Don Davis Jr. | HPE
Dress was worn by a girlfriend of Joe Cartwright in an episode of “Bonanza.”
But they can’t, so Hunter speaks for them when she knows their history.
Hunter, a board member for the North Carolina Shakespeare Festival, collects vintage clothes and accessories, and she selected some of them for a fashion show and lunch Feb. 10 to benefit Shakespeare Festival outreach education programs.
During the show, Hunter will tell the stories of some of the pieces that are from the 1800s through the 1920s.
One dress was the wedding attire of a mail-order bride who came to the United States. Another was worn on the “Bonanza” TV show by a girlfriend of character Joe Cartwright. Yet another belonged to Hunter’s great-grandmother, who liked to garden so much that she was buried in her flower garden in West Virginia.
Hunter collected the clothes and accessories during the nearly dozen years she owned and operated Thomasville Antique Emporium.
“I just fell in love with those old, vintage pieces that came in, and most have a history,” Hunter said. “I heard all these stories and wrote them down so I wouldn’t forget them. We’re going to make the history come alive with narration (at the show).”
Clothes will be accompanied by accessories, including a 100-year-old parasol, jeweled cigarette holders and hats. Hunter has wire petticoats, but they won’t be modeled.
“Those jab into you, and it isn’t any fun,” she said.
Hunter also will include information about the period – such as what a young woman out on the town in the roarin’ ’20s might have worn – and trivia. Do you know what a tussie mussie is?
Finding models to wear the vintage pieces often is a problem because women in those days wore tight corsets and maintained 22-inch waists. But Hunter knows people who can fit into the clothes and will model them.
Most items will not be for sale, but a few pieces of vintage jewelry will be available for purchase for well below their value, Hunter said.
The Shakespeare Festival costume shop will supplement Hunter’s collection with a few pieces.
Terrance Johns of Thomasville, accompanied by pianist Dorothy Klass, will sing music from the period to open the show.
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