Around the Senior School

Year 11 Textiles and Design Excursion

Thirteen Textiles and Design students departed on Sunday 18 September for two packed days of HSC related activities. We stayed at the Sydney Harbour YHA and enjoyed its amazing roof top views before going to the Lyric Theatre to watch Mary Poppins with its dazzling costumes, choreography and magic tricks. 

On Monday we travelled to Concord to the Embroiderers’ Guild Gallery where the wonderful Pam Hicks and a team of volunteers showed us through the exhibition, the archive, the library and finished with a stitching workshop. In the afternoon we visited an exhibition of Indian textiles at The Powerhouse Museum followed by a trip to The Strand to see the Dion Lee collection. An evening of Italian food at Zia Pina followed by ice cream at Circular Quay finished off the first day. 

On Tuesday we visited the Longina Phillips print studio in Surry Hills, one of the largest and most successful swimwear and apparel print studios in the world. The students were treated to Q&A sessions with a variety of practitioners, gaining an insight into the industry from research through to production and sales. We then walked to Crown Street to visit the array of vintage stores (and grab a bargain). We finished off the day with a seminar at the National Maritime Museum on the history of swimwear. The seminar gave students the privilege of examining archive pieces from the 1900s to present day, demonstrating the link between textiles and our social history. Exhausted but thoroughly inspired we climbed back on the bus to return to Orange on Tuesday night.