Vogue Writer To Lecture At Wadsworth Atheneum

HARTFORD — Julia Reed, a senior writer at Vogue and the author of Queen of the Turtle Derby and Other Southern Phenomena (Random House, April 2004), will be the guest speaker for the Costume and Textile Society of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art on Tuesday, June 8.

Ms Reed is also a regular contributor to The New York Times Magazine and a contributing editor at Newsweek. A Mississippi Delta native who divides her time between New York City and New Orleans, she has observed that, “For women in the South, clothes, jewelry, the way they wear their hair or do their makeup, even their giant pink rollers, are part of a larger arsenal of feminine wiles. They are the weapons of flirtation and glamour, of power, class warfare, intimidation and seduction. There’s more to getting dressed here than putting on an Armani suit and feeling fashion-safe and presentable.”

Her 11 am lecture will be followed by a fundraising “hat luncheon” to celebrate the founding of the Wadsworth Atheneum’s Costume and Textile Society 20 years ago. Its first president was Kay Hoffman, Hartford’s fashion icon whose wardrobe is the subject of the current exhibition, “Epitome of Elegance,” on view through August 15. The event will also feature a chic hat boutique presented the The Hat Place of Rocky Hill.

The Costume and Textile Society organizes lectures, field trips, and volunteer opportunities to assist Carol Dean Krute, the costume and textiles curator at Wadsworth Atheneum. The society holds fashion show luncheons and teas celebrating exhibition openings, in addition to sponsoring fundraising events such as the biennial “Posh Tag Sale,” coming up in October.

Tickets to Julia Reed’s talk and the hat luncheon are $75 each, and are available by calling Sharon Rizikow at 860-677-1028 or by emailing her as s.rizikow@worldnet.att.net.