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Plus-size plus
If you can use a sewing machine and consider yourself something of an artiste, this one’s for you: join Saskatoon artist Cindy Baker at the Drake Hotel (1150 Queen West), from Friday (July 22) until August 4 during her interactive Fashion Plate exhibit. Baker will set up a sewing machine and various fabrics and pattern samples and audience members can drop in daily to design an item of clothing – or perhaps an entire outfit – for her.
Visitors are asked to take the process as far as cutting out the fabric, and then Baker (or her assistant) will finish the sewing job, with the results to be shown at a clothing launch on August 4. For Baker, this process is about asking audience members to think “about a large woman’s body, about someone else’s body, regardless of size, about that body in relation to their own and in relation to fashion, a visual translation of society’s rules or standards about bodies.”
She goes on to say, “One of my interests with this project is examining the dance people will do between wanting to create something that will fit (and look good) on my (relatively enormous) body while avoiding creating something so large as to be farcical.
“Fashion Plate is about taking categorically/traditionally/predictably disappointed expectations, culminating in nervous-viewer-meets-nervous-artist, and trying to come up with small solutionso. For this to work, we must both be willing to be a bit vulnerable.” 416-822-3219, www.performanceart.ca.
Get laced
Listen up, craftsters, now that you’ve got knitting down, learn the 500-year-old technique of making lace at the Taste For Lace needle lace workshop with textile artist Dorie Millerson this weekend (July 23 and 24) from 10 am to 4 pm at the Textile Museum of Canada (55 Centre). Advance registration required. $125, students $75, materials $10. 416-599-5321 ext 2221, www.textilemuseum.ca.
Sports where?
The only sports that fashionistas have time for are marathon stiletto wearing, a night of debaucherie or the workout done by their buff arm candy, so here’s something new. (I suspect it’s a tactic to lure men – and their, uh, generosity – into the stores.) To promote the launch of street wear brand Bench at Over the Rainbow (101 Yorkville) Wednesday (July 27), World Series champion baseball player Orlando Cabrera will be onsite from noon to 2 pm signing autographs. 416-967-7448, www.rainbowjeans.com.
