AN AUCTION OF A PRIVATE AND EXCLUSIVE DRESS COLLECTION

Announc­ing the auc­tion of a pri­vate and exclu­sive dress col­lec­tion on Sat­ur­day the 4th of May 2013.

Hazel Wal­ton bought the first dress in her col­lec­tion in Rocky Street n 1982. It was a 1950’s green and white pat­terned sleeve­less sum­mer dress with a tight bodice and a full skirt. This started her life-long love of dresses.
Her col­lec­tion really kicked off whilst she was liv­ing in Lon­don with musi­cian hus­band Dave Wal­ton, who played bass gui­tar for ‘Stead­man’, a well known band whose songs fea­tured in movies like Super­man The Movie, Joan of Arca­dia and Charmed. (Dave now lives with Heather McCart­ney – Linda’s daugh­ter).
These stun­ning dresses have been col­lected by Hazel over a period of 31 years and range from satin period ball gowns to 1950’s dresses, and day­wear from the 60’s.  Most of them were col­lected when Hazel lived in Lon­don and many come from the fash­ion cap­i­tals of the world.
Much to Hazel’s hor­ror she has run out of space to keep the col­lec­tion so she has decided to part with some.
‘I chose each dress per­son­ally, whether they were my size or not, mainly because I couldn’t resist the style or pat­tern, so this is a very per­sonal and spe­cial col­lec­tion. They are like chil­dren to me’ says Hazel.

Hazel was involved in the music indus­try for over 20 years and in 1998 she  started pro­mot­ing bands at her club in UK called ‘dis­trict 6’, which was a great suc­cess and drew immense audiences.

Mov­ing back to Cape Town in 2004, she opened an orig­i­nal music club called Acoustic Café. The open­ing night fea­tured Freshly Ground and their first inter­na­tional tour was sub­se­quently organ­ised through her UK agents. Some of the biggest names in SA music played there  includ­ing Chris Chameleon, Fokof­polisiekar, Dirty Skirts, Cas­sette, Bed on Bricks, Steve New­man, Syd Kitchen (RIP Syd), Nibs van der Spuy and Ezra. On her tour from the USA, Karma of Henry Ate played both of her sold out SA gigs at Acoustic Cafe.
Given her his­tory it makes sense that the 5 stun­ning ladies who will be mod­el­ling the gar­ments are all young musi­cians or cre­atives: Yolanda Y’awa (ex Coda singer and founder mem­ber, now solo artist per­form­ing on many local and Inter­na­tional stages), Ann Jan­gle and Zozome Brink, from the incred­i­ble Blues band Ann Jan­gle, gor­geous Toni, a young up-and-coming producer/director in the film indus­try and the lovely, and naughty, Nora, a per­for­mance artist from Hol­land.
10% of the pro­ceeds from the sale of the dresses will go to CLAW – Com­mu­nity Led Ani­mal Wel­fare – which pro­vides pri­mary health­care to ani­mals in rural com­mu­ni­ties who would not oth­er­wise be able to afford vet­eri­nary care for their pets. In addi­tion CLAW pro­vides 24hour emer­gency ser­vices to crit­i­cally ill or injured ani­mals and focus on com­mu­nity edu­ca­tion and aware­ness on ani­mal care.
CLAW is also very involved in the com­mu­nity and pro­vides monthly food parcels to 67 local fam­i­lies as well as pro­vid­ing cloth­ing and house­hold neces­si­ties to many fam­i­lies who in need.

The auc­tion is on Sat­ur­day 4 May 2013 from 3pm at the delight­ful Alexan­der Bar and Café, cor­ner of Strand and Loop Street.  It is a small venue so get there early!
The dress sizes range from 6 — 12, although the smaller sizes pre­dom­i­nate.
If you are inter­ested in dress­ing for glam­our, fun and plea­sure you know where to be on the 4th May. Bring all your girl­friends – entrance is free.
Pho­tog­ra­pher: Chris Claasen

Graph­ics: Jen Mar­si­cano of creativeconcepts