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Fashion meets history in pair of Sunday shows

Fashion historian Ivan Sayers offers humorous and informative lessons about style in the 1920s and '30s
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The Langley Centennial Museum is hosting two Fashion Shows with Vancouver's Ivan Sayers on Sunday, June 1, at 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. at the Fort Langley Community Hall in Fort Langley.

The Fashion Shows complement the Langley Centennial Museum's current exhibit, Claus Jahnke and Ivan Sayers' Art Deco Chic: Women's Clothing of the 1920s & 1930s.

The Art Deco movement had a profound influence on the world of fashion in the 1920s and 1930s, when examples of applied art styles first inspired and reflected the trend for modernism, cubism, and simplicity.

Prior to the First World War (1914-1918), fashionable women presented themselves as a series of ornate curves dressed in complex, tailored garments and often heavily corseted.

After the brutality and disillusionment of the war, practicality, simplicity, and even austerity became the norm, even the ideal. Figures exaggerated with corsets and padding were replaced by figures hidden under loose-fitting, sack-like garments in the chemise style in the 1920s.  In the 1930s the natural figure re-emerged, but in fashions that echoed the repeated geometry of the Art Deco style.

The fashion shows provide Mr. Sayers with the opportunity to share his wealth of knowledge about the fashions of the day to a captivated audience.  His wit and humour — coupled with the history of the fashions and the people who wore them — makes the experience unforgettable.

Tickets are $20. Contact the Langley Centennial Museum at 604-532-3536 for more information or to get your tickets before they are gone.