the dress

Its Vintage dahling!

Leading on from last nights little wander around my favourite Glasgow vintage offerings I move now to boutiques which are further from home.

 My first has to be Lady K Loves. Based in  Brighton  the lovely Miss May makes beautiful neo-vintage wear like this 'pretty as pie' dress which is my favourite at the moment

Next is Stop Staring.com, a huge range of  vintage inspired designs there are too many lovely ones to show, I want them all honestly!

Modelled here by the ever wonderful Bernie Dexter too






I found Daddy-o's a fair few years ago now when I got all rapped up in rockabilly for the first time and bought this beutiful bowling bag from them, I just love the whole site well worth a look!

We'll meet again

50s and 40s vintage styling is, literally, old news. Everyone is doing it, Vintage 'boutiques' are everywhere and its hard to pick where to buy good quality retro style clothing, and decent vintage gear.  So I thought I'd throw together some blogs with recommendations to take us into the summer in swinging style

  Starting us off, I am loving the new Dita Von Teese for Wheels and Doll baby range (as pictured left). Wheels and Doll have been one of my favourites for a long time but these pieces excel, especially this keyhole cardie.

 I love this picture of Suzi Parker  that  I found at Penny Dreadful Vintage ,( above right) This blog links you too a flurry of Vintage lovliness and also Penny Dreadful's  store where pieces like those modelled by Suzi can be purchased at fair prices.



This tea dress (above) in purple taffeta is my current favourite. There is talk im the work place of a new dress code and I have decided if they ban jeans I shall replace my pedal pushers for tea dresses. So technically I NEED this dress...right?...anyway moving on


 Closer to home there are a feel Glasgow jems I would like to mention which have all provided me with vintage goodies over the years!

 Tatty Bon is located on Parnie st and run by the wonderful Lynne Anderson make-up artist and vintage queen and generally all round good gal.

Lynne also designs some recycled hangbags, shoes and even furniture



I love her range of 'ship bags' with 3d ships on the sides
and shall be treating myself to one as soon
as!!

My  next is a new one for me, Vintage Guru on Byres Rd also in Glasgow Its a little boutique rammed full of treasures, some really nice pieces and great prices.

 
Over on the East coast we have Armstrongs .
Along with Glasgow's Mr Ben(left), Armstrongs is a beautiful, well established warehouse of a store where you are
likely to get anything you need be it day to day or costume these guys have been doing in for years and do it (right)

There are a few more but I shall fill you in on those and some online beauties another day

dx

Flapping their wings and learning to fly

I like that it has taken until 2011 for the twenties to come roaring back into the high street. Yeah I know that Betty Boop did it in the 90s and 2008 saw a little spurt of flapper but thanks to Boardwalk Empire it is now blooming under the spotlight.

 


  The twenties made less curvy women feel attractive, boyish figures were in and I think thats what I have always admired about the fashion at that time. Its hard to make sharp shapes and straight lines look soft. Thanks to Coco Chanel's shocking rejection of the long haired corsetted image the first rebellion of femininity was born. Waistlines dropped, skirt lengths rose and the bob was born. Women were liberated and in that time leading up to World War II; drinking, smoking, dancing even voting for christ sake!

Scandals were rife in this age of revolution and non chalance, and though most would hardly touch the front cover of todays glossies, at the time these were shocking events. Affairs, love-ins and petting parties were run of the mill and the concept of 'The Flapper' was born; The new breed of western woman who drove,listened to jazz,and wore what was seen as excessive make up. The young women leaving the 'nest' flapping their wings, learning to fly were seen as a major threat to society. Embracing consumerism, freedom of choice disgarding the rigidity of the Victorian rules set by their parents.

   I remember watching movie ' Bright Young Things', A British, camp affair centred round the aftermath of the twenties cultural revolution.Its a perfact example of the care-free, partying madness that was all the rage -until the war- in late 20s London, a beautiful and touching film its well worth a watch if you like this little pocket of hedonistic history as much as I do.

 The hedonism of the 20s was quashed when the great depression hit after the Wall St crash and the crushing economic hardship of the 30s . Times change and along with them priorities, but I like that there was this first glint of cultural freedom long before the summer of love and the swinging sixties.

And now for something completely different....

