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

Dearest Needleworking Hivers and Friends,

The clothing in my expo this past weekend were created over the past 2 years, and almost all of them were blogged about here on #needleworkmonday – you might recognise many! They came about through the necessity of working with materials that cost almost nothing: donations and 50c stall treasures.

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.

@vincentnijman was incredible; it made me emotional to have such a huge supportive factor like him by my side in the set-up, the take-down, the in-between… I have never had this kind of full and unconditional support - from anyone in my life. In particular, many (if not all) of my partners have been folks who sabotaged me, or at least were neutral (and therefor not helpful) in my art, my passions, my projects.

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:

Sending huge love to everyone!

www.claregaiasophia.com