My readers are such a lovely and talented bunch! All the little notes and messages I received are read with pleasure and greatly appreciated. It seems that many of you are fantastic creatives in your own right. I know there are a number of musicians, tattoo artists, graphic designers, wordsmiths, and crafters who all read this blog.  So after receiving some wonderful fan art over the last while, I’ve just added a new Super Kawaii Mama Fan Art Gallery Section to this site. A place where you can check out the work of these cool illustrators and click through to go and visit them on their own sites.  Some are commercial artists, and others just like to doodle for fun; but either way I highly recommend that you check out their work and pay them a visit.

Just today I found this gem of a piece in my inbox, from Melbourne based illustrator Lizzie Lamb. I think she’s nailed it, don’t you?!

LOVE!

Thanks so much Lizzie, you made my day!

Well now, June certainly got away from me this time! Unlike so many other industries, Winter seems to be my busiest time of the year, running pillar to post trying to fit everything into fifteen plus hour days, seven days a week. So as penance for my appalling absence this month, I’ve set aside the most of July to catch up on all the things I’ve yet to show you, all the articles half written, and all the video tutorials that are awaiting the editing room.

It’s become clear that my usual planning skills, although pretty darn good, just haven’t been up to the task of the last month; so I’ve decided to bring in the big guns and get myself a copy of the new book by fellow blogger Nicole Avery, “Planning with Kids” from the blog – Planning with Kids of course!  I’ve spent so many hours in airport lounges of late, that reading and browsing bookshops has been like a spotters sport. It’s always smile worthy to see a friends name on the shelves.

I love the addition of the little plastic T-Rex on the cover – that’s often how it feels when you have two (or more) small people after your attention all the time.

In order to make sense of the whirlwind of a month I’ve had, I thought I’d do a little mini photo diary for you over the next few days. Partly to remind you what I look like, I’ve been so absent this month; also in part because it all gets so mad at times that I forget what I’ve done from day to day and it’s nice to look back and take a moment for it all the sink in.

So back at the end of May, I headed up to Queensland for the Garterbelts & Gasoline festival. You’ll remember we had a bit of a vintage shopping tour and all kinds of tiara’d shenanigans. That’s where the next six weeks of craziness began…

Because we like to travel in the style we’re accustomed too (nothing to do with how much luggage we have..) we arrived in the stretch limo, champagne in hand. Yes, I know; it already looks like trouble!

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Oh so demure at breakfast as we fortify ourselves for the day ahead… but you wouldn’t believe what some of these ladies could put away!

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This really had to be seen to be believed, but on Miss Nada’s plate is the biggest single scone known to mankind -and she actually did it!

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Miss Nada, Me, Miss Chrissy and Bonnie Rose – hanging out and shopping up a storm in Mt Tambourine.

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Do we have fun? Ummmm… well I can tell you that onlookers certainly do when we hit the streets!

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The festival had a fantastic little art show, the only disappointment for me is that all the pieces I loved weren’t for sale!

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But of course it wouldn’t be a nostalgia event without the Show n Shine part of the weekend. We ladies are all partial to a bit of vintage transport, and spending the afternoon wandering around through all this shiny, shiny eye candy is sometimes more than you can bare. So of course we make sure to take a few snaps of our favourite to add to the wallet as a reminder of why we need to keep on saving out pennies for a few of these beauties of our own!

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Bonnie Rose shows her wild side.

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Harry Deluxe, the indomitable Rockabilly chanteuse, goes with something red hot to match her red hot voice.

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and me, well I was rather partial to this sleek and dangerous number.

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But what about when the lights go down? Silly question – we have a good old knees up!

Candice DeVille, Bonnie Rose & Helen McLean.

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Yes, indeed I do dance; in fact dancing and shopping are currently vying for first place in my list of thing I love to do.

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Bonnie Rose and I propping each other up after a very long weekend.

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And that’s only one weekend in May! As I said, I’ve lots of catching up to do as I get a chance to go through all my images from the last month, so if there’s something you’d particularly like to see, let me know and I’ll see if I can dig something up for you. And thanks for sticking around while I disappeared!

Xxxx!

Hi there, remember me? Yes it’s been a hectic few weeks with all these events on, and I’m still right in the midst of the chaos. But to make matters worse I’ve also been coping with a total hard drive failure due to insidious spam! There has been so much rubbish going around the internet of late, that it is hard to sort out the important from the pure evil, so if anyone has been emailing and not heard back, or had your messages over looked, I do apologise as things have been in damage control mode.

