BRITTANYWACHER. SPRING.SUMMER. 2012.

PHOTO: MICHAELA MITCHELL
DESIGNS: BRITTANY WACHER

MY DARK HORSE.

ARTICLE written by GRETCHEN CRUZ.

Vancouver Fashion Week: Brittany Wacher

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Brittany Wacher is originally from Eckville, Alberta, and started out studying business (accounting) in school. It was when she traveled to a handful of countries around the world that she decided she wanted to pursue an artistic career. She came to Vancouver and fell in love with the city, so she started the Fashion Design program at LaSalle College International Vancouver.

Brittany has built a new collection for all the following fashion shows (while still in school): the Century House First Rendition Fashion Show for the school (Brittany contributed eight looks to the show in May 2010), the Vancouver Music and Fashion Festival (which was an event held on 1180 Granville Street during the Winter Olympics in February 2010), A Holiday Affair fashion show in Decemeber 2010, and she was part of Vancouver Fashion Week in April 2011 as well as in November 2011. She has also completed editorials and photoshoots for every collection that she has directed herself. The latest editorial for April that Brittany did is going to be in C-heads magazine.

So how did Brittany come up with the idea for her latest line, recently shown at Vancouver Fashion Week?

"I started conceptualizing it in May while I was traveling around Europe alone - I really can figure out the most of myself and how I am relating to the world around me when I am alone, especially when in a new atmosphere. A lot of the inspiration for my collection came from experiencing places rich with history, regurgitated culture, and the underground music-scene. I probably sketched 250 designs and many faces just from that trip," Brittany says.

After traveling all around Europe, Brittany went back to Alberta to work. She worked in a tractor all summer, which was quite the contrast to adventuring in Europe, as she had to wear coveralls and steel-toed boots every single day.

The cultural influence from her Europe trip and the multi-culturalism of Vancouver versus the country life of Alberta that Brittany grew up with, was the driving force of her latest line. "It's what my life feels like," Brittany explains. "I feel like both parts are completely seperate lives and are so different from each other - they're such a condradiction and my work really reflects this. For this line, I worked with really delicate hand-dyed silk, chiffon, and cow hide - there's such a difference in weight and symbolization with the materials. Most of my work is a reflection of how I view the world, often comparing nature with society," Brittany says.

"Also for that collection, I wanted the models wearing the clothes to represent these strong, independent, and whimsical women, fending for themselves in this world. I wanted it to feel very raw and I don't want the things I create to be typical or made ready to be sold on every retail floor. I'm not interested in massive consumerism, I'm more interested in telling stories and building concepts, which reflect on how I view the world even if it's only appealing to a few," Brittany explains.

Brittany's latest collection was definitely appealing to more than just a few people. During Vancouver Fashion Week, the Twitter world was raving about her collection:

@jcarsonloo tweeted "Lovely tan corsette with silky black dress by Brittanee Ann by Brittany Wacher. #VFW2011 #vfw2012 http://pic.twitter.com/RM6F4LOY"

@VanFashionWeek tweeted "What an amazing show of #talent!! Thank you @lasalle cant wait for more!! Brittany is deffo one to watch for!! #VFW2012" as well as "The last of the finale #minsblowing. Good job Brittany Watcher!!! @LCI_Vancouver u taught then well!!! #VFW2012 http://pic.twitter.com/FiiXIZTu"

- Written by Gretchen Cruz

FALL 2011

PHOTO: MICHAELA MITCHELL

by BRITTANY WACHER

PRE FASHION WEEK SHOOT

MODEL: MEGAN-MEGDALENA BOURNE
PHOTO: YIGIT GUNAL

VANCOUVER FASHION WEEK. NOVEMBER. OPENING GALA

This was my second season showing in VFW. The event officially begun November 1 at Pamela Masik's studio. This was the venue used for the entirety of the event; surrounded by her paintings, raw energy provided from the building, and tracks spun by Mert Sari; provided everyone in attendance with the perfect atmosphere.
PHOTO: PETER JENSEN
TOP PHOTO: MODEL, MICHAELA MCKAY AND ME
BOTTOM: MICHAELA

SS 2012 witch. tiger. fairy. collection by Brittany Wacher

Over the spring and summer of this year I traveled around Europe alone and conceptualized my current collection. Through experiencing new culture and meeting new people I learned a part of my self and the world that I had never met before. Over the summer I spent my time in Alberta spending time with my family, working in a tractor, and writing a story called, "a tiger. a witch. a fairy. " It is based upon three characters, three generations, living in one world. And now I leave you with the final product with many hours of hand work...silk folding, pressing, hand sewing every pleat, zip and leather detail. The entire collection is made from Silk, cow hide, and deer hide. I am excited to be starting on Mens tailored suits before graduation in December! And, so introducing my tribal warrior women...

