- This is a production of WEDU PBS, Tampa, St.

Petersburg, Sarasota.

[music] - Funding for WEDU Arts Plus is provided by Charles Rosenblum.

Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners, the State of Florida, and Division of Arts and Culture, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

- In this edition of WEDU Arts Plus, we feature a lineup of local stories that celebrate wearable art fashion for all.

- So I always think it's so important that you're able to be fully you, even if something has happened.

- Captivating kimono.

- You could look through design books like we have a few on view, and you could choose what you want out of the book and then customize that to fit your personality.

- Jewelry that shows quiet strength.

- Is the art of cutting stones, and I cut these stones to fit very specific channels into my jewelry.

- And an enormous costume collection.

- We have a tens of thousands of costumes in our warehouse, and we do alterations on them.

For the particular person.

- It's all coming up next on WEDU Arts Plus.

[music] Hello, I'm Gabe Ortiz, and this is WEDU Arts Plus.

Lady Natasha Fines was working in the fashion industry when a personal experience revealed a gap in the market.

Now she's designing clothing specially made for people with disabilities, combining function with high fashion.

[music] - I had been wanting to have a brand in general my whole life.

I've always loved fashion, but I wanted to make sure it was sending a message like, it's like we're doing this for a purpose, but I didn't know what it was.

So many years go by and then being that I was already working as a buyer in the fashion industry, kind of the stars aligned in a way where that light bulb moment of this is an opportunity of that brand I've always wanted to do, but this is the message we can really make happen with this brand, which was making sure everyone is showcasing the fashion industry, even if you have an illness or disability.

- When she started showing me some of her designs and I'm like, oh my God, I never thought of that.

But the reaction that I had, I'm sure, is everybody else's because no one thinks about a disability unless you have it.

[music] - I was very close with my aunt.

She ended up passing this February and she is the aunt who actually inspired the brand.

She was immediately diagnosed with stage four cancer six years ago.

And so immediately you see that there is a change of emotion.

Of course, there's a change of how you do things and what you can do and what you can wear.

And I noticed that when she was going to her chemo treatments, that the fun, bubbly outfits that she would wear, she loved pink.

It immediately was like neutrals and then very boring type of outfits in order to be comfortable at the hospital because there was nothing available for her.

There's nothing available in the market that's fashion forward, but also functionable.

For someone that has an illness, someone like her shouldn't have to sacrifice who she is and what she loves because of something that has happened to her, and the brand is also reflecting who she was.

Kind hearted, courageous, brave.

But also you can still show off your fun, spunky fashion personality as well.

[music] - She's definitely the the artist.

We're both very passionate.

We Latinas, we got that in us.

But that she had a clear vision and for me, it was I needed to help her with my experience in the corporate world.

I knew that she was into something and I had to support her, and I could not be any more proud.

Um.

[music] - I would actually put together PowerPoints and presentations for my bosses and my teams that I worked for in the industry, and I showed them.

They're such a big opportunity here for beautiful women to be showcased and also represented and have a category of clothes that we don't really see right now.

And unfortunately, they just said, this is not our customer.

And long story short, I could not just sit there and not do something about this.

So I ended up quitting my job in the fashion industry.

I moved back home and I was getting a lot of no's that finally I ran into one manufacturer and she believed in the vision and the brand.

And that's how we got our first collection done, which was in finally, January of 2023, I received our first samples.

[music] Adaptive clothing is when you have your basic pieces that everyone else wears.

The only difference is there's a little extra love that's put into the pieces, and they have accessible features and anybody can wear it.

It's universally designed to wear.

Even I have trouble.

I don't have a physical disability, but putting on my pants, sometimes I'm jumping up and down and there's no need for that.

It's fashion forward, with functionality and accessible features on the pieces that it's easier for someone to put it on if they need a little extra help.

[music] - They don't look at us people with disabilities or wheelchair users.

They look at able bodies, you know, so easy to just stand up and put pants on.

Not for me.

It takes me five minutes to put pants on.

I put the legs in, and then I have to lean back and lean to the side.

And it's a whole ordeal.

So the zippers and the magnets that just open up so I can just put it on and zip it on.

I mean, it makes it makes life so much easier when it's easier for me to put something on.

It makes me feel good about myself.

Granted, these clothes are amazing anyway, they look amazing, but if it takes me ten minutes to put something on, I'm not going to feel as good about wearing it as I am because I'm at a I'm out of breath now.

I just did a workout to put these clothes on.

I already go through struggles on a daily day being in my chair.

So if it's just something simple as zipping something up versus trying to like, do the worm crawl to put them on, it's amazing.

- Because of some of my conditions that I have, I utilize a portacath, which is a central line, so it's a needle in my chest.