Moving right along, whilst all this has been happening and I’ve been tech limping along, I’ve also finished two major projects; the first of which I soft launched on the weekend and the other that debuts on Wednesday night!  I’ve been sewing night and day to create my masterpiece for the Mission 65 Fashion event this week. Because I’m such a glutton for punishment and such a mad perfectionist, my creation includes not only all the time for sourcing, designing and machine construction; but also a grand total of 14 hours of intricate hand sewing! There was something rather Dickensian about sitting there from sun up to sun down developing a hump in my back all for the glory of the garment.

I know it isn’t all that fair to be such a tease telling you about this project and have nothing to show, but all will be revealed shortly. I can say this though; my outfit is something you’ll not likely expect and like nothing you’ve ever seen before…. cue dramatic music..

I can’t show you my finished outfit just yet, but I can show you the shopping expedition in the Prahran Mission OP shop where I sourced my materials.

Watched over by Elvis, who, for all intents and purposes could be the patron saint of vintage shopping.

I’m told the event is now a sell out, but there will be all manner of features to come later in the week.

And while we’re on the topic of shopping, here’s a look at the outfit I wore while tackling this shopping quest and a freezing cold Melbourne day.

Outfit Details

Black Woollen Sweater – Country road – Op shop find

Black swing bolero (with pom poms! Love it so much I bought two!) - Mimco

White Scotty Dog Brooch – Peta Pledger

Red and black boucle 1950′s vintage skirt – Circa Vintage Clothing

Shoes – Luca & Marc

Red Rose earrings – DIVA

Lipstick – MAC Russian Red

Oh, and the red hat box styled bag you’ll no doubt be asking about came from Circa Vintage store on Gertrude street, Fitzroy and is made by Glamour Puss. Yes, that’s right, it’s a fantastic repro!

Before I begin, let me say that I had no idea that yesterday post would be such an emotive issue. Indeed, I am aware that representations of Blackamoor’s in all sorts of mediums (including the famous Golly in the Noddy books), have caused much controversy. However, in the context of a vintage collecting blog my thinking is that the beauty of my piece would be appreciated in the same way as if he had appeared on Antiques Roadshow or The Collectors. It seems this is not the case, and hence I’m now having to defend both myself and my beautiful man.

I’ll say this first, as one reader pointed out, it would have been wise to put some sort of disclaimer at the beginning of the post explaining my intentions, I have now done this. However I assumed (that was my first mistake, never assume anything) that my readers know me and as such would have a very good idea of the context and intent of the post. When it comes right down to it, offence  is all about context and intent.

I’ll get right to the meat of it. Yes indeed, there are many representations from history that we find offensive, hurtful, racist and sexist. When we consider their original intent, to mock, belittle or devalue individuals; they are indeed hurtful. But it isn’t their meer existence that causes the problem, it is the intent they are imbued with. And this is why I have no problem having a piece like this in my home; because not only is he highly collectible but I think he is beautiful.

The question that remains under debate is whether having a piece like this (an indeed another reader said that the cartoons in last weeks Raffles post were equally insensitive), glorifies harmful stereotypes and by extension makes me a racist? This is a question one can only answer for themselves, as I believe the answer to this lies as I’ve said, in both intent and context.

To give an example of something else I believe is beautiful but has also unintentionally caused offence and hurt stemming from a similar historical context is this. Once, when all dressed up in my 1940′s outfit, hair done and ready to hit the dance floor; I was told in no uncertain terms just how insensitive this was.  The venue for the dance was my local RSL Club (this is Returned Service Man’s League Club for those of you overseas), and the problem was that by dressing in war era style at a venue where many elderly soldiers went socially, it caused great distress by bringing back memories of the war.

Now where I had only seen beauty and romance (even though fully aware of the historical implications of the period as I am with the Blackamoor), my intent was not to cause distress. My context however, was poorly chosen and so I no longer break out those outfits at venues like that unless specifically requested to.

So I come back to my original point, that of intent and context. This blog is my life, my home and my space. It is one that I choose to invite you all into to share a piece of and over time I feel I’ve gotten to know many of you. And this is why I would share a find like this. Because in the context of both the vintage and collectable subject matter of the blog and my intent in appreciating his beauty, I feel he can still be appreciated (albeit with understanding of his origins) and loved.

The irony in all this talk of giving offence and being offensive, is that through some readers conviction of their viewpoint, they have taken the path of calling my own moral character into question, name calling and frankly causing me more hurt and offence than it is likely the image of the barman caused them.

I realise that you can’t please all of the people all of the time, but neither is my intent to stir up trouble. I know that just about everything I post on a daily basis could cause hurt or offence to someone of another culture, but I rely on the honesty of my intent and the vintage context of this space to give it relevance.

Just as posting images of Gil Elvgren’s pinup work are not intended to glorify the objectification of women, neither is posting the pictures (or simply having in my home) the beautiful Blackamoor barman intended to condone racist attitudes.

