In Vogue: Co-Authors of New Book on Fashion Icon

Join the Couture Pattern Museum in Santa Barbara for the exclusive West Coast premiere of Chanel in Vogue, the extensive, two-volume artbook published earlier this year that traces the 110-year history of the design house in the world’s most famous fashion magazine in both words and stunning photography. Vogue first featured Gabrielle Chanel in the 1910s, and continued to chronicle her work through the decades, from her seminal “little black dress” to her most luxurious haute couture creations. Karl Lagerfeld’s reimagining of the house in the early 1980s also had prominent places in Vogue, with the designs and approaches inspiring some of the world’s greatest stylists and photographers across the magazine’s international editions.

For a special event on October 24, the Couture Pattern Museum is featuring both of the authors – fashion historian and writer Rebecca C. Tuite, who is also the author of 1950s in Vogue: The Jessica Daves Years 1952–1962, and Susanna Brown, a writer and curator specializing in photography, fashion, and portraiture – who will talk about the work, participate in a Q&A session, and sign copies of the book. The afternoon also features a special photography exhibition from the book, a recorded presentation by a former Chanel technical fashion designer and draper, and Gabrielle Chanel’s favorite dessert along with champagne and other gourmet treats. 

As the October 24 date is limited to 16 people, those who want to check out the exhibition that features a curated presentation of Chanel couture patterns and archival materials from the Museum’s collection at no cost can visit the Couture Pattern Museum for next month’s 1st Thursday art walk on November 5.

Visit www.couturepatternmuseum.com/events

Spooky ‘Spirits’ Spoken Here

The reading series “Spirits in the Air: Potent Potable Poetry” is producing its second annual Halloween-themed event on Tuesday, October 13, at The Good Lion, which starts with a poetic happy hour at 4:30 pm followed by the reading an hour later. A group of invited poets will read their work, and the work of others, about libations of all sorts. Hosted by current Santa Barbara Poet Laureate George Yatchisin, editor of the 2026 anthology A Feast for Santa Barbara: Poets Celebrating Food & Drink, the featured readers include Mary Brown, Stephanie Barbé Hammer, Rebecca Horrigan, Robert Krut, Michaela McGinnis, Joshua Minjarez, Elizabeth Pérez, David Starkey, Emma Trelles, and Chryss Yost. Lovers of potent poetry and curated cocktails can expect some eerie and/or evocative experiences, haunting images, and lots of merriment at the free event.

Visit https://tinyurl.com/2nd-Spirits-Poetry-SB

‘Magic Hour’ Across Cuba

Ventura-based writer-photographer Lorenzo DeStefano, who maintains an abiding interest in the rapidly changing political and economic situation in Cuba, is coming to Tecolote Book Shop on Saturday afternoon, October 17, to share and sign his photographic memoir, The Magic Hour (La Hora Mágica): A Photographer’s Journeys Through Cuba. Published in July, the book chronicles DeStefano’s extensive coverage of Cuba between 1993-98 during “El Período Especial,” focused primarily on his rugged, breakdown-plagued eight-day, cross-country journey from Santiago to Havana in a beat up 1952 Willy’s Jeep, when he was joined by his Cuban friend and driver, Juan de Mata. DeStefano says their friendship is at the center of the book, which covers a variety of subjects including global politics, the ethics of making art and the rights of man, largely told through his arresting photographs. The Magic Hour has garnered rave reviews from authors, historians, and professors across the country.

Visit https://tecolotebookshop.indiecommerce.com

Chaucer’s Choices:

Santa Barbara Authors in Conversation

Grace Through Fire: A Memoir of Murder, Tragedy, and Resilience is Deborah Samuel’s both raw and redemptive memoir of surviving generational trauma, finding healing through caregiving, and experiencing spiritual awakening. The book, just published this month, chronicles her journey from Southern survival to West Coast freedom, moving from the chaos of the rural South to the stillness of yoga studios and the healing waters of Lake Powell and Crater Lake, where Samuel rediscovers her strength, sobriety, and purpose. The author, who lives aboard a classic yacht in Santa Barbara, shares the story that seems almost stranger than fiction, at Chaucer’s on Wednesday, October 14. 

Will Sofrin, a master shipwright who has taught at MIT and has built boats for Billy Joel and Estée Lauder, tells the story of how the Coast Guard transformed a captured WWII ship into a national symbol and a platform for diplomacy in USCG Cutter Eagle: The Legacy of the Coast Guard’s Flagship. The Eagle Bear’s Choice commissioned 80 years ago, serves as a training ship for USCG Academy cadets with instruction in navigation, ship handling, and the rigors of life at sea. Both cadet and crew experiences serve as the lens through which Sofrin traces the ship’s history, which includes sailing to ports around the world to participate in goodwill missions that promote cultural exchange, mutual respect, and cooperation among nations. He’ll discuss the boat and the book at Chaucer’s on Sunday, October 18.

Also in the nonfiction genre, Daniel M. Jaffe’s Russian Silhouette: A Memoir of Activism and Identity explores the author’s numerous travels to the USSR and post-Soviet Russia from the 1970s through the 1990s, where he immersed himself in communities of oppressed Soviet Jews and political dissidents, many of whom were confronting arrest, imprisonment, labor camp sentences, and internal exile. Even after being arrested by the KGB and ordered never to return, Jaffe did return many times to help his friends; their mutual courage in asserting their identities and values inspired him to finally come out as a gay man and fight for his own civil rights in the U.S. Silhouette is the 10th published book by Jaffe, who speaks at Chaucer’s on Thursday, October 22. 

Prof Slam 2026

Half a dozen UCSB professors step into the spotlight at M. Special Brewing Company on Thursday, October 15, for a new event that turns the tables on the Graduate Division’s Grad Slam. Rather than students, it’s the teachers/researchers who take part in the fast-paced competition that challenges faculty to present their cutting-edge research in just three minutes. Just how many fascinating insights will get revealed in just 180 seconds of storytelling is anybody’s guess, but the concept of transforming complex ideas in the six different disciplines from bioengineering to Chicano/Chicana studies to communications into a simple and entertaining presentation for all sounds like something even us ADHD-addled folks might enjoy. 

Reserve a spot at www.alumni.ucsb.edu/events/all-gaucho-reunion/prof-slam

Parallel Stories 

Santa Barbara Museum of Art’s Parallel Stories series for fall ties in with its extensive collection of Asian art with more than 3,600 objects spanning 5,000 years. The series invites attendees to reimagine and reframe some of the histories, traditions, and stories contained in the collection through presentations by three contemporary authors. Fall’s Parallel Stories, which is presented in collaboration with The Asian American Studies Department of UCSB, whose department chair, Sameer Pandya, will facilitate the conversations. 

First up on Sunday, October 11, is M Lin, author of The Memory Museum, a debut collection that depicts characters finding beauty amidst the disorientation of migration, the contradictions of living between cultures, the perverse realities of race and class, and the delicate dance between survival and resistance. Karen Tei Yamashita (Questions 27 & 28) visits on November 8, and Divya Victor (KIN: Essays on Reckless Devotion) closes out the series on December 13.  

Visit www.sbma.net/learn/adultprograms/parallelstories