Collette Dinnigan Unlaced

Recently I made use of a few spare hours in Sydney and got along to the Collette Dinnigan retrospective at the Powerhouse. It was fabulous. But then I do like a fashion exhibition. Which is kind of strange because fashion really isn't my thing.

My favourite room, was this incredible space put together by Collette and it was mesmerising. A kaleidoscope of colour inspiration and design. Actually it was a bit like being inside a kaleidoscope. I could have stayed in there all day. I might try and get back just to spend more time in here.

There were so many fascinating glimpses into design and production. 

Even if you didn't really like the colour, like this chartreuse section, it was transfixing. So much detail, so much to absorb.

"I am inspired by colour, art, flowers, landscapes and details from vintage clothes or antique bric-a-brac. Travelling has always been a great influence too. I sketch with fabrics in mind and develop inspiration boards alongside my draping." Collette Dinnigan

There were glimpses of Paris everywhere..

Collette Dinnigan also appears to be inspired by flamingos

Goats

and bananas.

It was amazing to see the inspiration, the imagining

and then see it take final form in the next room. 

Desert Poppies tie neck top and skirt
Resort 2014 and 2012

Desert Poppies outfit 2013

One room highlighted spinning metallic disco ball dresses. Often worn on the red carpet by the rich and famous. 

The main room had 4 or 5 exhibits with many dresses on each. There are perfectly polished mirrors top and bottom so you can see the dresses from every angle.

Ballerina Belle evening dress
Autumn/Winter 2011

So much gorgeousness. This dress was designed to look like shimmering snowflakes after Colette read Hans Christian Andersen's The Snow Queen to her daughter. 

River Snowflakes dress
Autumn/Winter 2012

Possibly my favourite frock in the whole thing:

Crystal Tulips dress
Spring/Summer 2003-2004

There was a history lesson too. Collette Dinnigan established her label with a range of luxurious handmade silk lingerie. Emerging in 1990 at the height of grunge her first catwalk show featured lingerie clad models walking between the tables at Angelina's on the Rue du Rivoli! Hard to imagine.

There is a whole room dedicated to Collette Dinnigan's signature fabric - lace. Stunning with models lit from within. She initially used antique lace, but then worked with contemporary French lacemakers to create modern and unique lace designs.

Like any fashion show the exhibition ended with a display of bridal gowns. 

The lighting made it look much more peach in my photo.
It wasn't. It's still gorgeous though.

The real colour

There's also a fabulous hands on section where you can use beautiful papers to make your own designs. It's a fabulous exhibition. If you're anywhere near Sydney before August get along to see it. Otherwise here are some great youtube highlights.

SMH article about exhibition

Collette Dinnigan Unlaced
Powerhouse Museum Sydney
Daily until August 28 2016 (UPDATE! Unlaced extended to 29/1/17)
Adult $15/ Concession $8/ Children Free

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50 New Zealand Books Every Kid Should Read By Age 12

Todays list is a Kiwi response to the list published last week 50 Books Every Kid Should Read Before They're 12. The folks at Booknotes Unbound came up with (quite a few more than) 50 NZ books for kids to read.

There's some shameless cheating in their list, and that's fine. So much so that the top three positions are Margaret Mahy, Joy Cowley and Maurice Gee- the "holy trinity" of NZ children's authors, and they've suggested that you just read all of their work! I've read some of all three, but barely scratched the surface.

1. Margaret Mahy (see my review of The Changeover)
2. Joy Cowley
3. Maurice Gee (see my review of Under the Mountain)
4. The Wheels on the Bus and Old MacDonald's Farm - Donovan Bixley
5. I am Not Esther (see my review), I am Rebecca, Being Magdalene - Fleur Beale
6. See Ya, Simon - David Hill (see my review)
7. The Bone Tiki - David Hair
8. Genesis - Bernard Beckett
9. The Wednesday Wizard - Sherryl Jordan
10. The 10PM Question - Kate De Goldi

