Dusk Dialogues: Conversations on Fashion

Join us for conversations on fashion, featuring special guests Caroline Tonna and Maria Muscat. Bringing together perspectives from a dress historian and a hands-on seamstress, we will reflect on museum spaces that shape how these pieces are presented and understood.

Caroline Tonna is a dress historian and multidisciplinary artist who has a lifelong passion for discovering stories hidden in historic costumes. She is currently exploring a project on historic dress in private collections to develop a digital fashion heritage archive.

Maria Muscat is a hands-on seamstress with skills in many handicrafts from shoe making, pattern cutting, sewing, costume jewellery fabrication, embroidery, beading and hat making with a passion for repurposing old fabrics, garments and trims.

This talk aims to spark dialogue around fashion, highlighting the historical significance of the stories garments can tell when presented in the right spaces, as well as addressing the traditions that risk being lost from one generation to the next.

Check out the details below: 
Booking required as limited spaces available - send us an email on bookings@palazzofalson.com 
Ticket price: 5 euro non-refundable fee, free for members of Palazzo Falson (booking still required) 
Date and Time: Tuesday 12th May at 18:30 - Doors open at 18:00 
Venue: Palazzo Falson Historic House Museum, Mdina 

More info here: https://www.palazzofalson.com/news-events/dusk-dialogues

This event is in collaboration with Fondazzjoni Patrimonju Malti.

Special thanks to Marsovin for supporting this series of events. Marsovin - The Culture of Wine

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Introducing our guest speaker – Caroline Tonna

Caroline Tonna is synonymous with Palazzo Falson having served as curator at Palazzo Falson Historic House Museum between 2018–2023!  

During our upcoming Dusk Dialogues talk, she will be joining us as a dress historian and multidisciplinary artist who has a lifelong passion for discovering the stories hidden in historic costume. Drawing on four decades of research and creative practice, and with an academic background in Anthropology and Art History, she brings garments to life through archival exploration and close object study, transforming them into vivid, engaging narratives. Her award-winning publication, Fashion Society in Malta: The Portrait Photography of Leandro Preziosi 1830–1869 (2022), reflects her distinctive approach, connecting fashion, history, and storytelling in an innovate and contemporary language.

She is currently developing, Fashion Heritage: From Storage to Digital Revival a project exploring historic dress in private collections to develop a digital fashion heritage archive.

During conversations on fashion, we will explore clothing as living art and the spaces they are displayed in today.  

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Introducing our guest speaker – Maria Muscat

Maria Muscat has worked in and around the book industry for years; a colourful literary life supplemented by a double life as a seamstress and crafter for the theatre of life and stage.

Straight out of University, she followed her calling to get skilled in as many handicrafts as she could muster: shoe making, pattern cutting, sewing, costume jewellery fabrication, embroidery, beading, hat making, the list goes on. This is when her unofficial brand 'Babettopolis' started to take shape. Under this brand name she could (and still does) practice the skills she likes to share with the world.  

Maria indulges in things that pique the senses, alluring colours and scents and tastes. She stashes fabric and collects haberdashery like a magpie and finds a lot of joy in repurposing old fabrics, garments and trims when the object, client or project calls for it.  

During conversations on fashion, we will reflect on the importance of preserving and passing down traditional knowledge, recognising how these practices connect generations and protect cultural heritage within fashion.

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