Since 2004, Nicole Jenkins has provided goods and services to the museum, cultural heritage and historical clothing industry, first through her retail shop Circa Vintage Clothing and now as a consultant through the associated business Circa Heritage.
Nicole is a museum professional who specialises in historic costume and textiles, and is an authorised Cultural Gifts appraiser for the categories of costume and textiles, through the Australian Federal Government.
She collects, appraises, restores, curates, consults, researches, writes and presents lectures about the history, care and collection of costume, clothing, fashion, dress and textiles.
Her background is in performance costume, fashion production, retail and software development. She holds a master’s degree in cultural heritage, a graduate certificate in museum studies, a certificate in curating fashion and dress, and an advanced diploma of stage and studio techniques, majoring in costume design and construction.
She is the award-winning author of books, ‘Love Vintage’ and ‘Style is Eternal’ and is currently working on her third.
Background:
Initially training in costume design and construction at Perth Technical College and the Western Australian Academy of Performing Arts, she plied her trade in theatre, film and fashion before a sidestep into telecommunications and software development.
Missing the touch of fabric, Nicole left IT to pursue a dream: Circa Vintage Clothing offered two hundreds years of Australian fashion, dressing interesting and creative people, supplying performance costume and museum artefacts.
Her first book – ‘Love Vintage‘, published through Carter’s, won a bronze medal in the Independent Publisher awards (2010). Her second book ‘Style is Eternal‘ was published by Melbourne University Publishing. She’s also written for the Guardian newspaper, Vintage Made magazine and the National Gallery of Victoria as well as hundreds of blog posts about vintage clothing.
Nicole’s Master’s thesis was a significance assessment of the Loel Thomson private costume collection, now housed at Shepparton’s Museum of Vehicle Evolution.
Nicole has also completed a short course on curating fashion and dress at the V&A, and the Open Palace Program (England).
She is approved to value costume and textiles for the Australian Government’s Cultural Gifts program and is represented by Booked Out speakers agency and Curtis Brown literary agents. She is an accredited member of ICOM Costume and the Professional Historians Australia.
Nicole and her collection of Australian clothing is available for exhibition, research and projects – please get in touch. Thank you.