11. Hairy Maclary from Donaldson's Dairy - Lynley Dodd
12. The Runaway Settlers - Elsie Locke
13. My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes - Eve Sutton, Lynley Dodd (illustrator)
14. Night Vision - Ella West
15. The Little Yellow Digger - Betty and Alan Gilderdale
16. The Wonkey Donkey - Craig Smith
17. I Am Not A Worm - Scott Tulloch
18. Alex - Tess Duder
19. Duck's Stuck - Kyle Mewburn, Ali Teo and John O'Reilly (illustrators)
20. The Kuia and the Spider - Patricia Grace, Robyn Kahukiwa (illustrator)
21. Oliver in the Garden - Margaret Beames
22. Mr McGee and the Biting Flea - Pamela Allen
23. How Maui Slowed the Sun - Peter Gossage
24. Brain Jack - Brian Falkner
25. The Boring Book - Vasanti Unka
26. Changing Times: The Story of a New Zealand Town and It's Newspaper - Bob Kerr
27. The Travelling Restaurant - Barbara Else

28. Baa Baa Smart Sheep - Mark and Rowan Somerset
29. Pigtails the Pirate - David Elliot
30. Why Do Dogs Sniff Bottoms? - Dawn McMillan and Bert Signal, Ross Kinnaird (illustrator)
31. Grandpa's Slippers - Joy Watson and Wendy Hodder
32. The Bantam and the Soldier - Jennifer Beck and Robyn Belton
33. A Treasury of New Zealand Poems for Children - Paula Green (editor), Jenny Cooper (illustrator)
34. The Whale Rider - Witi Ihimaera (see my review)
35. Purple Heart - Andrew Fiu
36. Baxter Basics: Poems for Children - James K. Baxter
37. Telesa - Lani Wendt Young
38. Stomp - Ruth Paul
39. Marmaduke Duck and the Marmalade Jam - Juliette MacIver and Sarah Davis
40. Red Rocks - Rachael King

41. Project Huia - Des Hunt
42. The Red Poppy - David Hill, Fifi Colton (illustrator)
43. Juggling with Mandarins - V.M Jones
44. Conrad Cooper's Last Stand - Leonie Agnew

45. Chicken Licken - Gavin Bishop
46. New Zealand Hall of Fame: 50 Remarkable Kiwis - Maria Gill, Bruce Potter (illustrator)
47. Mōtītī Blue and the Oil Spill - Debbie McCauley
48. Ngā Kī - Sacha Cotter and Joshua Morgan, Kawata Teepa (translator)
49. Anzac Day: The New Zealand Story - Philippa Wherry
50. School Journal

14/50+

There are several really great books on this list. I am not Esther is fantastic. See Ya, Simon also fabulous. Master Wicker loved Hairy Maclary when he was little. Thankfully I did too as I can still recite much of it 10 years down the track.

No matter how good the editions of The Wheels on the Bus and Old MacDonald's Farm may be I wouldn't put them at number 4. Naturally there are many books on this list that I'd like to read. Some I've been aware of for some time, and others I'd never heard of. Some aren't even books- School Journal.

Cyclone

Jackie French can write and publish books faster than I can read them. There's always many, many new books from her waiting to be read (her website lists 9 books scheduled for release this year!), as well as her extraordinary back catalogue of course. So it's never a surprise to find a new book on the shelves at the local bookshop, which is where I came across Cyclone. Naturally I picked it up straight away. Cyclone is obviously a thematic continuation where the fabulous Flood and Fire left off.

Cyclone tells the story of Cyclone Tracy which devastated Darwin on Christmas Eve 1974. I thought of Cyclone Tracy immediately on seeing the cover, but then wondered if she would write of another more modern cyclone- but Cyclone Tracy remains Australia's most devastating tropical cyclone. Eighty percent of Darwin's home were destroyed! 41,000 of the 44,000 population were rendered homeless. 30,000 people needed to be evacuated out of Darwin.

Once again Jackie French has created a moving, yet hopeful, picture book poem out of this devastation.

Outside, a giant
groans and growls,
A wind that batters,
shrieks and howls.

In December 1974 Jackie French was manning the phones in Canberra in her new job at the Depratment for Urban and Regional Development. She took phone calls from Cyclone Tracy survivors. Cyclone is dedicated to the man who told her of how his family shelter in their backyard barbecue. Decades later Jackie has told his story to us all.

