Costumes and Confessions
Memoir, mystery and short stories
I have been writing journals all my life and in 2020 self-published my first mystery, The Case of a Lost Case, please find a short summary below. At the same time, I have continued working on my memoir, Costumes and Confessions, with the guidance and encouragement of Umi Sinha, author and teacher of creative writing. This is a personal story of discovery, fortune and self-realisation, intertwined with childhood anecdotes with my Prussian grandparents on my father’s side and my German family on my mother’s side.
‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’, has been part of many school’s curriculum and I had the pleasure of being invited to share the story 'Making Aslan', as well as showing original images detailing the process in classrooms around Sussex.
The case of a lost case - a Hanna Schulz Mystery
Hanna is a young German girl who enjoys an unconventional upbringing with her roguish father taking her on many adventures. But his exciting character also has a very destructive side. Years later, just when she has established a new life in England, he goes missing. Unable to come to terms with his disappearance, Hanna discovers her own eccentric tendencies as she becomes obsessed with a lost suitcase bought at a mystery auction and is shocked to find it belongs to a woman who is also reported missing.
Clumsily and with the voice of reason in tow- in form of her best friend Liz, she starts her own investigation when suddenly a handsome stranger comes into her life.
Costumes and Confessions - tales of a dressmaker
Left to my own devises aged seventeen, due to my parent’s divorce and my father’s alcoholism, my aunt managed to arrange an interview for me at a prestigious couture atelier in Düsseldorf, which unknowingly at the time, gave me the skills to not only work in fashion, but also for film and theatre.
Having completed a three-year apprenticeship as a dressmaker, I agreed to travel to London with my boyfriend, who had to leave Germany - escaping his pending military service. However, arriving at Brixton tube station in 1987 with a sewing machine in my rucksack and a saxophone in his, I am asking myself why I had ended up leaving everything I knew and loved behind. Naïve, poor and without connections, but with plenty of determination and resilience, I meet people, who recognised my ability to sew.
From making costumes for the Notting Hill Carnival, to being part of the team of four, who created Aslan for the BBC production of The Chronicles of Narnia, which won a Bafta Award for best costume in 1988. Making Mick Jaggers silk shirts for his solo come back tour in a small terrace house in Hove to finding myself next to Jean Paul Gaultier sketching and being chosen to make Helen Mirren’s feather cloak and collar for Peter Greenaway’s film, The Cook, the Thief, his Wife & her Lover. Being made fun of by John Cleese to telling off David Hockney at the Glyndebourne Festival Opera. Unaware of my luck, I stumbled upon designers such as Vin Burnham, Lindy Hemming and Joanna Johnston whilst working on Who Framed Roger Rabit and Back to the Future II -this is a personal story of discovery, fortune and self-realisation.
Please see images below.