So no, I don’t “Think this shit is funny” as one reader accused me of (I have no idea how they came to that conclusion); and I will continue to collect and appreciate works like this. And yes, I will keep him on display on my bar no matter who was to come over for cocktails, as by very virtue of his existence he has now become a symbol of a time passed and a conversation piece in which we can celebrate that passing.

I was so thrilled to have the chance to catch up with friends whilst I was in Singapore, and on of the very first people I had the opportunity to was spend the day with was Valerie of Dweam. We had a whole lot of shopping on the agenda, which given our very different fashion styles was cause for a whole lot of fun!

Knowing that the day was going to involve a whole lot of walking, I planned an outfit that was as cute as it was comfortable.  My fabulous new wedges seen in this outfit post are from Novo.  The skirt I bought specifically for the trip from Forever New just before I left, knowing that it would go with about 10 different tops I own. This little red and white top with the petal bust, is one of my new favourites from Miss Hussy here in Melbourne.  A little red angora cropped sweater from Friends of Couture over the top, kept the chill of the air conditioning at bay. And yes, my camera bag ( from photo jojo) does match the rest of my outfit!

We started out shopping odyssey at ION Orchard as it was just opposite where I was staying in Singapore. Valerie took me to New Look, which over the two floors it occupies, had such a range of outfits and accessories that we both found a whole lot of pieces we loved. In fact, I actually found the cutest 1940′s styled shoes that were so incredible I was doing a little happy dance and went and bought three pairs! (Yes, you’ll see them in another post of shopping haul highlights). Both Valerie and I are mad for accessories, confessing to each other just the extent of our collections as we continued to add to them that morning.

I loved these sparkly bracelets. They came in the most beautiful colours, but sadly I couldn’t get any of them on even though my hands are pretty small, so I left it to Valerie to indulge here.

Given that we are both beauty addicts we’d planned to spend quite a bit of time in Sephora looking at all the cool things you simply can’t get here in Australia. I know it isn’t very sophisticated but I had to know what the Hello Kitty perfumes were all like. This range just won “Best Baby Perfume”… babies wear perfume? I didn’t know that!

Although I’m not a big fan of the fragrance, the new flocked bottles in Gwen Stefani’s L.A.M.B perfumes were too cute!

I’m always torn between spending my money on things that are just cute for cutes sake, even if I know I won’t use them.

I love the way here in Singapore, blogging is just so common that no-one raises an eyebrow at camera antics in store. I do always check with staff if I’m allowed to take photographs though as there is a lot of concern over V.M concepts (and other ideas) being stolen which is far enough. But no matter where we went, if we weren’t the ones taking the photographs, there would be plenty of staff ready with their camera phones and a smile wanting to pose it up.

I was like a kid in a candy store in Sephora, filling my little basket with sparkly treasures. It is total…

Yup – that’s that one!

After I’d given my credit card the speed wobbles in Sephora, Valeria took me over to Bobbi Brown to play with a bunch of new products.  The staff there were simply delightful and we all had a ball playing around in store with different looks, swapping tips and beauty secrets.

All of this shopping and laughing did make us a bit late however, for the next event. We headed out to the Nuffnang Singapore Glitterati Plus event that was being held to mark the new year and a fun way for lots of local bloggers to get together.

Dr Leslie Tay of I Eat I Shoot I Post, was there to speak and share many of his blogging tips as well as his new book. So although we weren’t there in time for the games and guests speakers, we did get a chance to catch up with other local bloggers and a number of fans for yet another photo opportunity. We bloggers are curious creatures and we love an opportunity to get together and discuss our “craft”, as unlike so many other professions, you don’t have colleagues to chat to every day. Many popular bloggers also have full time day jobs, (Dr. Leslie is a family GP) but for me whose other work also tends to be locations based ( as you know I’m a model and hair and makeup artist as well as all the writing) I treasure the chance to catch up with others who do what I do.

After all these adventures I’d promised Valerie we’d get together and I’d show her the ticks of the trade to create my hair and makeup look.  So we set up in my hotel bathroom for a bit of a session, and with Mr SKM holding the camera, set to the business of filming our shenanigans. It is lucky I’ve got a steady hand because we were laughing so much it could have been a disaster!

Here is how the lovely Valerie turned out after a quick 30minute hair and makeup session together.

After finishing off her lovely 50′s styled face, Valerie challenged me to see what I could do with her hair in two minutes. So even with super straight hair, a couple of bobby pins and a few deft moves later, she was ready to head out for dinner.

If you’d like to see and hear all the craziness we got up to, you can see Valerie’s post and video tutorial of the event here.

What a HUGE day! I can’t thank my Singapore friends enough for being so wonderful and hospitable. I always love finding new stores and making new discoveries, but new friends are the best thing of all!