Turquoise Joy

Considering turquoise is my favourite colour, I really don’t have enough of it in my wardrobe.

Here are two relatively new items to redress the balance:
1. Little genuine snakeskin bag, perfect to carry at lunchtime when I have taken a large tote to work. Found at the Salvos store in Abbotsford for $8.

2. Giant resin rose cabochon ring, on adjustable band. Found on Etsy at Hip Mama’s Jewellery for $12. Here is another!

Monster Fashion

My friend Sapphire and I both love vintage clothes. We both like to dress up. And we are both perfectly happy to clown around in front of the camera. It’s a friendship made in heaven.

We excitedly discussed the idea of doing some B-grade movie photoshoots (Sapphire particularly loves zombie films), and I proposed The Day of the Triffids (right) as our first venture. Sapphire enthusiastically took up the cause.

Obviously some research was required, so I rented out the DVD of the original 1960s movie. I had already read John Wyndham’s book some time ago, and enjoyed it immensely, so the movie was a bit of a disappointment in the way the main female character – a notorious young lady with a reputation for wild partying – was replaced with a wholesome little school-uniformed girl.

Triffid artwork from past decades. (Click on image for larger version.)I was also disgusted (and amused) by the usual histrionics enacted by the other female lead, screaming her head off in the lighthouse, instead of helping her estranged lover fend off the triffid attacking them. Give me a heroine with some gumption! Sapphire, however, took on that role with relish, while I armed myself with a garden rake.

Of course we are both unsuitably dressed for defending ourselves against slobbering cactus hybrids. Those skirts are far too tight to really do anything other than cower in terror against the wall. (AHA! I think I have just stumbled onto the real reason heroines from the old classic movies did nothing but shriek!)

Fashion Notes

Tatiana: vintage 1950s dove-grey dress, R&K Originals (For the Girl Who Knows Clothes), vintage gloves and earrings, Zoe Wittner shoes
Sapphire: own vintage navy shoes; wool top and skirt, belt, vintage gloves, Tatiana’s Closet

Petite Sweet

The Vintage Hat Series: 80s cocktail hat

This little cocktail hat is so Eighties I feel I should be sipping on a Fluffy Duck. When I first glimpsed this tiny confection in a Salvos op-shop, a bowl of raspberries and cream instantly came to mind, so perhaps a Jam Donut cocktail would be more apt.

The base is such a delicious shade of vanilla, but it is the little floral trim – pansies cut from velvet – and veil that make it a simply irresistible mouthful.

A likely suspect. A vintage 80s Victor Costa dress.My guess is that someone wore this to a wedding – perhaps a bridesmaid – with a meringue puff of a dress made from latté ruched taffeta. Or perhaps it was draped raw silk in a delicate shade of oyster? Anyway, at the end of the night (or perhaps sometime on the next day when her hangover wore off, and she had finally removed her mascara), she lovingly returned it to its little box, where it was cradled on a mille feuille of tissue paper… and never saw the light of day again.

Twenty years later whilst cleaning out the depths of her wardrobe, this young woman (now a matron) unearthed the box and pulled out the little hat in delight. She sat and wasted quite a few minutes smiling and reminiscing about the guy (whose name momentarily escaped her) she pashed on the day. She’d thought he was quite good-looking, in his powder blue suit, bolo tie and the…  mullet…

Shuddering, and suddenly coming to herself, she ruthlessly stuffed the hat back into the box and threw it on the floor with all the other old memories that were being donated to the Salvos. Where someone else – maybe a fashionable un-princess – could find and enjoy them.

Straying From the Path of Drabness

I don’t believe in safe fashion. It doesn’t delight me. Safe is boring. Many people wear all black because they feel safe in it; it’s slimming; it’s an easy uniform. They don’t have to think in the morning: if everything is black then everything matches. (Not true: there are different shades of black just as there are in other hues.)

Another reason I wear all black extremely rarely is because I dislike the stereotype that all Melburnians wear only black, especially in winter. I particularly love to wear a brightly coloured coat (red! pink! white!) in the cooler seasons. All the other commuters stare at this assault on their senses as though I have committed some social solecism by straying from the path of drabness.

…stark black and white in graphic shapes is simply brilliant any time,
any season.

And beaded slippers too!All white I love always. And stark black and white in graphic shapes is simply brilliant any time, any season.

So when I stumbled across this wild Seventies wrap-around skirt in a vintage boutique I was thrilled. It is Drama personified. (It also has some rust stains on the waistband, but a belt fixes that.)

Constructed from panels of black and white, it is made from heavy cotton, with black grosgrain ribbon sewn in diagonal bands from waist to hem. A row of Catherine wheels intricately beaded down the front is what places the skirt firmly in the category of luxe 70s boho hippy chic. (As much as I hate that word ‘boho’ for being synonymous with Sienna Miller in the past decade or so, it does apply here.)

The skirt looks equally good paired with a black poloneck jumper (although more predictable). But worn with a black bob it is elevated to iconic heights; I am moved to prance.

All the world’s a stage.

More black and white drama here.

The Ruby Red Bredges

A tiny fashion moment captured last night by the front door: shiny black patent Mary-Janes in a classic flapper style, and ruby-red … ‘bredges’. A cross between wedges and brogues, these little gems are trimmed with red tassels. Both are sweet enough to dance in!

Nine West black patent pumps (with Louis heel) from the Salvos: $14.99
Illi & Otto red patent bredges (with wedges) from eBay: $10.00