Finishing touches

I took an intensive haute couture sewing  and patternmaking class last fall, taught by a tiny old seamstress we called Signora. We sat at workstations in serried rows for hours at a time while she paced about the room, examining our work and holding forth on the subject du jour. It was fantastic. Very rigorous, but just what I wanted.

As the Resident Foreigners, my friend Astrid and I were given many lectures on why traditional Italian tailoring enjoys the reputation it has (and let me tell you, there is WORK that goes in to properly tailoring something!) A constant refrain from Signora was “Rifiniture!” The finishing touches. She showed us the extra steps that made a hand-made garment into a work of fine craftsmanship. It’s all about the little thoughts that make a garment truly special.

That’s why I’m particularly drawn to vintage tailoring, such as with the suit above. The perfect seam on the waist and the buttons at the back are beautiful touches, showing that the garment was thoughtfully constructed. I’m working on building a skeleton wardrobe right now, of perfect base pieces, and it is these careful details that I’m looking out for, such as a well-made hem or something to make the piece more beautiful and unique. I think I might be done with fast fashion, except for pops of trendiness. Quality and thoughtfulness are becoming more and more important to me. How do you feel about this?

[Image via]

Stalking Vidal Sassoon

My hair is curly, and I look like a pin-head with short hair  but if I could pull it off, I’d march straight to the hairdresser right now and demand a replica of one of these sleek Vidal Sassoon cuts.  I’ve lusted after them for years. The first time I chopped my hair short, I was sure that I would magically be transformed into one of these androgynous Sixties gamines. Tragically, I hadn’t factored in being twelve, with a face-full of braces and rower’s shoulders. I looked androgynous all right, but not in any good way. I lacked the requisite frailty to pull off the look.

Every couple of years, I’d happen across a picture of Sassoon at work and feel the familiar compulsion to either pick up the scissors myself (end result: tears and strange short spots in hard-to-reach areas) or to hightail it to the local hairdresser (result: strange mushroom crop). I’ve learned my lesson over the past few years and am rocking the long sexy boho wavy thing. Still, looking at these pictures and these exquisite cuts, I’m feeling a sudden urge to start scrutinizing my face shape. Maybe something subtle will have changed in my bone structure and hair texture to allow me to chop it off into a sexy angular crop? Maybe? This time around? Pretty please?

Future vintage

There’s something satisfyingly retro-Barbie-future-chic about this cover shot of Sasha Pivarova. It looks like a still from a Barbarella spinoff. Our fearless heroine here could be another emissary from Planet Earth sent to explore the universe to see what other exciting discoveries can be brought back from backwards planets. She doesn’t seem to possess the charm and spunkiness of Jane Fonda, though, and she seems like she might be in some sort of distress in this picture, so this imaginary film of mine might be doomed to the cult shelf of an indie video store. Students would check it out to laugh at the cheesy plot and to coo over the awesome outfits. Sorry, Sasha, you’re no Barbarella. But you do clean up awful nice.

Sasha Pivarova by Steven Meisel for the cover of Vogue Italia, March 2007.

[via]

Hair-raising

I’m in awe. How much hairspray went into this?

Also, her glasses are awesome.

[via]

Shoes shoes shoes…

Enough said.

[via]

Inspiration

I keep returning to this shot. I love all the standout elements of the outfit– the coat, the worn leather of the bag, the pop of the headpiece– especially against the cobblestones. I’m so inspired to start amassing an collection of vintage scarves and learning a million ways to tie them.

[via]

Land Girls

I have a secret obsession with all-girl institutions. Growing up a tomboy, I’d read about British boarding schools and daydream about the joys of bosom friends and uniforms. When I actually went away to boarding school, some of my most fondly-remembered times were after hours in my all-girls dorm, where we’d cram ourselves in to a tiny little room barely big enough for a microwave and an ironing board and gossip the night away. I was never a very girly girl, but my imagination was always captured by instances of female camaraderie.

Recently, when thinking about women banding together, the Land Girls, or the Women’s Land Army, keeps popping insistently into my thoughts. These were the women who took over the agricultural jobs in the UK during WWI and WWII– a cow-milking answer to Rosie the Riveter. They were generally young girls who came in from the cities, rolled up their sleeves, and set about serving their country by making sure the  while the men were away at war. They plowed fields, tended crops, and turned trees into telephone poles. They were sexual revolutionaries and looked damn good doing it.

