Unforgettable.

This woman may be the key to understanding where my addiction to vintage began. I first remember seeing Maureen O’Hara in The Black Swan with Tyron Power, when I was a little girl.  My grandfather had a collection of VHS tapes that covered two walls of his living room and he must have recorded every Golden Years of Hollywood moment ever.

I would sit in the semi-darkness in a huge 1950′s vinyl armchair, eating jersey caramels and watching these movies with my eyes out on stalks; my feet not yet touching the ground.  I watched ‘Meet Me in St Louis’ and other little girl kind of movies, but it was these images of beautiful women with their well coiffed hair, their elaborate outfits, and tiny waists being held by dashing men that really captured my imagination.

From that first moment that Maureen O’ Hara came on screen full of fire and style, I just knew the kind of woman I wanted to become.

Okay, so maybe I am a little bit biased, but hey I love my work!  I’ve been having so much fun recently working with all sorts of lovely people to help them find the vintage look they want to achieve.  You may or may not know this, but one of the things I do with myself is offer full vintage styling services. So this means I can often be found doing fabulous makeovers, amazing updo’s, killer cats-eyes, dressing, teaching and all round having a blast making people look and feel their best.

With Spring now well and truly sprung, it is now full on go time for Wedding season as well as all those parties and Spring Racing events.  So my kit and I are working full steam ahead creating loveliness.  Here’s a few shots of a couple of the ladies I’ve been working with over the last few weeks.  I wish I could give you some before shots too, but I’ll have to get some brave volunteers for that!

Here we wanted to create something that had a late 1940′s early 1950′s look to it that was straight forward to achieve and could be worn for everyday.  It is such a romantic and pretty softly curled look worthy of Rita Hayworth or Veronica Lake.

This delightful bride has such a love for the 1940′s and wanted to show her girlfriends what all the fuss was about. So we got together and created some glamorous vintage hair and makeup before they got frocked up to head out on the town. There was so many happy exclamations of, “Oh I look just like my Grandmother when she was young!”

I can’t show you this lady’s face because she is a bride to be and we wouldn’t want to spoil the surprise now would we? She’d asked for a 1940′s updo like the one worn by Sally Jupiter in Watchmen. It turned out just beautifully and we can’t wait to see the finished look with the dress and all.

This last lady was amazing.. we both wished we had a before shot from the day, but she came in with a DIY mohawk that had been growing all different lengths underneath and was so frustrated that she couldn’t do anything with her hair. Knowing she had a big wedding to go to soon and wanted to look very feminine, I set to work et volia! From Mohawk to Marilyn in no time at all! I just love this sort of challenge.

The next few weeks holds even more of this sort of fun as I head to Sydney this week to speak and style up some lucky ladies at the Love Vintage Fair. Then it is off to ‘retro-fit’ some rocking bands, get some Burlesque lovelies sparkling and help a vintage zombie bride make a killer entrance for her Halloween wedding!

Yes, I can be all yours too whether you’re in Melbourne or not. If you need something swanky just drop me a line and we’ll make a date to get you vintage fabulous! You can see all sorts of pics and dates over at my other page Candice DeVille.

The sun here has been beautiful this last week. It doesn’t take much, but it totally changes people’s moods and seems to fill everyone with new inspiration. I’m already dreaming up new outfits and thinking about great adventures to have in them, as well as the usual seasonal reorganisation that hits with a vengeance.  The sort where you want to pull everything out, colour block it, then polish your halo.

Outfit Details

Red Angora Cardigan – Friends of Couture “Hollywood Moment”

Blue cherry dress – Vintage from Ruby Red Dress

Shoes – Target ( many seasons ago)

Necklace and Earrings – DIVA ( from a lovely friend and don’t they work with the cherries well!)

Black belt – Malco Mode

Lipstick – SAVVY “Poppy”

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P.S: Remember you only have one more week to get your entries in to WIN an OSIM foot and leg massager valued at $750!

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No, it isn’t one of the titles to those pulp fiction novels I mentioned the other week, but something even more heart poundingly exciting! Kiss Me Deadly is a boutique UK lingerie label that has come to my rescue with their perfect vintage style underwear.

A woman after my own heart, Catherine who created Kiss Me Deadly, knew that a woman cannot live by high street knickers alone, and so she set out to create something better. For any of you who wear stockings on a regular basis, you’ll know that you can’t just attach them to those ‘bedroom’ type of suspender sets you see in the mall. If you do this and try to go and buy groceries or pick up your children from school, a serious wardrobe malfunction will ensue!  And this is what I love about Kiss Me Deadly lingerie, it is designed with real life in mind.  Yes, it is stunningly beautiful, but it also WORKS!

The suspenders, for instance, are a six strap with good weight metal clips that grip your stockings firmly and sit smooth against the skin. The Vargas dresses smooth out all the bumps, hold it it and make you feel like a million dollars too.  Even the knickers have the perfect high waist and low leg cut that means they sit where they should without riding up or showing VPL. So I’m rather excited.

You may have noticed that Kiss Me Deadly is now a sponsor of the blog, but there is more to this that just me telling you about awesome underwear. Kiss Me Deadly have just opened their web shop which now means you can buy online, but they are also increasing their stockist in Australia. Guess who the new Australian face of Kiss Me Deadly is?….

I can’t show you the super secret pictures just yet, but I can tell you I have spent a lot of time recently lounging around in stunning suspenders, pants with bows and strokable silks… It’s all very exciting really!  Keep your eyes peeled because you may be about to see a whole lot more of me very soon!

Remember the other week we spoke about new ways to inspire an outfit? It was about re-imagining your wardrobe through your dreamscapes and a rather unusual challenge.  The idea was to take four images that represented things you’ve dreamed about and use those colours, shapes and textures to create an outfit for your day.  Considering the state of my dreams this could be pretty risky territory, but what the heck – there’s nothing like stretching the mind a bit.

I was quite surprised by the variety of what you all came up with, especially the colour and texture combinations.

Here are a few of the entries with links back to their original posts where you can see the images that inspired their outfits.

Elena Jay came up with this outfit and dreamscape post on her blog Adventures in ReFashioning.

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The always adventurous Steph at Tart Deco came up with this one

(I’m loving the yellow cardi and red petticoat Steph!)

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Hoffi Coffee even made her own dress and bag for the challenge

Trixie (who I suspect is a bit of a wild woman at heart) came up with this…

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But the winner of the challenge for her spot on use of colour and translating the ambiance of her dreamscape into something infinitely wearable is  Steam Labyrinth for this outfit.  It is part girly fantasy, part utilitarian and a very beautiful resulting mix!

Congratulations!

There will be a special parcel of goodies making it’s way to you very soon!

And I also have a special Runner’s Up mention for Steph of Tart Deco who clearly used all the inspirations for her dreamscape so thoroughly effectively in her outfit – there is a little something for you too!

That was fun… Let’s see what we can come up with next.  I’ll out my thinking cap on for this one as I already have some ideas that will blow your mind.