Dawn Devine Archives - Studio Davina

As many of you know, I have an ever growing collection of vintage postcards of lovely ladies, actresses, singers, and dancers lavishly dressed in assiut. However, I’ve never been able to land my hands on a hard-copy of this incredible image. I first spotted this photo of an unknown dancer many years ago during an internet search. But, I could never hunt down an original. This appears to be a theatrical post-card, widely used in the first quarter of the 20th century as a keepsake for fans after stage and cinema performance. Due to the age of the photo, this image is in the public domain, and consequently, there are thousands of digital copies floating around the web. Our mystery beauty is wearing an absolutely fabulous pair of assiut harem pants embellished with beads and fringe. The dancer signed this post-card with her stage name or the title of her role, Terpsichore, a popular theme for early-modern art dancers. Her lovely ensemble has all of the hallmarks of orientalist costumes typical of the era from 1905 – 1920. I keep seeing her around the web, floating across Pinterest boards and Tumblr feeds, but never on a sale page. Someday, I hope to make her a part of my permanent collection. Until then, I’m happy to admire this digital version. Be inspired.

Dawn Devine ~ Davina
Nov. 15, 2015

Hello Gang!

The Cloth of Egypt: All About Assiut is nearing completion and I’m so happy to be closing in on the end of this project! I’m in the final week of layouts. Next step: Editing! Right now, the book is sitting in that 250-260 page mark, each day that I work on the final layouts, it goes up a spread or down a spread depending on the flow of the content and images. I think we’re four weeks from being absolutely complete! The next phase of the book production includes sending the book out to our editors, collecting the edited documents, integrating edits into the final book, and then ordering proofs from the printer. It’s a multi-week process and the end is definitely in sight!

The screen shots below represent 12 spreads taken at random from the four major sections of the book. As you can see, it’s filled with images that support the information. My co-author, Alisha Westerfeld has done an outstanding job with the bulk of the images, and along with a handful of extraordinarily talented photographers, this publication has become a visual delight.

Ultimately, I want this book to be a really good value when you pick it up! I’m so very proud of how far I’ve come, and I’m looking forward to sharing the finished book with you soon! At this point, the book release will be sometime between August 20 and Sept 15, depending on the speed of my editors, the efficiency of the proofing process with the printer, and as long as their are no major glitches, your copy will be available soon!

So enjoy this sneak peek!
Thanks for joining me on this adventure!

~ Dawn Devine ~ Davina

ps – Remember, you can email me if you have questions – davina@davina.us
pps – I’m really looking forward to getting back to blogging on a regular basis – I have so many projects to share with you that didn’t even MAKE it into the book. As soon as we hit “print,” I’ll be back at work here on Costumer’s Notes! Until then – Happy Costuming! ~ D

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