I want to live in Alpha Centauri, boys!!

Alpha Centauri A

Rigil Kentaurus ("Foot of the Centaur" in Arabic) is the fourth brightest star in the night sky as well as the brightest star in Constellation Centaurus. Like Sol, it is a yellow-orange main sequence dwarf star of spectral and luminosity type G2 V. It has about 1.105 ± 0.007 times Sol's mass (Guedes et al, 2008; and Thévenin et al, 2002) and 1.23 its diameter (ESO science release; and Demarque et al, 1986), and is about 52 to 60 percent brighter than Sol (ESO science release; and Demarque et al, 1986).

NASA



Alpha Centauri A is a yellow-orange star
like our Sun, Sol. (See a 2MASS Survey
image of Alpha Centauri A and B from
the NASA Star and Exoplanet Database.)

Without consideration of interior seismic constraints, Star A (and B) has been estimated to be older than Sol, from 4.85 billion years in age (ESO) to around 7.6 (+/- around 10 percent) billion years or more -- or 6.8 billion years if it does not have a convective core (Guenther and Demarque, 2000). Recent recent interior modeling with seismic constraints, however, suggest that Stars A and B could be 5.6 to 5.9 billion years old (Mutlu Yildiz, 2007). Since Alpha Centauri A is very similar to our own Sun, however, many speculate whether it might contain planets that harbor life. Useful star catalogue numbers and designations for Alpha Centauri A include: Alp or Alf Cen A, Alp1 Cen, HR 5459, Gl 559 A, Hip 71683, HD 128620, CP(D)-60 5483, SAO 252838, FK5 538, and LHS 50.

Alpha Centauri B

© Torben Krogh & Mogens Winther,
(Amtsgymnasiet and EUC Syd Gallery,
student photo used with permission)





Alp Cen B is an orange-red dwarf star,
like Epsilon Eridani at left center of
meteor. (See a Sloan Digital Sky Survey
field images of Alpha Centauri A and B
from WikiSky.org, and at APOD.)

This much dimmer companion star is a main sequence, orange-red dwarf (K0-1 V). It appears to have only 93.4 ± 0.7 percent of Sol's mass (Guedes et al, 2008; and Thévenin et al, 2002), about 86.5 percent of its diameter, and 45 to 52 percent of its luminosity (ESO; and Johnson and Wright, 1983, page 681). Useful catalogue numbers and designations for Alpha Centauri B include: Alp or Alf Cen B, HR 5460, Gl 559 B, Hip 71681, HD 128621, and LHS 51.

Habitable Zone around Star B

Calculations by to Weigert and Holman (1997) indicated that the distance from the star where an Earth-type planet would be "comfortable" with liquid water is centered around 0.73 to 0.74 AU -- somewhat beyond the orbital distance of Venus in the Solar System -- with an orbital period under an Earth year using calculations based on Hart (1979). More recent calculations based on Kasting et al (1993), however, allow for a wider "habitable zone." Estimates provided by the NASA Star and Exoplanet Database, however, appear to be incorrect for this spectral class K star -- where the inner edge of Star B's habitable zone should be located around 1.20 AU from the star, while the outer edge edge lies around 2.38 AUs, and so estimates from 40 Omicron Eridani A (another K0-1 star) were applied as a rough proxy, which indicated that the inner edge of Star B's habitable zone could be located around 0.56 AU from the star, while the outer edge edge lies around 1.10 AUs.

Arnold O. Benz, Institute of Astronomy, ETH Zurich

High resolution and jumbo images (Benz et al, 1998).

Proxima is a flare star, like UV Ceti (Luyten 726-8 B)
shown flaring at left. UV Ceti is an extreme example
of a flare star that can boost its brightness by five times
in less than a minute, then fall somewhat slower back
down to normal luminosity within two or three minutes
before flaring suddenly again after several hours.

Proxima Centauri b?

