The Art Couture fashion show in Painswick

I spent the morning with a friend who offered to print an A2 copy of one of my pictures which may be used in the community consultation process that will start in two weeks. I wanted to test out the system and the results as we may commission quite a few images of the town's different areas. I was really pleased to see that the picture stood up very well to enlargement and when mounted will certainly be very useful.

Once I'd finished I went home and found that Woodpeckers had already gone to nearby Painswick, where there was an annual festival called Art Couture Painswick. It has been running for about six years and has become quite celebrated. It was partly initiated by the designer Isabella Blow, famed for her highly original hat designs which she wore to great effect, who had lived close to Painswick with her husband who hailed from these parts. Sadly she died a few years ago, but her spirit certainly lives on in this festival.

ACP is an artistic venture that encourages creative people of all ages and from all walks of life to participate in making works of art using the body as a canvas for creativity.

I arrived at the church in the centre of the town, famed for its ninety-nine yew trees, to finds the graveyard seething with people in festival mood and a stylish modern stage and contemporary tent erected with musicians playing loudly. Soon after the stage became the scene of a series of fashion shows, organised under the auspices of Art Couture Painswick with a range of different competitions for local people to enter their amazing creations.

I missed the first event but saw the whole of the wearable art costumes paraded to wondrous effect.
I have made a rather large Flickr gallery of many of the exhibits to show you some of the fantastic creations that appeared. The next event was the body painting parade by men and women which was even more amazing and very beautiful with stunning images displayed very revealingly. I probably might have chosen one of them to blip, but I don't think it would have been allowed by blip central. You will have to go and look elsewhere, which I hope you do because I think you will be suitably amazed too.

It is yet another example of the creativity and vitality that our Stroud valleys seem to keep on producing. My blip picture was taken after the entrants had appeared on stage. they then followed the Town Crier around the graveyard and stopped by a rear doorway of the church to let people takes pictures, before heading off on circuit around the rest of the churchyard. You can probably tell it was an unusual event. The winner of the body painting event was the woman with the white head dress at the bottom right.