phew: 2 years of sewing, 2 months of intensive prepping, and 2 days of setting up - McMA pop-up shop is open!
the opening night dress, made from nighties, tablecoths, shirts and aprons!
When did we stop wearing meaningful (and magical) clothing? Probably when we gave our responsability-for-second-skin to the machines, the chemicals and the slave labour.
What does it mean to pull on garments that are, instead, hand-crafted, sewn with love and co-creative prayer – and to have our external layers represent the colour and vitality of our Self, rather than the functionings of a (super-distorted) system?
the full quotes - in italiano and english - are at the bottom of the page; handwritten posters from the expo
I also got to wear my beautiful ‘showstopper’ dress: the white layered one that you can see in the pictures above… It was a really big moment for me, and the gallery was crowded, the evening most intense, a hundred different conversations without any chance to stop and think, meditate, clear my energies! It was really inspiring to get 100% positive feedback: this freed up my sense of what is possible, significantly.
It has been the busiest weekend we’ve had since we were together: I joked that it was like a full year’s socialising, all in one night – but actually….. it really was! The next day too; we had a ‘house crawl’ involving rather a large crowd (again) of foreigners and locals, visiting 10 houses – and including our fabulous Arthouse (which is currently for sale): then the market this morning, where we bumped into around 50 folks who we know and had significant chats and gossiping with….
Now we’re trying to wind-down and reorient, with a view to leaving the town again in a couple of days, bound for Portugal and picking up our car….
from my badge machine!
So I can barely get my head around everything that has happened in the past week: suffice to say that I managed to sell two pieces!! This is big for me! Especially as one was to an American couple who offered me almost four times what I asked or it!
They gave me a pep talk about setting the correct price for what are utterly unique and very funky (kind of timeless) garments – with all the recycled and eco elements to them too… I am still buzzing with all the great and creative advice I’ve received!
I sold the black-and-white trousers - which have a thick stripe of red wool down each side – to a neighbour (also an American) who was absolutely enamoured with them – and looked very good indeed!
The other dress was to the aformentioned, extremely generous, couple. Both parties also loved one of the jackets each – trying them on and being unsure about the purchase but keen to come to my atelier later, and the trouser-purchasing friend has a niece who’ll be here soon, whom she believes will adore the other stripey long black-and-white-and-red super-kecks (trousers): we’ll see when we’re back from Portogallo.
In the meantime, I am working hard on one (perhaps two) carry-on baggages for our flight to Porto: seems that the airline have reduced the sizes of carry-on bags significantly – they’re now 45 x 36 x 20 cm only – so I am on it: it’s quite a challenging project, but I can do it! Got most of the first one done yesterday and today, and we will have some slow time the next days before we fly, so I can concentrate better!
I’ll share more about the dresses and other garments that I finished this week for the expo – perhaps when I have time chilling abroad with Vincent’s family and friends – and on our return journey by car, which may involve some house-hunting!
I leave you with some more snapshots of the setting up:
