Works to Wear

Works on facebook

Madeleine — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 17:11:38 +0000

Works to Wear now has a Facebook page! It allows you to interact and upload photos and scans and post anecdotes in a way a blog could never do.

So if Facebook’s your thing come and join us

Hostage to Fortune!

Madeleine — Tue, 21 Jun 2011 14:54:24 +0000

Let that last post be a warning to you all! Don’t make date based predictions in public places. At least with this blog I’m fairly safe as no one reads it as far as I know. Still, there are better things to be posted here once life stops throwing boulders on the path. Patience, mon brave…

Not gone away!

Madeleine — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 12:37:34 +0000

This is just a quick test post to check that things are working here.

I’m afraid there’s been little or no activity on this blog because I’ve been ill. Having had two major surgical procedures this year, I’m recovering well and anticipating posting here about once a month in 2010.

Season’s greetings to anyone who wanders by!

My timeline – to give some context

Madeleine — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 12:49:37 +0000

I know everyone involved in this stuff will have their own story of the time. I’d like to collect them all eventually. This is a very potted version of the beginning of mine to get us started.
At the very beginning of the 1980s the craft fair movement started to flourish in Edinburgh. All sorts of interesting networks were formed through meetings at fairs. I met Jay Kirkland at one in December 1981 and Fawns Reid at another in summer of 1982. Jay and I spent most of a Sunday freezing in a church hall not selling much but chatting a lot. My personal life took a bad turn around that time and I didn’t have the chance to keep in touch. Fawns and I readily took to each others work and by that time I was being more sociable. She told me about an exhibition called Art on the Dole where the only conditions of inclusion were to be on the dole (social security) and not to have been to art college. Fawns was already exhibiting work and took me along. The organiser turned out to be none other than Jay Kirkland. It seemed we were all working towards similar goals via different paths – I think we probably still are!

Within a year of all this, Jay started a community business, The Ivy League with Sandra Whitlie and Liz Irvine and Fawns started her shop Cento. I joined the Enterprise Allowance Scheme as a craftworker and was contributing work to both and informally helping out as well. Lots of budding designers and craftworkers contributed work to both these shops. In the fullness of time I’ll post photos of those in my collection. Please post your comments and/or contact me if you have anything you’d like to add to these pages.

The original Ivy League is shown in earlier posts. I haven’t any photos of Cento worth posting but I have got this one of Fawns from that time.

This was taken by Fiona McPherson and was part of her coverage of a show we had during the Dance Umberella season that year. Anyone reading this with more info or pictures please comment or email.

A couple of years later things had changed again but that’s another post for another day.

Inside the Ivy League

Madeleine — Thu, 13 Sep 2007 12:19:22 +0000

Here’s a picture of me inside the Ivy League, Niddry Street, in, I think, 1984 just before the shop moved to West Nicolson Street. It was taken by Jon Pinsky who lived in the same flat as me at the time. I have a few others from the set which I’ll scan and post later. In the background of the photo there are trousers hanging up as part of the window display – I think they might have been made by Sandra Whitlie. Sandra are you out there? – please confirm.

Jackie Brown

Madeleine — Sat, 23 Jun 2007 12:26:56 +0000

On 4th June 2007 I received an email telling me Jackie succumbed, on the last day of May, to the brain tumor that she had been fighting for some time. Jackie was a major contributer to the Ivy League from the earliest days of the shop in 1982/3. More recently she had relocated to Spain and I personally lost touch with her. When I started this blog I had no idea I would begin with such sad news.I remember Jackie as a bright and cheerful person whose creations always had a lightness and joy about them. I also thank her for introducing me to the music of Gil Scott Heron, which I first heard as the music she had chosen to back the presentation of her first collection.

I have searched my archive of photographs and can find only this one relating to Jackie, from a press clipping covering the launch of the new Ivy League shop in 1985. If anyone reading this has any pictures they’d like to share please send them to me and I’ll post them here.

You can leave comments by using the link at the end of the post. You shouldn’t need to sign in.

In the beginning…

Madeleine — Sat, 02 Jun 2007 11:15:50 +0000

Well over a year ago, four people eating Japanese food and drinking wine thought it would be a good idea to have a website covering art, fashion and craft history in Edinburgh during the 1980s. A blog seemed to me like the easiest way to get the ball rolling. So I’ve created this one to collect and record stories, photographs and memories around Cento and the Ivy League – independent fashion shops in Edinburgh during the 1980s.

If you were involved I encourage you to contribute here. Please leave relevant comments on the posts and email photographs and stories for posting. I’m also more than happy to link to other websites that cover the subject

[If you care at all, I’m Madeleine Shepherd - an artist, maker, scientist, mathematician, communicator, administrator, etc. if you want to know more visit my website and my personal blog.]