Sorry we couldn’t resist the blog post title!
Every year a rather epic event ‘Tank Fest is held at The Tank Museum in Bovington, Dorset. Attracting over 10,000 visitors each year, June 2012 marked the ten year anniversary since they began the popular festival.
Three weeks before Tank Fest we were invited by the museum events department to curate a 1940′s fashion show to entertain the crowds in between military re-enactments and tank displays.
Not wanting to miss a new challenge, and despite the limited time frame, we jumped at the chance to showcase our vintage, explore our creative choreography skills and introduce our little boutique to the museum visitors.
Now we love a good fashion show but wanted to go one step further than models posing beautifully on stage whilst we talked through their outfits on a microphone, so we developed the concept of a love story told with fashion and forties music.
Lucky for us, local actors and actresses from The Piddle Valley Players and Thomas Hardye sixth form drama students volunteered for our show and we gathered all our finest 1940′s attire and met them for fittings and rehearsals.
Our mini play told the tale of a young couple falling in love, getting married and just as they settled into suburban life together – were torn apart by war. Both playing their part for their country, they eventually reunited and started a family. All in 12 minutes – not bad eh?
Our fabulous actors, of all ages, re enacted these scenes wearing our vintage – some genuine, some styled to fit the era, set to music of the time and imagery in the backdrop. Armed with walkie talkies and highly original code names (night hawk, karate kid and delta) we rocked out our first fully directed fashion show dramatisation.
The cast performed flawlessly – and professionally – with an army tent as a changing room and no less than four quick changes (less than 10 seconds!) and our Alice team couldn’t have been more impressed or proud of them for showcasing our vintage at such a big event.
Of course, being us, we managed a photo shoot before our final show alongside many of the re enactment groups and soldiers at the festival.
Mega big thanks to The Tank Museum for asking us, The Piddle Valley Players and Thomas Hardye Drama students for volunteering their time and acting / modelling skills and the Alice team for missing a nights sleep!
Til the next adventure…
{Images courtesy of Bernard Roughton}
xxx