Using data collected up to early 1994, astronomers using the Hubble Space Telescope discerned a 77-day variation in the proper motion of Proxima (Benedict et al, 1994). The astrometric perturbations found could be due to the gravitational pull of a large planet with about 80 percent of Jupiter's mass at a 1994 separation from Proxima of about 0.17 AUs -- 17 percent of Earth's orbital distance in the Solar System from the distance, or less than half Mercury's orbital distance. The Hubble astrometry team calculated that the chance of a false positive reading from their data -- same perturbations without a planet -- to be around 25 percent.

© Estate of John Whatmough -- larger image
(Artwork from Extrasolar Visions, used with permission from Whatmough)
Glowing red through gravitational contraction, the candidate brown dwarf companion
to Proxima Centauri is depicted with two moons (one eclipsing the flare star) with
distant Alpha Centauri A and B at upper right, as imagined by Whatmough.

I

STRING THEORY FOR THE SUN !!!

A schematic diagram of the Sun-Earth magnetospheric connection. Credit: NASA/JPL/Caltech

Feb 15, 2008
A String Theory for the Sun

Filamentary Birkeland currents transport electrical energy from the Sun to Earth and the rest of the Solar System. Could ancient human beings have seen this phenomenon visible in their skies?

The auroras are caused by an intermittent bombardment of charged particles, which travel from the sun to the earth’s ionosphere in a stream called the solar wind. This was first proposed in the early 20th century by the Norwegian plasma physicist, Kristian Birkeland, and is now universally accepted. In honour of this pioneer, the exact conduits through which ions reach the earth are called Birkeland currents.

The existence of these twisted filamentary bundles of magnetic fields that transport ions through space along their length was only empirically confirmed in 2007, when NASA’s fleet of THEMIS spacecraft announced to have detected “giant magnetic ropes that connect Earth’s upper atmosphere to the Sun” in the earth’s magnetopause. Solar wind particles are believed to flow in along these ropes, “providing energy for geomagnetic storms and auroras.”

To put it bluntly, modern scientists have found that the sun has an electrical plasma connection that tapers towards the earth's magnetic poles and causes electromagnetic storms.

Curiously, ancient mythical and cosmological traditions have long anticipated the discovery of the solar wind and its Birkeland currents when they spoke about “ropes” and “strings” tying the earth to the sun. In the mystical tradition of India, the three worlds – earth, air, and sky – are attached to the sun by means of a string “by which the Devas first strode up and down these worlds, using the ‘Universal Lights’ as their stepping stones”.

In a remarkable analogy to the modern comparison of this stream to a “wind”, Hindū sages affirmed: “By the Gale, indeed, O Gautama, as by a thread, are this and yonder world and all beings strung together. Even as the thread of a gem might be threaded through a gem, even so is all this strung thereupon… to wit, Gandharvas, Apsarases, beasts, and men”, causing Deity itself to declare: “All this is strung on Me, like rows of gems upon a thread”.

The sun does “string these worlds to Himself by the thread of the Gale of the Spirit”. The identification of this “sun pillar” running through the three worlds with the polar axis of the universe makes good sense considering that the sun’s charged particles stream into the earth’s ionosphere at the auroral ovals around the poles.

If it may be granted that the Indian concept of this sun rope rooted in knowledge of the solar wind, the latter must at some point have revealed itself in an unmistakable, visible form. Is it conceivable that – at some time during the early Holocene – extreme solar weather produced such excitation that the plasma in the solar wind entered a visible glow mode, if not arc mode? If so, a substantial segment of ancient sky lore that was hitherto obscure receives some much-needed illumination.

Many corners of the world bear witness to the theme of a hero’s “noosing” of the sun. “When the sun had formed in the sky”, say the Bella Coola people of British Columbia, Canada, the creator “connected it with the earth by means of a long rope, which kept the two at a measured distance from each other and prevented that the earth would sink into the ocean”.

While an early commentator, Richard Andrée, deemed this notion "Bemerkenswert" ["remarkable"], he would never have imagined that such age-old folklore motifs could conceal some ephemeral observations of space that scientists are only now beginning to rediscover.

Contributed by Rens Van der Sluijs

www.mythopedia.info

Further reading:

The Mythology of the World Axis; Exploring the Role of Plasma in World Mythology

www.lulu.com/content/1085275

The World Axis as an Atmospheric Phenomenon

www.lulu.com/content/1305081

Ongoing concept for my CREATIONS...

NATURE VS SOCIETY BY BRIT W.