The mood is inadequately captured here in my reproduction
The dark broodingness of the storm
The tiny dots of colour of 1970s Christmas lights
The warmth of the tree and light through the window

And Cyclone has been masterfully illustrated by Bruce Whatley. Bruce used black and white photos taken at the time to research his illustrations and then chose a "toned-down palette" to give a documentary vision to the images. He's captured the building storm, the fury unleashed and the aftermath in an amazing way. The whole design really works. The font is like an old school typewriter evoking the precomputer 1970s.

Teacher Notes for Cyclone.

http://australianwomenwriters.com

Newcastle Writers Festival 2016

A month ago I had the great fortune to attend the Newcastle Writers Festival for the second time. I had made my first visit last year, and so I was especially keen to get back this year- and it did take  some doing. The Newcastle Writers Festival started in 2013 and it is growing in leaps and bounds every year under Festival Director Rosemarie Milsom and her amazing team.

Attending a regional writers festival is really a joyous experience. The venues are smaller, the crowds are friendlier, and you get the opportunity to get up close to the writers, both during the sessions and afterwards. Regional festivals may not attract the big international names like the big city festivals, but you have the many advantages of the smaller scale that more than compensate for the lack of international superstars. 

This year the program was expanded, and the Festival made use of the Newcastle Civic Theatre as well as the Town Hall next door. The Theatre acted as Festival Hub, the bar was open, there was outdoor seating, the weather was amazing (a little too hot actually, 35 degrees in April anyone?), Wheeler Place was transformed into a goddam piazza.

This year there were at least 5 concurrent sessions so some very hard decisions had to be made as to what to attend. I went to 7 sessions over the three days. Starting big with the opening session which had Tim Flannery hosted by John Doyle. These two are very well known to Australians for their work individually, and together. Naturally, it was fantastic. Climate change and the Catholic church have never been so funny.

I also attended great sessions with Libby Hathorn, Richard Glover, Rosie Waterland, Charlotte Wood, Marion Halligan, Jean Kent, Patti Miller, David Burton, Trinity Doyle and Fleur Ferris. All amazing discussions. But I had to miss out on Stan Grant, Todd Alexander, Drusilla Modjeska and Kerry O'Brien among many others. There were 140 authors over 70 sessions, over half of which were free. I hope to tell you more about the individual sessions that I attended, but I probably won't- last year I managed to write about one. I got up to some other stuff too, hopefully I'll have time to share that with you too.

Attending a writers festival is always enervating. There are lots of interesting people discussing interesting books and ideas, discussing complex and often controversial matters. It gives you hope that the intellectual life of our world is so much more than you see on TV, and perhaps all is not as hopeless as it may seem. I might have come home with a few more books. It's always important to support the writers who attend the festivals, who give their time and write these amazing books for us all to enjoy.

I can't wait to go back for the Newcastle Writers Festival 2017.

45 + 47 Stella Street And Everything That Happened

I've been intrigued by this book ever since I saw the cover quite some time ago. It's quite distinctive. The story actually starts right there on the cover which is rather fun. Our narrator, 11 year old Henni is so keen to get going with the story that it starts on the cover. Stella Street is a typical street for an Australian childhood. The neighbourhood kids roam in a gang, everyone gets on, and life is pretty good. Kids always know their local neighbourhood best. 

Stella Street is our native habitat. We know it off by heart! We know who will buy raffle tickets, who has loud parties and who will complain! We know where all the dogs live, including Barking Africa. He barks like CRAZY! Nobody gets past him. We know the walls for hitting a ball, all the good climbing trees, the short cuts and the long cuts. We know who makes good biscuits. We know where to ride our bikes to avoid the steep hills, and where the milk thistles grow for Claire’s canary. We know which drains block in heavy rain, where Mr Whippy stops, and the best places for roller blading. We know who gets drunk, which trees the cicadas will crawl up, and the best roof to watch the fireworks from. 

But things always change, and Old Aunt Lillie at Number 45 dies. Her house is sold, and the Phonies move in. And suddenly there is trouble in the neighbourhood where there was none before, and it's up to the kids to sort it out. What are the Phonies up to? And where do they get all their money?

Henni has a wonderful, disorganised but observational style. 

The library’s warm and quiet, except when this smelly old bloke sits near me sometimes. He has a whistle in his nose when his breathes, but he just reads the racing results and nicks off.  

I think everyone knows that man. I certainly do.

Elizabeth Honey was a new Australian author for me. I know I'll read more of her books. I wasn't all that surprised to read of her Blyton-esque inspiration for Stella Street - a gang of kids (and a dog) having an adventure in the Aussie suburbs. Originally published in 1995 Stella Street definitely still works today, although the kids would Google things instead of researching at the library. Elizabeth Honey was playing with the form of books before it became mainstream, playing with font, illustration and found objects. 

Naturally I love a piece of Paris
wherever it appears

http://australianwomenwriters.com

50 Books Every Kid Should Read Before They're 12

Hot off the press at Common Sense Media is this list of 50 Books All Kids Should Read Before They're 12. It's an interesting list. Essentially compiled by senior editor Regan McMahon. She has specifically tried to be more inclusive of content and genre, it's still primarily American in focus. Not an Aussie title to be seen sadly.


1. Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus - Mo Willems 

2. Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site - Sherry Duskey Rinker

3. Goodnight Moon - Margaret Wise Brown

4. The Very Hungry Caterpillar - Eric Carle

5. Where the Wild Things Are - Maurice Sendak 1963

6. Harold and the Purple Crayon - Crockett Johnson

7. The Tale of Peter Rabbit - Beatrix Potter

8. The Cat in the Hat - Dr Seuss

9. Frog and Toad are Friends - Arnold Lobel

10. Madeline - Ludwig Bemelmans

11. The Complete Tales and Poems of Winnie-the-Pooh - A.A. Milne

12. Mercy Watson to the Rescue - Kate DiCamillo

13. Ramona the Pest - Beverly Cleary

14. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - Roald Dahl

15. Ivy + Bean: Book 1 - Annie Barrows

16. Stuart Little - E.B. White

17. Where the Sidewalk Ends - Shel Silverstein

18. Charlotte's Web - E.B. White

19. Coraline - Neil Gaiman

20. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's/Philosopher's Stone - J.K. Rowling

21. The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: The Chronicles of Narnia, Book 1 - C.S. Lewis

22. The Tale of Despereaux: Being the Story of a Mouse, a Princess, Some Soup, and a Spool of Thread - Kate DiCamillo (see my review)

23. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland - Lewis Carroll

24. Anne of Green Gables - L.M. Montgomery

25. The Bad Beginning: A Series of Unfortunate Events, Book 1 - Lemony Snicket

26. Big Nate: In a Class by Himself: Big Nate, Book 1 - Lincoln Peirce

27. Bridge to Terabithia - Katherine Paterson

28. Bud, Not Buddy - Christopher Paul Curtis

29. Diary of a Wimpy Kid - Jeff Kinney

30. The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien (see my review)

31. The Lightning Thief: Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 1 - Rick Riordan

32. Little House in the Big Woods - Laura Ingalls Wilder

33. Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing - Judy Blume

34. A Wrinkle in Time - Madeleine L'Engle (see my review)

35. Esperanza Rising - Pam Munoz Ryan

36. Hold Fast - Blue Balliett

37. I Am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World - Malala Yousafzai and Patricia McCormick

38. Inside Out and Back Again - Thanhha Lai (see my review)

39. My Side of the Mountain - Jean Craighead George (see my review)

40. Revolution is Not a Dinner Party - Ying Chang Compestine

41. Walk Two Moons - Sharon Creech

42. Anne Frank: The Diary of a Young Girl - Anne Frank (see my review)

43. Wonder - R.J. Palacio (see my review)

44. Ender's Game - Orson Scott Card

45. The Fellowship of the Ring - J.R.R. Tolkien

46. The Hunger Games, Book 1 - Suzanne Collins (see my review)

47. Legend, Book 1 - Marie Lu

48. March: Book One - John Lewis and Andrew Aydin

49. The Outsiders - S.E. Hinton (see my review)

50. To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee

26/50

As always some titles I've never heard of before- I've included the covers of those books. 10% are new to me!

July 2017 27/50