Author Archive for Paula Bray

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Fashion bloggers on Muslim style

Published by Paula Bray on March 16, 2012 0 Comments Tags: blog, fashion, Muslim, shopping, style, women.

Delina Darusman-Gala

Mya Arifin
Photography by Marinco Kojdanovski
© All rights reserved
Images based on an original creative concept by Crooked Rib Art collective

The following is a Q&A for the exhibition ‘Faith, Fashion, Fusion’, bloggers Mya and Delina discuss their unique sense of style. This appears in the Autumn 12 issue of our publication Powerline.

Fashion bloggers on Muslim style

In recent years there has been a surge of interest in online faith-based and modest fashion through online shopping, social media (Twitter and Facebook) and blogs. Although this phenomenon is a global one, an emerging distinctive voice and aesthetic can be observed here in Australia.

The domain of the blogger has become a particularly powerful one. Apart from commentating on ‘what’s hot and what’s not’ and driving new trends, fashion blogs have become prime real estate for advertising.

In December 2011 influential fashion bloggers Mya Arifin (myazfashionspot.blogspot.com.au) and Delina Darusman-Gala (muslimstreetfashion.blogspot.com.au) took part in a photo shoot at the Museum as part of the development of the exhibtion Faith fashion fusion: Muslim women’s style in Australia (opening 5 May). Mya and Delina discussed their unique sense of style and how they got interested in blogging with curators Melanie Pitkin and Glynis Jones.

Tell us a bit about yourself and your blog?

Mya: I was born in Indonesia but I’ve been in Australia since I was three years old… My blog, ‘MyazFashionSpot’ is mostly directed to Muslim women about fashion and how to dress stylishly but modestly at the same time. In saying that, however, it’s not only for Muslim women, but anyone in general looking for tips about how to dress modestly and different looks and outfits to put together.

Delina: ‘MuslimStreetFashion’ is basically about Muslims and their street wear, a bit of my life, how to wear your hijab different ways and where to get clothes from. It also features shops in the Muslim community, just to help out the Muslim community.

How would you describe your personal style?

Mya: I like to try different styles, I don’t set my mind into one category because I like to be open minded about creativity because that’s what creativity is about – not just about one certain aspect, but you can branch into different areas of it. So, I would call my style ‘open’.

Delina: I would describe it as quirky, personal, what I feel like on the day.

How does your faith inform the way that you dress?

Mya: I try to dress as modestly as I can in my style even though I do dress a little bit differently to a lot of Muslim hijabis, but I do try to keep it as modest as I can, but also different and creative.

Who are some of your fashion influences?

Mya: I have a few designers that I really like including Rabia Z. There’s a famous entrepreneur and she’s also a blogger and a Facebooker, her name is Dina Toki-o. I really enjoy her style. She’s one of my favourites.

Delina: From the Muslim side there is Yuna – she’s a singer, musician and also Hinata Joum, she’s a designer.

What inspired you to start a blog?

Mya:.I knew my friend Delina was starting a blog and I had always wanted to do something about fashion and creativity and to put that somewhere to express myself so I thought why not blogging. Blogging is out there – it’s on the web and everyone can access it so I thought why not, it’s a good way to reach people on the web.

Delina: All my friends used to ask me where I purchased my clothes from, so I decided to setup the blog to help them out. I also wanted to let people know that Muslim women can be stylish as well… I started the blog in June 2010. I was up one night, it was about 12 o’clock and I said to myself ‘I am going to start this thing’, so I started, and from then I haven’t looked back.

Are you getting approached by designers and retailers to promote their clothing?

Delina: I’ve got quite a few approaches. I get a lot of emails now, recently I got one for this new swimwear label called ‘Modest Sea’. It’s Muslim swimwear and it’s really different to what you see now. It’s really cute and girly… I have also had people from websites asking if they could put their advertising on my blog – this is really exciting.
What are some of your favourite shops and designers?
Delina: I’m really loving Mimco and Hijab House. Australian Designers would have to be ‘Muhsinah’ (my friend Wasiela), she’s an upcoming designer and I love her stuff, but international designers would have to be ‘Maysaa’ Hana Tajima (Style Covered), Dina Torki-o (Lazy Doll) I could go on!

Where do you like to shop?

Mya: I shop online, I shop in the retail malls and I like bargain shops – I shop everywhere! It just depends what I’m looking for and what I find.

What are some of the challenges of having a blog?

Delina: Some of the challenges are getting permission from people before posting anything up, and finding something before anybody else finds it so you can be the first… It is a bit hard blogging around the family because I do have an almost 2 year old who likes to run amok. I mostly blog late at night when he is asleep so I stay up and then I realise it’s 3 in the morning, but that’s the only time I can do it.

Do you have any plans to move into other online events?

Delina: I recently worked on a hijab tutorial course and makeup course… I’m also starting a wedding hijab thing soon.