First, I do like to say that I'm currently in her jacket and I love her jacket because even if I have it zipped here, if I need to do medication, which I'll have to do after we finish our interview.

I don't have to necessarily expose my whole chest to the world.

I can just pull this part down, pull my port out.

I mean, pull my line out, do my medication and put it back.

So when I did actually see her brand and I saw that, I was like, immediately I was like, I need to buy this.

[music] - I get to bring in that fun, dopamine boosting type of, uh, colors and excitement to the clothes.

You're expressing, who you are and how you want the world to kind of see you.

That's usually the first impression someone gets is off of your outfit.

And so I always think it's so important that you're able to be fully you, even if something has happened.

- I absolutely love to to see her thrive.

When she finished it off, it's it's like it's art.

- I hope that our models are able to be role models to girls that are looking up to them, like we just did in New York Fashion Week, and there was little girls in the audience.

So I just I genuinely hope that with our brand, we're opening doors that there's more designers like myself.

Bigger brands will see that this is important and this is needed.

- I'm a person with disabilities, but I'm also really big into disability representation, disability advocacy.

So not only does Natasha have Lady Fine's adaptive, she does have rebels with a cause where she's also doing advocacy.

So really, not only am I able to model for this brand, but I'm also able to make a voice and be a sound and really just be myself.

[music] - To shop her designs, visit ladyfines.com.

Since ancient times, one clothing item has come to symbolize Japan the kimono.

An exhibition at the Museum of Fine Arts, St.

Petersburg celebrates the history and splendor of the kimono.

[music] - The exhibition that we're in right now is called Kimono The Triumph of Japanese Dress.

It is put together with three private lenders, two of them from the Tampa Bay area.

The exhibition covers about 200 years, but they were worn long before that in different variations.

Kimono is an all encompassing word.

It just means something to wear.

So it is a very generic term, and kimono is also the plural, singular and plural.

- I think most people in the United States hear the word kimono and they think geisha.

These professional hostesses and geisha certainly do wear kimono.

They wear very specialized types.

Most of the objects in the exhibition, however, are from everyday people.

- They're wearing it for special occasions weddings, funerals, festivals, just to go to the grocery store until after World War two.

This is primarily what people would wear.

[music] All kimono are made from one long piece of silk that's about 30ft long.

And then it's cut into specific pieces that's then put together.

What will make it expensive is the type of processes that are used to make it, to design it or to decorate it, including gold embroidery, silver leaf gold leaf shibori, which is a tie dye technique.

[music] A designer would come to your house, especially if you were wealthy.

You could look through design books like we have a few on view, and you could choose what you wanted out of the book and then customize that to fit your personality.

Most brides will wear a wedding kimono.

We have one on view here that was worn in a wedding in about 1910.

Typically, a woman nowadays would wear an all white kimono.

Kind of looking back to the Western idea of all white, the kimono that we have on view is actually darker colors.

There's always been a strict code on what people can wear, so if you're a younger woman, you're going to wear flashier pieces.

As you get older, you start really wearing more muted colors, but they will do little design decorations.

So there's one on view where if you look at the kimono, it's completely all in gray.

But the bottom corner, when she walks, it flips out and it has a little decoration at the bottom so it can catch your eye just a little bit.

It's this whole idea of the importance of understated elegance for an older woman.

[music] - Kimono is something that we tend to think of as being a very specific garment associated with women, but it's actually a much broader term than that and encompasses not just clothing for women, but for men, for boys and girls.

- The men are not as flashy as the women.

They usually dress in black, brown, blue, maybe an olive color, but once they take off their outer kimono, you'll see highly decorative pieces underneath it.

And the only people that would see that would be their family, their wife.

And the men's decorations are different than women's because they show power.

So you'll see tigers, you'll see sumo wrestlers, you'll see ninjas.

Everything that's a symbol of power to show that that man is powerful.

[music] - Country clothing is a really important aspect of kimono wearing.

These are everyday clothes, and at least before World War II, many of these objects were made from materials that were actually grown on farms in rural areas.

So that would be cotton, most importantly.

And even though they're simpler objects, they still have incredible sophistication in their design.

- It was important to put in the country and the worker section, because that's what really everyday people are going to be wearing.

What you mostly see in this exhibition are going to be for the wealthier classes.

[music] - As soon as the West was associated with Japan, as soon as the United States had opened the ports, it was flooded with all sorts of outside influence.

There were people from all over Europe coming to trade with the Japanese and the Japanese were very clever in what they were doing, and they realized that there was a market for kimono in the West.

And so what they almost immediately did was change the style of the kimono and the cut of the kimono, so they fit Western needs.

