A Hat Makeover

Whilst dusting off my hatboxes months ago, I discovered quite a number of hats that were past due for the dustbin. This was one
of them.

It was the trimming that offended me most; making the hat look like something a dowager duchess would wear. The silhouette bothered me also, with its high crown and narrow brim – so early Nineties. In spite of this, it vaguely reminded me of the hat Audrey Hepburn wore in Breakfast at Tiffany’s, with a length of cream silk encircling its crown. That couldn’t be bad.

…the hat looked like something a dowager duchess would wear.

I decided to rip off the faux hydrangea and raffia that so displeased me and see what I could contrive.

Several staples and shreds of raffia later, I held the denuded headgear in my hand. A marked improvement already. I whipped a lace-embroidered cream scarf into action and surveyed the result. A reasonable facsimile, I decided.

Compare my before and after to Audrey’s:

(Left) Audrey with Rex Harrison in ‘My Fair Lady’; (right) with George Peppard in ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’.Still, made-over or not, I knew I would not wear it. The hat was destined for charity; a bit like Eliza Doolittle. Perhaps someone else would fall in love with it.

The Art of Monochrome

I have a long list of favourite colours. The colours themselves don’t change, but sometimes the order does. For many years red came first. Now it is turquoise.

There are also colours that I particularly like in combination: black and white, red and white, and also dark green and white. (For some reason the last particularly makes me think of summer.)

I generally don’t like to wear black with colours; it reminds me too much of the brash Eighties. I do like it however, worn with grey, and with white.

Black and white is obviously a classic pairing. It is such a striking combination of opposites, but you do want to get the balance right. Once, when I was a teenager, I wore a black top with a white skirt with black stockings with white shoes. That was an error. And I realised (to my mortification) while I was actually still out wearing it. I never did that again.

Shape and proportion are important: I love the drama of this white coat-dress. The mandarin collar and peaked shoulders are gorgeous, and the multitude of buttons infuriating. My little collection of black and white accessories is as punctuation to an eloquent line of prose.

The bag, entirely woven from black and white plastic beads, is the exclamation mark.

Ornaments That Keep on Giving

Wondering what to do with all your Christmas ornaments now that the festivities are over?

Don’t throw them out! Yes, you can recycle them to use next year, but FIRST here’s a nifty idea to give them a second life: turn them into earrings!

These adorable little matryoshka glass ornaments are vintage 1950s, and travelled all the way to me in the Antipodes from Russia with love.

Battered and scratched as they are, they are still shiny like sweets, too delicious to be put away yet. I don’t know who delighted in them first, but I’ll be hanging them again and again – on ears as well as trees.

That’s what I call ‘tricycling’!

An array of vintage 1950s Russian glass Christmas ornaments, found on eBay.

Happy New Year!

Well, it’s been a year of highs and lows for me in many respects, but every moment I’ve spent working on this fashion journal has been a pleasure. I’d like to thank you all for reading, and hope you’ve enjoyed my fashion adventures as much as I have.

Whether you’ll be dancing up a storm under disco lights or partying slow-style – as I read about today in the latest issue of Australian Grazia, (wear your favourite dancing shoes regardless) – I hope you have a fabulous New Year’s evening!

Here’s to slam-dunking it in 2010!

P.S. Don’t forget to check out the Outtakes & Extras gallery as I couldn’t decide which was my favourite pic!

Shoes For Me!*

Shoooes for meeeeeeee! Isn’t Uncle Nick just the best? I knew he wouldn’t forget my Christmas present, just because he has a squajillion other girls to look after.

Christmas started late at our place, what with Prancer and Dancer locking antlers over a cookie over Amsterdam, and then Rudolph went and got his hoof stuck in someone’s chimney. Uncle Nick was a bit flustered when he got back at half-past five in the morning, so we let him sleep in a bit.

I hope you had a lovely Christmas and are going to bed happy like me. (And if, er, by some unforseen accident you found only one Jimmy Choo in your stocking, please write to me, not Santa!)

Kisses.

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