Delina
Photography by Marinco Kojdanovski
© All rights reserved

Trainspotting highlight

Published by Paula Bray on March 13, 2012 0 Comments Tags: black and white, carriage, Flickr, photo competition, police, trains, travel.

This image was selected as one of the highly commended images for our Trainspotting 2011 photography competition/exhibition. This was photographed by Tyrone Kallmeier (Flickr name tyrkall) with the caption ‘Sydney’s NSW police are a regular presence on CityRail trains’. We asked Tyrone what inspired him to take this photograph and he responded:

This picture was inspired because of the contrast between the gritty graffiti covered train doors and the authority of the law, the police just seemed to blend in like they were riding shotgun on the train.

We showed this image in the Museum for the exhibition in 2011. Our Trainspotting 2012 competition is now open and if you would like a chance to win one many prizes then you can simply put your entry into our Flickr group and tag it with the category that you are entering into. You can submit three entries per category and if selected as a winner or highly commended then you will feature in our exhibition that we will be having in the Museum later on in the year.

It has just been announced that this image has taken out the People’s Choice Award for our Trainspotting 2011 exhibition. Congratulations to Tyrone.

Photography by Tyrone Kallmeier
© All rights reserved

Icicles 15 feet long on New Chum Tailrace

Published by Paula Bray on March 11, 2012 0 Comments Tags: black and white, frozen, glass plate negative, ice.

Charles Kerry (see Trove newspaper interview) was very impressed by the massive icicles hanging from this mining structure at Kiandra. Kerry, who was born in the nearby Monaro region, made several expeditions to the region as an adult to pursue his interests in mining, photography and skiing.

New Chum was a rich gold mine that was worked by the environmentally destructive method of hydraulic sluicing. Instead of gently panning for gold, miners blasted sediment with high pressure water. The tailrace carried the water and tailings away from the sluice where the dense gold was deposited.

Photography by Charles Kerry
No known copyright restrictions
Post by Debbie Rudder, Curator

Frost on an ice pool

Published by Paula Bray on March 7, 2012 0 Comments Tags: black and white, frozen, ice.

A still, cold night and air supersaturated with water conspired to form this array of ice crystals. The annotation on the photograph tells us the temperature was 14 degrees below zero (on the Fahrenheit scale, equivalent to about -26 degrees Celsius).

The small mountain pool has a thin covering of ice, but it’s the clumps of hoarfrost above the ice that give the photo its charm. The longer clumps appear to be attached to strappy leaves, and some groups of needle-like crystals are arranged in radiating clusters, a little like snowflakes.
The annotations, recording both the temperature and the fact that the crystals reached a height of 2½ inches (100 mm), help us identify the photo as one taken by Charles Kerry on his 1896 expedition to the Snowy Mountains. He described the frost as ‘standing out in bunches, having the appearance of brushes’, and quoted exactly those statistics, in a contemporary newspaper interview.

Noting these facts on the photo reveals a scientific mindset and prefigures the extensive scientific photography carried out in the same region during development of the Snowy Mountains Hydro-Electric Scheme.

Photography by Kerry and Co
No known copyright restrictions
Post by Debbie Rudder, Curator

Rev John Dunmore Lang

Published by Paula Bray on February 29, 2012 0 Comments

Rev. John Dunmore Lang was a “Presbyterian clergyman, politician, educationist, immigration organizer, historian, anthropologist, journalist, gaol-bird and, in his wife’s words engraved on his statue in Sydney, ‘Patriot and Statesman’.” He was also the first Presbyterian minister in Sydney, after sailing from his homeland of Scotland in 1822.

This photograph shows Lang holding a large book, with another also shown on the table. Lang’s choice of prop is unsurprising, given that, according to the Australian Dictionary of Biography, Lang was both a strong promoter of education, opening a primary school in 1826, and also an author himself. In 1834, he published An Historical and Statistical Account of New South Wales, both as a Penal Settlement and as a British Colony, 1-2 (London, 1834), which ran to four editions.

The photograph bears a strong stylistic resemblance to a painting of Lang, held in the National Library of Australia collection. This work, too, shows Lang posed alongside two books, and has him similarly gowned in a dark formal wardrobe.

This photograph comes from the Lawrence Hargrave collection. According to our records, Hargrave was one of the Committee of Management of Lang’s New Guinea Prospecting Association, 1871-72. A copy print was made in c.1977. A typed caption attached to reverse simply says “DR. LANG.”

No known copyright restrictions
Post by Susan Cairns, Digital Services volunteer

A triple expansion marine steam engine

Published by Paula Bray on February 28, 2012 0 Comments Tags: engine, engineering, steam.

This glass plate negative from the Clyde Photographic Collection depicts a triple expansion marine steam engine, condenser and thrust block. The engine was made by Clyde Engineering Pty Ltd. and the photograph was taken between 1901-1910.

The triple expansion steam engine appeared in 1880. It was an advance on earlier models of steam engine, and introduced an intermediary cylinder between the high-pressure and low-pressure cylinder to use more of the expansive power of the available steam.