During my usual Sunday afternoon perusal of the papers - 

reading the glossy supplements only as always - I came across this extraordinary collection by the Buenos Aires born Photographer Irina Werning. Basically she came up with recreating childhood photographs which she felt personified those subjects personalities as children. 

She made sure each shot was taken at exactly the original location and painstakingly recreated the outfits the subjects were wearing. The set is called Back To The Future and can be seen here. Werning is in the middle of producing a Back To The Future II to be displayed from June this year.

Spring time in Glasgow

  So today was lovely and sunny and inexplicably warm for Glasgow early April, not that I am complaining! I had a stroll around the city centre and caught up with these lovely fashionistas who were nice enough to stop and chat.


  Loving the shape of those specs
and the long cardie tucked under the belt...

 Rocking the RayBans I loved the colour block action and     in orange - very fresh!, and finally a cheeky wee Chanel number there she said she'd 'borrowed' from big-sister - my kinna girl.

Last but not least this girl was kind enough to stop on her way home from work. Loving her hair cut for a start, the chunky knit cardie and chinos combo was in keeping with the more fresh weather we've had this week. Loving the vintage shoes and bag, can't beat that tan leather

For the love of all things fashion. Biba.

The first store, in Abingdon Road in Kensington, was opened in September 1964.

Hulanicki’s first encounter with her new customers was at 10 o’clock on the Saturday morning it opened. "...the curtains were drawn across the window… the shop was packed with girls trying on the same brown pinstripe dress in concentrated silence. Not one asked if there were any other styles or sizes," Hulanicki remarked.

The brown pinstripe dresses were being stored in the shop because Hulanicki’s apartment was overflowing with boxes of clothes for their mail order service. Fitz-Simon dropped Hulanicki at the shop and went to pick up more dresses, Hulanicki went to the bathroom and when she came back the shop was packed. "The louder the music played the faster the girls moved and more people appeared in the shop. I had sold every dress by 11." After the last dress had been sold, people were still lining up inside waiting for the next delivery.

The shops' main appeal was that an average girl in London could, for less than 10% of her weekly earnings, share the look of popular icons of the time such as Cathy McGowan, the 'Queen of The Mods' and presenter of Ready, Steady, Go, a popular TV music show. What was seen on TV on Friday night could now be bought on Saturday and worn that night. It made you feel special. As the Biba style (tight cut skinny sleeves, earthy colours) and logo became more and more recognisable, the more and more people wanted to be seen in it.

The second store in Kensington Church Street opened in 1965 and series of a mail-order catalogues followed in 1968, which allowed customers to buy Biba style without having to come to London.

The next move, in 1969, was to Kensington High Street, into a store which previously sold carpet. Again, it was unique; a heavenly mix of Art Nouveau decor and Rock and Roll decadence. On May 1, 1971, a bomb was set off inside the store by The Angry Brigade, an anarchist group

In 1974, the store moved to the seven-storey Derry & Toms department store, which immediately attracted up to a million customers weekly, making it one of the most visited tourist attractions in the city of London.^[1] There were different departments, and each floor had its own theme, such as a children's floor, a floor for men, a book store, a food market, and a "home" floor which sold items such as wallpaper, paint, cutlery, soft furnishings and even statues. Each department had its own logo or sign, which was based on the Biba logo and had a picture describing the department; these were designed by Kasia Charko.^[2] One of the most popular departments was a "Logo Shop" featuring merchandise adorned with the Biba logos and pin-up art, such as playing cards, match books, and coloring books. The store had an Art Deco-interior reminiscent of the Golden Age of Hollywood ^[3] and non-traditional displays, such as a giant Snoopy and his doghouse in the children's department, where merchandise based on the Peanuts comic strip was sold. The Biba Food Hall was also designed ingeniously, each part being aimed at one particular kind of product; a unit made to look like a dog (based on Hulanicki's own dog, a Great Dane named Othello^[4]) consisted of dog food; a huge baked beans tin can consisted of only tins of Baked beans; a can of "Warhol's Condensed Soup" etc., all foods having individual innovative units. Also at the new "Big Biba" was "The Rainbow Restaurant", which was located on the fifth floor of the department store and which was destined to become a major hang-out for rock stars, but which wasn’t solely the reserve of the elite. Also at the site was the Kensington Roof Gardens, which are still there today.