[music] Kimono today in Japan are still worn, but the influence of the West, and particularly the United States, has really taken a toll upon traditional garments.

So if you're Japanese, you probably wouldn't wear kimono except for really special occasions.

Today also, however, you will see people in Japan wearing kimono more informally.

And this is true around the world.

I think people have really come to appreciate them as simply exquisite garments.

So I think that the idea that somehow or another, there's cultural appropriation associated with wearing kimono or any of the related types of clothing, I don't think that really is true.

And instead, what we understand to be the case is the Japanese themselves see this as an appreciation of their culture and appreciation of these objects as art, which is what they are.

- For more, visit mfastpete.org.

What do you get when you combine a talent for painting with a love of rock collecting?

For Caitlin Albritton, these passions have led to a career in jewelry making.

Let's visit the artist at her home studio in Tampa.

- I'm Caitlin Albritton and I'm a lapidary jeweler.

[music] Lapidary is the art of cutting stones, and I cut these stones to fit very specific channels into my jewelry.

And that technique is called inlay.

[music] So the Skyway Exhibition is this amazing exhibition where the curators select local artists from the whole Tampa Bay area.

[music] - Patrons work is an excellent fit in the Skyway exhibition, as it is the only jewelry based practice represented in the exhibition here at the Ringling Museum.

So her work really helps redefine what is considered fine art and what can be included in a formal exhibition at a museum such as The Ringling.

[music] - So I've always been doing art ever since I was little.

What I do now, I'd like to say I kind of merge my passions of both rockhounding and painting.

[music] Growing up in Florida, I'm a Florida native, and there's always this culture of pirate lore and treasure, so I've always been really interested in hunting treasure.

Not just, you know, gold, but also treasures of the earth.

[music] Then I'll go to the painting side of it.

Always been painting since I was little.

It wasn't until I was in high school that I started to make more meaningful paintings at that time.

I really suffered from a bad eating disorder.

I had a lot of the problems of me versus me at that time, so I was making kind of more figurative based works at that time, and even into college, I was always making kind of works about the figure in the body, because I was kind of trying to wrap my head around the issues that I was going through at that time.

Eating disorder problems never really go away, but I like to say that my figurative jewelry are kind of like tiny talismans of inner strength for me.

I really like this quote that I'm going to read real quick.

It's by the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu.

It's water is fluid, soft and yielding, but water will wear away a rock which is rigid and cannot yield.

As a rule, whatever is fluid, soft and yielding will overcome whatever is rigid and hard.

This is another paradox.

What is soft is strong.

I thought of that strength as the internal voice that I have.

Am I going to use the hammer voice today, speaking to myself, or am I going to use the soft flowing river when I speak to myself?

So that's where I wanted to come from in terms of trying to portray inner strength, because that is really hard to do.

So that's how I kind of combine my passions of rock hounding and the painting.

- She produces wearable paintings.

That's how I would describe her jewelry.

Her pieces remind me of some of the paintings by various artists from across art history, like some of the impressionists or Fauvist artists working in Art Nouveau, such as Henri Matisse or Gustav Klimt.

So she really also uses bold outline, vibrant colors to portray motion, movement and emotions of her fingers.

[music] - I did go to school for arts.

I went to Savannah College of Art and design.

That's where I got my undergrad degree in painting.

And then after that, I went to Maryland Institute College of Art, where I got a studio art degree, also in painting.

During our travels out West, I came across a lot of Native American jewelry, so that really inspired me because it really is painting with different stones cut up into different pieces to make the mosaic.

Arts Council of Hillsborough County does grants for professional development for artists, and I applied to take some classes at William Holland's School of Lapidary Arts in Young Harris, Georgia.

So I went up there for three weeks.

I learned how to do inlay and intarsia, which are two different ways of making mosaics out of stone.

And after that, I put my paintbrushes down and I haven't touched them since because this is my life passion.

I really knew immediately that this is what I was meant to do for the rest of my life.

- She uses such a wide variety of different stones, from jaspers to agates, obsidians, jade, but also turquoise and coral, so her palettes of stones is quite wide ranging.

- So everything usually starts with a drawing.

And then from there I make a little template that I use to bend my wires.

So once I have that all pulled together, I'll solder all the joints together.

So I have like pretty much like a little framework.

Then I can start picking my color palette, and that's usually the time it takes me the longest, because I like to look through my stones and feel like, what's the feeling of this piece that I want to kind of get across?

So then after I have all the stones cut, I can epoxy it in place and then a little extra cleanup and then it's all done.

[music] - So what I really admire about Caitlin Albritton is not only is she a very skilled and fantastic artist, but her willingness to share that knowledge with other people.

