Gotham Patterns: About the Web mistress

Education:

• 2006-2008 New York University, M.A. in Visual Arts: Costume Studies
• 2004-2006: SUNY Empire State College, B.A. in American Social History
• 2000-2003: SUNY Fashion Institute of Technology: A.A.S. Patternmaking Technology

Work Experience:

• 2000-Present: Freelance Dressmaker
• 2007-Present: Museum of the City of New York, Costume Department, Art Handler
• 2006-Present: Tamiment Library; Assistant, Oral History Collection
• 2004-2005: D.L. Custom Clothing; Manager/Assistant Patternmaker
• 2002: Originals-By-Kay; Assistant/Intern
• 2002: Merchant House Museum; Costume Collections Assistant/Intern
• 2001-2002: Suffolk County Historical Society; Assistant to the Curator

Alaina has been an enthusiastic student of costume history since childhood. She learned to sew as a child from her mother, and refined her knowledge of sewing and patternmaking as a college student at F.I.T. Her specialty is women's costume of the mid-nineteenth century, but she also enjoys sewing contemporary designs for herself, her family, and her friends. Alaina is involved in several ongoing research projects, including her thesis "Home-made, Tailor-made, Ready-Made: Mary Guion's Life In Textiles, 1800-1808," an Oral History Project on women's experiences with clothing 1920-1950, an oral history project on contemporary lesbian style, and topics for civil war reenactors; specifically, women's hairstyles and sewing techniques of the mid nineteenth-century.

Alaina lives in Brooklyn, NY, with her partner Nicole and their rats Slagathor and Bilgeworth.

http://www.myspace.com/motozulli

e-mail: motozulli@gmail.com