The Professional Podcast Network
10119 Karen Anconowicz-09 25 24-Fashion Historian-Coach-Jon
So welcome to the Professional Podcast Network, where brilliance meets business, elevate your brand, and supercharge your revenue with inspiring insights and innovation. All right, and we're back. I'm your host, John Starr, and my next guest up is Karen, Karen, and Tonneau. It's a fashion historian in Chester, Vermont. Welcome, Karen, to our show. Thank you very much. Happy to be here. Glad to have you. So tell us what a fashion historian does. Well, it depends on the degree. I went back to school when I was in my 40s. I was unhappy in my first career, but I was noticing how much I was loving, vintage clothing and antique clothing and accessories. So long story, really short, I found out I could go back to school and get a master's in fashion with a concentration in historic costume and textiles. And that's what I did. And then I taught for 13 years at the college level and loved it, opened a store with my husband in Providence, Rhode Island, where I was living. And then in the meantime, I started doing these fashion-era presentations, which consists of the venue, whatever it is, it's a library, a senior center, a historical society or museum, and they pick an era such as the Rowan 20. And what I do is I go in and I present to them a slide show, PowerPoint slide show with video clips embedded. And then I bring whatever collection of clothing and accessories I have from that period. So that's how I work, if that's my business. I did teach and there's a lot of things that fashion historians can do, such as be a curator in a museum or a conservator of textiles and clothing. But this was my choice because I love to teach. Wonderful, sounds like you really found your career path and how long have you been doing this kind of work? I've been doing this particular presentation since 2012, so 12 years so far. And I travel throughout New England, so I'm doing a lot of driving, but it's worth it. And I do them in all areas of New England. Give me an example of, let's say someone were to come to you seeking information, consulting about fashion of a particular era like you were talking about before, just kind of give me an example of a potential client or customer who might come to you and how you help them out. Okay, well let's say I'll get an email from a library in Connecticut and they do events, they'll have an event coordinator and they might say to me okay, we want the Gilded Age. I just did one in platinum Connecticut on that very thing last week. And so they'll come and say can you come to speak to our audience here and what do you do and how do you do it and I explain it like I did with you. And then I just, that date, that time I go down and I just show them what I have, I talk about that period, how fashion was influenced by what was going on during that period. I show them whatever pieces I have and it's just really fun for them. And then they can ask whatever questions they want about the period. They can actually touch the garments which is a no-no if it's in like a university collection or a museum collection because of the oils on your hand, you'd have to wear white gloves. But these pieces are specifically for them, this is so that they can actually feel the fabric and I take very good care of them but I am bringing them back and forth to these folks so that they can experience the real thing in person. Sounds like very, very interesting work indeed, that's fun. So if our listeners would like to reach out to you for more help or information from you, how can they do that? What's the best contact info you have? Well, I have a website, it's www.fearitsoffashion.com and there is a newsletter on there, a free newsletter that I do monthly and it tells the people who sign up for the newsletter, it tells them where I'm going to be and what the topic of each program is. They can also email me at, I'll give you the email, it's vintage_apparel@yahoo.com, they can directly email me there, I also have an Instagram and a Facebook. So the Instagram is Spirits of Fashion Passion and the Facebook is just Spirits of Fashion and they could always DM me there as well. All right, well that's very valuable information Karen, we certainly, we're glad to have you as our guest today, I want to thank you for coming, I really enjoyed speaking with you and we want to wish you all the success in your business going forward. Thank you so very much, I appreciate that, I had fun, thank you. I'm glad, you take care now, you too, thank you, bye bye. And to all our listeners, don't go away, we'll be right back after this short break. Welcome to the professional podcast network where brilliance meets business, elevate your brand and supercharge your revenue with inspiring insights and innovation. (cheering)