Heritage Month: more than just Braai Day
During Heritage Month Elizabeth Galloway Students had the opportunity to firstly find out what heritage is all about, and secondly contribute to others’ experience of Heritage Day.
Visit to Groot Constantia
Earlier this year, Iziko Museums hosted our first years at Groot Constantia, where they visited the exhibition of furniture, paintings, textiles, ceramics, brass, and copperware at the Manor House. This provided them with insight into life at the Cape during the 18th and 19th centuries.
A special focus was the Iziko Social History Textile and Fashion Collections archive, where they could view rare fragile 18th century dresses and study Cape dressmaking traditions, including Neo-classical, Baroque and Rococo patterns. They also were given a visual history of Cape Slave attire, contemporary SA Fashion designers, as well as film references with 18th century fashion.
They were then given a brief to “create garments infused with 18th century references while exploring Eurocentric dress forms decorating the body as a reflection of status, power and position in the context of colonisation and Cape slavery”.
Fashion Show
On Heritage Day, Saturday the 24th of September, Iziko Museums presented these garments in a fashion show titled Unstitching the Past – an 18th century dialogue with contemporary South African fashion at Groot Constantia Estate. Students from DAF also took part.
Last Thursdays
The EGAFD students’ garments also formed part of the Stellenbosch Last Thursdays initiative on the 29th of September, allowing our hometown to share in our appreciation of our heritage through fashion.