The marine steam engine was used on sea-faring ships, as well as on riverboats. In this case, the engine is thought to have been the original five hundred and twenty horsepower engine for the Sydney ferry “Koree”.

The Powerhouse Museum holds a triple expansion steam engine in the collection, manufactured by R&W Hawthorn, and originally placed in the ‘S.S Pheasant’ – a triple deck, single ended ferry capable of carrying 489 passengers.

Photography from Clyde Engineering Photograph Collection
No known copyright restrictions
Post by Susan Cairns, Digital Services volunteer

1864 Ambrotype

Published by Paula Bray on February 10, 2012 0 Comments Tags: 1800s, 1864, Ambrotype, unidentified men.

This is one of the Ambrotypes that we hold in the Museum collection. Our Curator Geoff Barker states;

This photograph is significant because it is one of the few surviving hand-painted ambrotypes with links to Australia. While millions of these ambrotype photographs were produced around the world and many thousands in Australia remarkably few have survived that can be linked to Australian society during the 1860s. Although the sitters in the portrait are currently unidentified the museum recognises the importance of maintaining its collection of ambrotypes as examples of the fashion and early photographic processes in Australia in this period. This is particularly the case with this photograph as ‘Australia 1864′ has been etched into the glass covering the photograph and it is hoped that research may at some future date identify the sitters.

No known copyright restrictions

Faith Fashion Fusion

Published by Paula Bray on February 8, 2012 0 Comments Tags: faith, fashion, Muslim, retail, shopping, Sydney, women.

Over the past year staff at the Museum have been developing content for the exhibition Faith, Fashion, Fusion: Muslim women’s style in Australia opening in May this year. From streetstyle to red carpet dresses, the exhibition will explore the emerging modest fashion market and the work of a new generation of Australian clothing brands offering stylish clothing for Muslim and non-Muslim women.

Through filmed interviews and photo shoots we have been capturing the stories and creative process behind some of these fashion labels. Our first photography session documented Hijab House’ fashion shoot for its mid summer 2010 campaign. Established in 2010 by Tarik Houchar Hijab House was the first Australian Muslim women’s fashion retailer to open inside a mainstream shopping centre and it was their striking marketing images that made the store stand out in the busy mall environment. Tarik commented that initially he would

see a lot of non-Muslim shoppers walk past and look up and seem amazed at that kind of product being offered in a suburban mall. It was challenging at first, but people are now very accepting of it. They love the concept and they love the accessibility of our brand.

Tarik conceived the ‘You’re late for Tea’ collection as pretty and playful and themed his shoot around the tea party in Alice in Wonderland noting the theme

is very culturally relevant because obviously Muslim women can’t drink things like alcohol, so tea and social engagements are very important for our culture.

This image shows models Edem Dokli, Anastasia Zhelobovskaya and Giarne Wedes posed as if about to take tea – all that is missing is the tea set. Tarik was inspired by the work of Swedish illustrator Lovisa Burfitt so in post production had the photographs overlaid with text and the accoutrements of a tea party. The final image appeared on Hijab House’ Facebook page and as a huge graphic in the window of Hijab House at Bankstown Centro, Sydney.

Trainspotting 2011

Published by Paula Bray on February 4, 2012 0 Comments Tags: display, exhibition, Flickr, images, museum, photography, railway, Sydney, trains, transport.

This is our Trainspotting 2011 photo competition exhibition that is currently on display at the Museum. We have 47 amazing photographs featured in this exhibition from our 2011 competition that we run on Flickr. This exhibition will only be on until the 13th February. Don’t forget that you can also enter your photos into our 2012 Trainspottting photo competition which is now open. All the details are on our website and you can also enter via our Flickr group.

Traditional Sanjo music

Published by Paula Bray on February 3, 2012 0 Comments Tags: detail, instrument, Korean, music, musician, opening, strings, traditional.

This is a detail of a Korean musician dressed in national costume playing an instrument and performing traditional Korean, Sanjo folk music that featured during the opening of our exhibition Spirit of jang-in: treasures of Korean metal work.This opening was celebrating the exhibition which traces the development of metal craft from ancient artisans to the spectacular ‘kingdoms of gold’ of the Silla royalty, the influence of Buddhism on craft skills and practice, the simple beauty of everyday objects, and the impact of the dark days of the early 20th century. Reflecting a contemporary spirit of jang-in, a selection of works from Korean artists living in Korea and Australia is also featured.

This exhibition closes on the 12th of February.

About Photo of the Day

The Powerhouse Museum's Photo of the Day blog features a new image each day, chosen from the Powerhouse Photo Library.

The majority of these images have been taken by Museum photographers for a variety of purposes such as use in exhibitions and publicity, and to record the many aspects and activities of the Museum - from public events, programs and exhibitions to behind-the-scenes and location shots. We also highlight certain photographic objects from our collection.

The licensing of each image varies however we are trying to release as many as possible under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.1 license.