artist : Alexandria Volk
email : blackswanx@gmail.com
locale : 1960 Mandela Parkway Poplar Studios. Oakland CA 94607

Bespoke fancy dress, millinery, costumes, and historical reproductions

Growing up on a ranch in North Dakota, Alexandria Volk learned how to use both a sewing machine and an arc welder before she turned 10. She is an experiential academic – learning through experimentation and re-creation as well as research – and has degrees in biology, art studio, art history, and poetics, and certification in Cultural Heritage Preservation and Theatrical Millinery. She studied Chinese calligraphy and ink painting for five years under master calligrapher AiQuin Zhou. As a garment designer and milliner, she is intrigued by the tension between the construction of wearables from yarn and the construction of wearables from fabric, and how tailoring and other international and historical garment fitting methods can be used in the modern day, as well as reconstructing period-correct garments and accessories. As a painter, collagist, and multi-media creatrix, she combines historical methods and techniques with current subject matter, and loves to reanimate the forgotten, the broken, and the discarded with new purpose and beauty. Her work is in corporate and private collections and has been featured in international fashion campaigns, galleries, films, and theatrical presentations. She is the costume shop manager of the Great Dickens Christmas Fair. She enjoys a challenge.

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