They were made famous through things like Angela Huth’s charming book and the subsequent film and  BBC adaptation (all of which I strongly urge you to pick up for a bit of period fun.) Land Girls were classic examples of cool girly style: badass enough to leave their homes and take up work on a farm, but still managing to  maintain an iconic freshly-scrubbed sexiness. Most of them tended to be pretty young girls, out away from home for the very first time, so you can just imagine what sort of racy stories they had to tell!  I love my mental pictures of rosy-cheeked lasses, freshly turned out in their practical little uniforms, heartily hauling barrows before putting on a quick slash of lipstick and heading off to town to flirt with the few boys left around. I’m sure I’m romanticising it quite a bit, but the accounts I’ve read of the time point to incredible adventures and stories of girls managing to be strong together at a time of great national hardship. What a time they must have had!

I’ve assembled a collection of pictures so you can see for yourselves the charm of the Land Girls.

The uniforms. How awesome is she?

Being inspected by the Queen!

America had Land Girls too. I dig the cute utilitarian outfits.

Reunion of former Land Girls. How much fun would it be to go out for a drink with them and hear their stories?

[via 1, 2, 3 (interesting interview), 4 (awesome resource), 5 (BBC site full of interviews and fun facts), 6 ]

Presenting: Obywatel Kane

I’ve been thinking about movie poster design lately, and kept finding my mind being brought back to this Polish poster for Citizen Kane. It’s not the my usual style, but I think it’s so much unexpected fun. I’d expect this to be something of a spoof piece, designed recently, rather than an actual one-sheet for the film. Polish film posters always have such charming twists to them, and a great style (not to mention the personal nerdy pleasureI get out of sounding out the Polish words and trying to decipher them… ahhh the joy of having been a Russian major). I’ll try to feature more of them soon.

Channelling…

 

That’s it. This woman is going to be my inspiration today, red chiffon wrap, bored look and all. I do think her look is just what I need to add some zing to my day. What is a “Snow-Ball of Fire”, anyway? I’m intrigued but slightly terrified.

[via]

Role Model

I have a whole plan for when I’m 80. It involves  a motorcycle, a great wardrobe, younger lovers and general eccentricity. Perhaps a greyhound and a sword-cane. All the things I don’t or can’t properly indulge in now (though I can drive said motorcycle).  I’ve always found old women to be the epitome of cool. Their lives have made them a treasure trove of awesome stories, (I just got to hear my friend’s tales of her grandma’s life in Manchuria under the Japanese occupation… fascinating!) sage advice and shameless quirks. Most of all, 80 years on the planet pretty much guarantees that whatever clothes you end up . I’ve always loved seeing old Italian women when I’m home, in their perfectly refined coats and dresses, and aspire to dress like them. At the same time, I also find it endlessly apppealing when a woman has spent her life accumulating unique pieces and combining them in new and inspiring ways. That’s where Iris Apfel and her collection come in.

I remember first seeing her in a magazine spread a few years ago, and just fixating on her trademark big round glasses, which somehow managed to stand out to me through the splendid visual clamour of her clothing and jewelry. Then this weekend, amidst glorious girly bonding with one of my dearest friends, it was mentioned that there was an exhibition of her clothing at the marvellous Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. (Aside– if you’re ever in the area, go! The museum is a treasure trove of beautiful objects, and offers a fascinating insight into New England trade culture in the past, notably, beautiful Asian and Native American artwork.) We whipped out the laptops and rediscovered her and her wardrobe– along with paper dolls!–  and spent a good couple hours poring over the website. Or rather, constructing ensembles of our own out of the things they had to play with.

There are many wonderful things about her– firstly, that she is not the idle society wife that springs to (my) mind when the words “clothing collection” are heard. She’s accumulated a lot of clothing, but she has also turned her eye for aesthetics outwards from the fun-filled costumes she crafts for herself to a successful career as an in-demand interior decorator. Aesthetics is a whole lifestyle with her.

She also started the Old World Weavers textile company with her husband, Carl, drawing inspiration from her widespread travels for their replica period fabrics.

What I love most of all about Iris’ approach to clothing is how she manages to break free of her pieces’ backgrounds and use them simply as colours and textures, rather than thinking she needs to stay married to a certain kind of look. The result, with all the unexpected elements is beautiful and unusual. I also really enjoy her stated dislike of fine jewellery. I’ve always found myself much more attracted to organic forms and semi-precious stones than to faceted gemstones (though I wouldn’t turn down an Indian-style necklace made of gemstones) and I applaud anyone who agrees with me on this. It’s a much more interesting look. And I covet this turquoise and bearclaw necklace intensely.

Anyway, poke around and enjoy these other excerpts from her wardrobe, and be sure to go to the Peabody Essex website and play with the paper dolls!

Travel outfit, made with Old World Weavers fabric, custom-woven on 19th century looms. Because why shouldn’t you travel in head-to-toe tiger-print velvet?

And on top of everything, she and her husband are the cutest couple ever:

[via 1, 2, 3]