The Greater Bay Area Costumers Guild Presents:
Costume Academy 2012

Sunday, March 4th, 2012 - 10:00am-5:00pm
ASUC MLK Student Union, 2475 Bancroft Way, Berkeley, CA

Instructor Bios

Sahrye Cohen

Sahrye is a San Francisco costumer and crafter from San Francisco. She is interested in fashion design using electronic components and responsive materials. She is currently the Event Coordinator for the Greater Bay Area Costumers Guild.

Jennifer Erlichman

Jennifer has been costuming since making her first Renaissance Faire bodice for a friend in college and getting bitten by the costume bug. In between working for an animal rescue foundation and renovating her Victorian house, she has run her own costume business since 2006 focusing on custom corsets, gowns, jewelry, and hats. Although she specializes in historical accuracy, actually *wearing* her own attire has inspired her to invent new ways of bending the rules to make costumes more comfortable, including using hidden zippers for easy-in-and-out fashion for the Claustrophobic Costumer. She also makes it to more costume events on time as a result. Her favorite costume period in history is the 18th Century, although she can be found singing at local Renaissance Faires in 16th Century Venetian attire.

Angela Grimes

Angela is an educator and artist. She has designed and created historical clothing for over 30 years for various events, Renaissance Faire (Novato/Agoura), Dickens Christmas Faire, Art Deco Society of California events to name a few. Angela enjoys embroidery, fabric manipulation and painting. She is currently the Secretary for the Greater Bay Area Costumers Guild.

Diana Habra

Diana has been sewing since 1990 when she got involved in the local Renaissance Faire and then she was *hooked* on sewing! She had taken Home Ec in school and made a skirt & shorts when she was a teenager, but this was different! Since then, she has been in many historical groups that cover many different periods like Medieval, Renaissance, Victorian, and 18th Century. She cannot count the number of outfits she's made and learns several new things with each project. She is the owner of Renaissance Fabrics and she is pleased to be able to share her knowledge with us.

Ariyana Kylstram

Ariyana Kylstram is a professional performance artist when she isn't working at her day job. She's danced, acted, and flown through the air all over the Bay area, as well as such exotic locales as New York and Berlin. Her passion for performance has fueled a desire to create costumes that are polished and complete. She firmly believes that accessories, hair and makeup provide the details which sell an overall look.

Thena MacArthur

Thena obtained a degree in History and has been looking for any excuse to use it ever since. Her favorite period for costume is the Bustle Period (actually, all five of them) and there isn't a hat out there that she doesn't like. She is the owner and one of the milliners for Madame Grey and Company, a business designed to provide great reproduction hats based on antiques and to offer SASS ladies authentic period accessories.

Lynn McMasters

Lynn has never stopped sewing after she was taught to sew by her grandmother, mother and aunt at a very early age. Other hobbies such as stained glass, woodworking, ceramics, silver jewelry casting and porcelain doll making might have taken her away from sewing but never really could. After discovering the Dickens and Renaissance Faires and that there where people out there that made and wore clothing she had only seen in movies she stretch her sewing talents and joined them with her talents for computer drafting to start a line of hat patterns, "...out of a portrait, hat patterns." To view Lynn's patterns check out lynnmcmasters.com. Lynn also loves to share her knowledge with others and teaches classes on costume subjects whenever she can. Lynn is a Graphic Artist/Scientific Illustrator by profession.

Hal Rodriguez

Hal is a software developer who enjoys wearing costumes and tinkering with electronics. He is counting on his Roomba to defend him when the robots take over the world.

Catherine Scholar

Catherine read "Little House on the Prairie" at age five and has been obsessed with historic clothing ever since. She learned to sew at her mother's knee, and to embroider at her grandmother's. In high school she discovered vintage dance, the northern Renaissance Pleasure Faire, and Dickens Fair, and was amazed to learn that she could combine all her passions for dance, costume, history and theater. Catherine serves as the Newsletter Editor on the Board of the Greater Bay Area Costumers Guild.

Kendra Van Cleave

Kendra has been creating and studying historic costumes for approximately 15 years (although we won't talk about those early mishaps). She is a past president of the Greater Bay Area Costumer's Guild and performs with Bella Donna Venetian Courtesans at various Northern California Renaissance Faires. Kendra maintains a costume website, "Demode", where she presents her research and projects.

Katie Vardijan

Katie Vardijan is a milliner, historical costumer, sewing educator, writer, and maker of pretty things. She has taught sewing classes in multiple locations around the San Francisco Bay Area, at Costume College in Los Angeles, and travels around the country as an Independent Educator for Elna and Janome. She has written articles for Sew It All, Sew News, and Creative Machine Embroidery magazines and BurdaStyle.com. You can read about her crafty adventures on her blog: All Things Vintage Rouge.

Carol Wood

Carol, a professional pattern maker and costumer, has been researching, recreating and wearing historical garments for decades. Her work has been shown in galleries, appeared onstage and been honored with awards. She has been teaching drafting, fitting, and constructionfor the past 7 years and holds a degree in apparel design from the College of Alameda, a schoolwell-known for emphasis on technical skills. Carol currently works as an assistant cutter at SanFrancisco Opera's Costume Shop and designs under the label, "Fannye Grace".

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