- With lapidary arts, there's a lot of confinements, like you can't make your own color palette, you know, you have to work with what Mother Nature gives you.

But I think there's a lot of freedom in having this confinement, you know, like we're going to choose for dinner.

Having too many choices is kind of problematic.

It makes it really hard.

So working within these limitations of what these kind of art forms have is really liberating and really exciting for me.

[music] - To see more of Katelyn's jewelry, go to c-albritton.com In 2019, a costume shop in Canada closed.

That inventory wound up in a 17,000 square foot warehouse owned by Sarasota Opera.

Now, the local arts venue has the largest rental costume business in North America.

[opera] [opera] [opera] [opera] [opera] - I always refer to opera as the all encompassing art form.

It is a musical form.

It's also a dramatic form.

It contains singers, orchestra, chorus.

It also has visual elements like sets and costumes.

So it's all of the pieces that create this wonderful art form.

[music] - Costumes and scenery set you to the time and place.

- We have a tens of thousands of costumes in our warehouse, and we do alterations on them for the particular person.

If we don't have a costume for a particular part, then we build it or we make it right here in the costume shop.

So we do both.

- For many years, Sarasota Opera had been renting costumes from companies throughout the North America.

But our primary source was a company in Toronto called Malabar.

They were the largest and probably the best collection of rental costumes available for traditional opera productions.

Our costume designer, Howard Kaplan, worked with Malabar for a long time.

He also had designed specific productions for Malabar to build and rent.

- And I became very close with the department managers and they said, oh, we've seen your sketches.

So Luigi, your sketches.

And then Mr.

Specker commissioned me to design Pirates of Penzance for, um, Cleveland Opera.

- When the owner of Malabar, Luigi, decided he wanted to retire and slow down, he first came to Howard, knowing that Howard had the same esthetic and that Sarasota Opera would be a good steward of this incredible collection that he created.

- We purchased the collection in the fall of 2019, and it moved down in ten tractor trailers during that time.

We paid basically $33 a costume.

- We were lucky to be able to find a warehouse and a nice clean space.

Actually, before we used it, it was a volleyball gym that we were able to build out and it's about 16,000ft .

We were able to house these costumes.

We now have about 50,000 complete costumes.

That's about 100,000 pieces when you count every coat, every pants, every shirt.

Sarasota Opera purchased this collection to use for their own use.

But a significant part of what we are doing now is renting these costumes to other opera companies, theater companies, universities.

And we've actually done some work in film.

We've had some of our costumes featured in a Netflix feature.

We've also have a Kia car commercial, used some of our costumes.

- The Kia people called us because someone had booked every 18th century costume in the whole city for, I don't know what, it was some pirate movie they were doing.

So everything was on reserve.

They were desperate to find 18th century clothing.

[music] - One of the things that we were surprised when we got these costumes from Malabar.

A lot of them have name tags and and had the names of singers who've used them over the years.

Yeah, this one was worn by Mr.

Pavarotti and has his name still in the label.

And we have other great singers as well, people like Luciano Pavarotti, Beverly Sills, Placido Domingo, Marilyn Horne.

So it's great to have not only the wonderful costumes that they used, but also a little bit of history with them.

- And cottage things tomorrow.

- Everything is organized by shows or productions.

So there's a Tosca aisle, there's a Carmen aisle, there's a traviata aisle.

- These dresses are made to be altered.

By that I mean the inseams are 3 or 4in.

The hems are maybe 6 or 8in, so it can go up or down or in or out, but there is a lot of flexibility there to fit other people in that same dress.

- When working on a production, we'll first read the libretto, listen to the music, and then we'll move forward with sketches and purchasing of fabrics, going through our huge stock to see what we can use for that production.

[music] - One of the things I think is great about opera is that the stories are timeless and the music is so engrossing.

[music] Many of our audiences are longing for that live performance experience, and I've been really heartened by the fact that in the post Covid era, we've seen huge numbers of new first timers coming to the opera.

- I love the challenge.

I love the dedication that the artists have to their work.

They have to learn their music.

They have to learn the language.

Every opera is maybe sung in a different language.

And so it's a it's a very dedicated profession and I appreciate that.

I enjoy being around that I love it.

[music] - Visit sarasotaopera.org to learn more.

And that wraps it up for this edition of WEDU Arts Plus.

To view more, visit wedu.org/artplus or follow us on social.

Until next time, I'm Gabe Ortiz.

Thanks for watching.

[music] - Funding for WEDU Arts Plus is provided by Charles Rosenbloom.

Hillsborough County Board of County Commissioners, the State of Florida, and Division of Arts and Culture, and the National Endowment for the Arts.