A Manchester vintage clothing shop is hoping to bring some light, creativity and fun into people’s lives this weekend by bringing back the Easter bonnet.
Bonnets are an Easter trend due to people wearing their Sunday best at church, and a desire to splash out on new clothes at the end of Lent.
The Easter Parade emerged in New York in 1970, to bring some positivity at the end of the Civil War with 30,000 people flaunting their hats on Fifth Avenue to this day.
This Easter weekend, vintage clothing store Junk Shop is bringing the Easter bonnet to Manchester with march of their own.
Charlotte Keyworth, 37, designer for Junk Shop, told MM: “It’s actually a really great way for people to express themselves and be creative if you’ve not got very much money.
“That’s what I love about it, and that’s what we’re trying to get.
“We’d love it if Manchester could be up there with New York.
“It could probably do a better job one day, hopefully, it would be amazing to get everyone on the streets in their Easter bonnet.”
The shop will also be hosting a workshop on Easter Friday for people to make their own Easter bonnets. Everybody is welcome to attend the event, which is free of charge.
Everyone is asked to bring an old hat, and the staff at Junk Shop will show you how to customise and embellish them.
Followed by this is the march on Easter Sunday for everyone to show off their hats around the Northern Quarter whilst saying happy Easter to Manchester.
Junk Shop will be hosting the march for the second time – and the workshop for a third – and said that each year the workshops get busier and attract more people.
Charlotte told MM: “We will hopefully get as many different types of people as possible really.
“That’s the idea, to get everyone involved and to not leave anybody out, so that people feel like their part of a community.
“We get middle-aged men coming, people with their kids, lots of different people, and the more people we reach out to the better, to get people excited about it.”
Charlotte would also like to get across to the people who attend her workshop the importance of long-lasting clothes.
“People should be watching the true cost of clothing, you can’t sustain this type of life style,” she said.
“We need to make things last we need to care about the environment which is something we’ll be talking about at the Easter bonnet workshop.
“As the big corporations have taken over fashion more and more it’s become more about profit and they’ll do anything to get their profit by making people work in horrible conditions.
“And the fabric that they’re manufacturing is just full of chemicals and toxins.”
The services that are provided at the Junk Shop workshop will help people learn how to sew and repair old or broken clothing, rather than keep buying new clothes.
“That’s a great thing if you’ve got a needle and thread, you can do that anywhere and it doesn’t cost much money.”
Image courtesy of Wendy Slattery, via Wikipedia, with thanks
