What I actually wore #0021

Serial #: 0021
Date: 02/02/2009
Weather: forecast 31°, sultry and unsettled; reached 27°
Time Allowed: 0 minutes – picked out the dress the night before

This dress amuses me. It looks like nothing on the hanger, and on me – if the wind blows in the wrong direction – it can make me look like I am in the family way, to put it delicately.

However, I am always attracted to unusual cuts. This dress had a minimal, Grecian feel, and I particularly liked the belt. It was white (a non-colour I love) and the billowing linen promised to keep me cool on the hot days of an Australian summer. It is by Australian designer Karla Spetic, and I happened upon it in a sale store that popped-up for a brief time in Chapel St.

My red earrings are carved cinnabar beads from a shop in Bridge Rd, Richmond, and still give me good mileage many years later. The red frames of the sunglasses sport a leopard print; I scored them from a Frenchwoman on eBay.

The dress certainly delivered on its promise – and I have at least one maternity outfit at the ready!

Items:

Dress: Karla Spetic
Earrings: Chinese import shop
Hairclip: Paris Mode
Watch: Kenneth Cole
Sunglasses: vintage
Shoes: Zoe Wittner

An Entirely Healthy Obsession With Hats

I could almost open up my own hat shoppe. Although I haven’t actually counted exactly how many hats I own, all these hatboxes are full of them, and I possess more than what is hidden from view in this picture. At time of press, my sister Blossom is still storing some boxes for me, and I also keep those hats in current rotation stacked on a milliner’s block on my tall boy. Oh, and there are a few more cocktail hats and headpieces in a prop box.

I have loved hats for a very long time. Most of them are vintage, found in opportunity shops or vintage boutiques all over Victoria. The oldest dates from the 1900s (or so the eccentric seller informed me); I actually used to wear it. From the same place in Castlemaine, I bought a 1920s hat with faded black gabardine trim; I wore it to my grandmother’s funeral many years ago. Other hats I have bought on eBay, from the UK and the US: quite a few tulle frivolities that have already featured in this journal.

It is too bad that there are few specialty hat shops open for business nowadays – it must have been a wonderful experience to shop in them in their heyday. Also glove shops. I would love to own a couture pair of kid gloves – just imagine!

Below are some images of boutiques from the golden age of hat shoppes.

(Left) 'Chez la Modiste', c. 1895; (right) 'The Hat Shop', August Macke, 1913

Hat Shops
Buying a hat is not something to be undertaken lightly. It requires thought, consideration and professional advice. In the days when hats were an essential part of everyday life, there were often only a few yards between one millinery establishment and another on the fashionable streets of Europe and North America.

In order to compete, milliners had to provide a high level of service. The good milliner was expected to be familiar with the social life of her customers as well as being au fait with the latest fashion developments in Paris. It was no use creating hats that were the ‘dernier cri’ if they were not suitable.

Milliners in major cities not only made their own creations, they also frequently imported expensive French original models. Their success in a highly competitive field rested on the speed of their reaction to fashion’s changes: it was essential to stock the latest novelty trims and ribbons as quickly as possible.

Images and text from Hats – Status, Style and Glamour by Colin McDowell, Thames & Hudson, 1992; pp164–165.

If you are interested in millinery and live in Melbourne, Australia, visit Torb & Reiner’s, a place I know of thanks to an American friend of mine.

Hot off the sewing machine

Garment labels perhaps aren’t very important in the grand scheme of fashion, but they do show a designer’s forethought in the overall impression his or her label creates.

Certainly I am not one to keep them unless they are very special, but these labels delighted me. They are both constructed from fabric – or should I say deconstructed? With threads dangling, they have a lovely unfinished look, as though the garments they were attached to were rushed hot off the sewing machine (mid-protest) and straight to the boutique. Whatever the case, they are several steps up from the dull cardboard squares that usually suspend from new clothes.

