CULTUREPHILE: PORTLAND ARTS Blog

phile under: fashion

Xtabay Vintage Celebrates
Nine-Year Anniversary

Owner Liz Gross has spent almost a decade proffering the finest heirloom frocks and frippery.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Sep 03, 2010 at 12:00PM Speech Bubble 0 Comments

“Xtabay” roughly translates as “female ensnarer.” This dress from Xtabay Vintage is trying to beguile you into its coquettish clutches.

Xtabay Vintage owner Liz Gross is less a shopkeeper, than a vintage-couture curatrix. Wafting around her store with balletic elegance, she can appraise the year, region, maker and craft of each piece in her precious, pristinely steamed collection. And what pieces they are: nipped-waist taffeta party frocks, floor-sweeping silken gowns, sparkling sequin sheaths—with here and there the kind of gather, piping, pleat or puff that make vintage clothes such works of art.

This weekend marks Xtabay’s ninth year on SE 26th and Clinton Street, and Miss Liz intends to celebrate with champagne and cupcakes. If you don’t yet think of garments as art, let Liz show you some of these prize pieces.

This event begins at 11am, and closes at 7—just in time to catch a showing of The Mirror (another Culturephile pick; see below) directly across the street! For a more comprehensive list of upcoming events, visit the Arts & Entertainment Calendar!

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Tags: Crafts, Fashion, sewing, women, upscale

phile under: fashion

AEQUANIMITAS Grand Opening

Posted by: Anne Adams on Aug 27, 2010 at 09:00AM Speech Bubble 2 Comments

A god’s-eye by designer Rachelle Waldie.
Gaze into it, and find “AEQUANIMITAS!”

Tonight, fair friends, we usher in the age of AEQUANIMITAS, the most unspellable new art/fashion studio space in the Central Eastside complex erstwhile known as Grass Hut Gallery Row (8th and E Burnside, north side of the street).

The invitation is in all-caps, and wildly poetic. But this is is what we know:

~Designer Rachelle Waldie costumes experimental art-rockers. Her client list includes Deelay Ceelay.

~The word “aequanimitas” refers to the transcendent calm that a physician experiences in the face of life-and-death circumstances.

~The event starts at five tonight in the rear parking lot. It promises libations, and hints at revelations.

For a more comprehensive list of upcoming events, visit the Arts & Entertainment Calendar!

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Tags: Art, Portland Art, Galleries, Crafts, Fashion, Weekend Plans, crafts, weekend picks, weekend

phile under: outlandish style

Portland Fashionista Greets Gaga

How do you wow the woman who’s worn everything?
These Paloma Soledad creations, featured at last night’s
Lady Gaga fashion show, made it look like a cinch.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Aug 20, 2010 at 12:00AM Speech Bubble 2 Comments

Hand-made corset, hand-painted skin, and—handrail?
Paloma Soledad/MYTHAUS.

Kind of a space-stewardess look. (With an exquisite corset, of course!)

For more on Paloma and other rising local fashion talents, click here.

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Tags: Art, Fashion, Lady Gaga, comics

phile under: queer friendly

New all-ages brunchtime drag revue!

Coffee, Eggs, Wigs and Legs!

Posted by: Anne Adams on Aug 09, 2010 at 12:00PM Speech Bubble 1 Comments

Chaos In A Container wants to drag you out of bed for Sunday brunch.

You go into Sunday brunch with certain expectations. Coffee. Omelettes. Perhaps some toast. What you least expect is a fully frocked and coiffed cadre of drag queens, prepping to put on a show. Nevertheless, yesterday morning Crush, on SE 14th and Belmont, delivered all of the above. “Bear with us,” exhorted Jaiden Palace (pictured, right) as the troupe tested sound and lights. “We’re experiencing some testicular difficulties.”

The valiant a.m. antics, emceed by Ms. Phoenix Monte (pictured, left), marked the premiere in a series of morning drag performances by Chaos In A Container, a new group of femme-feigners. Juicy Monique Palace (pictured, foreground) confessed beginners’ jitters, but delivered a soulful performance of “I Am Changing.” And, egged on by her teenage daughter Coco*, Ms. Monte swished through several high-kicking numbers, and saucy shout-outs to the groggy morning crowd.

Set to become a Sunday staple, the event kicks up just where the more risqué Saturday night soirees at Embers and Darcelle’s leave off. And with coffee, cornbread, and all the other brunch amenities on-hand, it promises to awaken queer-arts appreciation in a whole new way.

*Crush admits all-ages patrons ’til 3pm.

For a more comprehensive list of events, visit the Arts & Entertainment Calendar.

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Tags: Theater, Fashion, Drag, Queer-Friendly, Gay-Friendly

phile under: flash mob

Hootin’ Annies!

Heads up, SantaCon. A red-and-white summer spectacle is hot on your heels.

Posted by: Anne Adams on Aug 02, 2010 at 01:00PM Speech Bubble 6 Comments

Luckily, the sun came out yesterday for AnnieCon.

This was a packed weekend. A hundred-odd Portlanders played music at PDX Pop Now. Ten thousand or so folks played fairies at Fairieworlds. But a few scamps looking for levity, played Annie, in a conspicuous downtown pub crawl yesterday afternoon.

The first annual AnnieCon, riffing off the international winter flash-mob phenom SantaCon, challenged its participants to caricature the lovable orphan, then hit the bars for Hannigan-style shenanigans. With a modest but respectable turnout yesterday, the event hopes to grow. Says founder Goldie Davich (pictured, third from right), “I’ve always loved Annie so much. As a curly-haired kid, I wanted to be Annie, and I’ve never stopped wanting it. This is the culmination of a lifelong dream.” Jeez. Cue the string section.

Silly as it may seem, post-Annie ennui is its own psychological meme. Below, consider the trailer from the documentary Life After Tomorrow, featuring actresses who struggled to gracefully outgrow the winsome role:

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Tags: comedy, monday fun, annual, Gay-Friendly, Queer-Friendly, Drag, drama, kitsch, fun, Guerilla Art, Downtown Bars, Downtown, Bar Culture, Events, Fashion, video

phile under: art

Rauer New Director of NAAU

Posted by: Lisa Radon on Jan 23, 2010 at 08:00AM Speech Bubble 5 Comments

This just in: Kelly Rauer has been named the new director of New American Art Union (922 SE Ankeny). NAAU owner Ruth Ann Brown, celebrated for the Couture series of shows the gallery just wrapped at the end of 2009, will be spending more time with family.

Rauer, herself an artist, has most recently been gallery manager for art dealer Heidi McBride while serving as a gallery assistant at NAAU. She served for three years as Director of Programs for the Portland Art Center.

Interestingly, Rauer had already been scheduled for a show at NAAU in August. Plans for that show will go ahead. I wrote about a piece from her “Conversation Series” that was installed at Milepost 5 for Manor of Art as one of that show’s better installations.

Closed for the month of January, NAAU reopens February 14 with an exhibition by Timothy Scott Dalbow, I don’t know anyone in Paris.

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Tags: Galleries, Fashion

CULTUREPHILE: PORTLAND ARTS

Xtabay Vintage Celebrates
Nine-Year Anniversary

AEQUANIMITAS Grand Opening

Portland Fashionista Greets Gaga

New all-ages brunchtime drag revue!

Hootin’ Annies!

Rauer New Director of NAAU

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