FAUNA IN FASHION, the Exploitation of Animals for Beauty
Saturday, April 13, 2013, 2:00 p.m. (with Ivan Sayers)
HATCHED, MATCHED AND DISPATCHED, the Clothing Rituals of Birth, Marriage and Death
Saturday, May 4, 2013, 2:00 p.m. (with Ivan Sayers)
Note: All talks are included with museum admission or membership. Please click on the titles for more information and to reserve a seat. Space is limited.
For more information on INVOKING VENUS, Feathers and Fashion, click here.
Special thanks to our Sponsors: Gold: ABC Photo | Silver: Society for the Museum of Original Costume & Salmon’s Rentals Ltd.
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Biographies
Ivan Sayers
Ivan Sayers was born in Cornwall, Ontario and moved to British Columbia at the age of two. He graduated in 1969 from the University of British Columbia with a degree in Classical Studies and in 1970 began his museum career as a volunteer at the Museum of Vancouver where he eventually served as Curator of History from 1976 to 1990. Mr. Sayers has collected costume since he was a teenager and now has one of the finest privately owned collections of period clothing in Canada with men’s, women’s, and children’s clothing and accessories dating from c.1690 to the present. He has been producing lectures, exhibitions, and fashion shows on historic fashion and social history for over forty years and is a regular lecturer at most of the local universities and colleges. He has received awards from the British Columbia Fashion Designers Association and was given a distinguished service award by the British Columbia Museum Association in October, 2010.
Claus Jahnke
Claus Jahnke was born in Edmonton, Alberta and brought up in the Okanagan Valley of BC. He studied fashion merchandizing in Vancouver, graduating in 1982. He has collected historic clothing since he was a very young man, specializing in fashionable, occupational and recreational costume made in Germany and Austria from 1732 to the 1960’s. Items from his collection have been shown at various museums, including the Museum of Vancouver, the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto, and the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York. His most important exhibition to date, hosted by the Vancouver Holocaust Education Centre, was called “Broken Threads” and illustrated the destruction of the Jewish garment industry in Germany and Austria under fascism. Mr. Jahnke and his work were recently the subject of a photograph by the well known Canadian artist, Jeff Wall.