I also love the classic red and white, a colour combination I am always drawn to. As tactile as these were, I couldn’t bear to toss them in the bin. I shall actually recycle them as bookmarks, and give them a new lease on life.

What I actually wore #0020

Serial #: 0020
Date: 27/01/2009
Weather: a sweltering 36.4° and this was at 6pm!
Time Allowed: 10 minutes – shower, dress, go!

I had a date with Guy Pierce at the end of January. Oh alright, the date was with my cousin, who works at the MTC and got me a freebie to see Poor Boy. Nevertheless, I had to rush home in the stifling heat of a summer afternoon, quickly shower and change and then calmly, unperspiringly walk to the theatre in Southbank. So to save time, it behoved me to mentally assess my wardrobe on my walk home.

I would wear my white silk Montana dress. Of course, being such a hot evening, silk was probably not the best choice, but I was determined to wear it. It was a special dress, and I had only worn it once before. I had for years admired it in Cleg’s… in the Vogue Designer patterns book before I finally purchased it. I adored its A-line shape; the funnel neck; the cap sleeves. And the matching lightweight coat was lovely too.

…white silk! Could I be trusted not to spill red wine, or drop some deep-fried hors d’oeuvre on it?

I had decided I wanted white silk crepe for the dress, and found the fabric online for US$40 a yard, a quite reasonable price. (I also purchased some lovely taupe coloured linen for the matching coat for around $7 per yard, compared with $90 per metre for Irish linen in Cleg’s; mine was of no lesser quality.) When the fabric arrived in the post, I was terrified by how beautiful the silk was – I mean, white silk! Could I be trusted not to spill red wine, or drop some deep-fried hors d’oeuvre on it?

My darling sister Blossom sewed both garments beautifully for me – the coat, made from hardy linen – has seen much more wear. (I never intended for them to be worn together: that would be far too matchy-matchy for me.)

That hot afternoon I slipped the dress over my head, and chose my white wedges to wear with the dress. The neckline of the dress required simple jewellery, so I went minimal with slender toothpicks of silver. My cute Burberry bag was my other designer item, a surprise present from X back in December. I hadn’t worn it anywhere special yet, so a date with Guy seemed to fit the bill.

So I gingerly walked to the theatre along the Tan, an incongruous sight amongst all the joggers, and made it home again late that evening, the dress none the worse for wear. And now it hangs demurely in my closet, waiting for its next outing.

Items:

Dress: Montana
Earrings: Roun
Watch: Kenneth Cole
Rings: Roun, Ian Potter Centre Gallery Shop
Bag: Burberry
Sunglasses: Agnès B
Shoes: Scanlan & Theodore

Essential Beauty Tips I

I am sure you have read umpteen magazine articles on how to correctly apply foundation, but, inspired by my observations on the street, I feel it is high time for another lesson. The magazines are obviously behind with current trends.

Firstly, apparently you are supposed to choose a foundation that most closely matches your skin. This is rubbish!

None of this swiping of three colours along your jawline and actually going out into daylight armed with a mirror. What a waste of time. Your best course of action is to go directly to the supermarket and purchase a cheap liquid foundation – preferably one that is securely wrapped in plastic packaging so that you cannot check the colour at all.

Now, when it comes to applying your makeup, the aim is to create an artificial mask, so that every trace of humanity has been utterly obliterated. After all, skin – the body’s largest and ugliest organ – needs oxygen to thrive, and we want to clog its pores as much as possible. So cake that foundation on at least 2–3mm thick. Don’t worry about running out of makeup in a week: remember, it’s from the supermarket and cheap to replenish regularly.

The other very important technique to perfect is that of finishing with a hard line. Do not, under any circumstances, blend the makeup into your jawline. There must exist a clear demarcation of colour between your face and your neck (see illustration above).

And don’t forget that natural glow! It too must be eradicated. Here, mineral powder is your friend. Apply it with a lavish hand.

And with that, you’re all set – literally and figuratively.

~

In next week’s Essential Beauty Tips we are going to tackle the difficult question of lip liner.