I did it! ^_^
Did my presentation last night. Not sure exactly what time I started at, maybe 7.45-8pm and finished at 8.45pm. I had kinda finished off before that but people asked some questions and it lead to more. There was quite a lot of people there. At least 40. I went to start and my voice just wouldn't work but once I got into it I was ok. I talked about how I've always been interested in the history of fashion and why it changed...external factors like ristrictions on Hollywood in the 1930's like not being able to show too much cleavage so they slashed the back out of evening dresses instead. I also gave an example of Clark Gable taking his shirt of in 'Wife vs Secretary' and wasn't wearing a vest (wifebeater for the Americans) and that sales of vest plummeted. Most of them were well over 65, one was 90, so I think they liked hearing about things like that. There was a few younger ones in their 40's/50's.
I had the Barbie's, Silkstones and Genes on one table then my chez long one the middle one with Bathsheba lounging on it and Lexie sitting on the end of it with a couple of heads infront and a wig , pair of eyes and a couple of my 1/6th girls. They laughed at the squishee boobs. On the 3rd table I had Reiko, Max and Darcy on stands and Robin sitting on the front cos he didn't want to stand. Viv sat down with ham and I had clothes that I'd made laying out on the rest of the space at their feet.
I talked about how dolls started as religious icons and became an important part of the fashion industry, how I got back into dolls and my how I went from Barbie's to Gene's and then got into BJD's. I told them about the similarities and differences between making clothes for real people and for dolls. They asked questions and seemed interested. One person asked 'why would anyone want a doll with hooves or bird feet?' My answer was little more than 'they're awesome!' XD
I had Robin sitting on the front of one of the tables wearing a sliver kimono style coat that had a black fur collar and sleeve trim. I made it for the Auchinawa con and I don't think I've ever posted photos of it??? Anyway, they thought he was a girl which brought up the subject of their anitomical correctness and I said about breast sizes as optinal parts and the translation of Unoa and their 'milk parts' which everone laughed at. Afterwards some of them wanted to check out Robin's 'correctness' XD. They came up and had a closer look at all the dolls and I chatted to some of them. They all said that it was totally not what they were expecting. It had been listed as someone talking about dressed dolls and they thought it would be something like porcelain dolls or the national dress dolls you buy in a tube when you went on holiday. One woman actually said that before she had come she had thought 'oh god this is going to be boring' but she had found it really interesting. They all said that they had learned something and that never realised that dolls had had such an impotant role in the past.
They send a bit into the local paper each week about what they had on, which I didn't realise, so there will be something about it probably the week after next. The thing is, other Rurals see it and think 'oh, that's sounds good' so there is a chance I could be asked to do more o.O'
We shall just have to wait and see.
Oh, they liked the Knitted Icons book I gave them for the raffle....and I got 20 quid for doing it ^_^
I'll get photos of Bathsheba's outfit when I'm off on Sunday.