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?

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Shoes shoes shoes…

Enough said.

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Anouk Aimee

Boudoir

The lighting in Marie Claire Italia’s Boudoir editorial is sheer magic, mirroring the softness and romance of the clothes and settings with its muted golden tones. I’m reminded of indolent  upper-class country degeneracy as described in books set in 1920s Britain (though obvi the clothing evokes a different period.) I’m having fun filling in the story–the heroine here, played by Sophie Vlaming, is a bored ice queen who discovers her lusty side through either a lesbian fling or through the teachings of a degenerate chum, depending on how you read the pics. I’ve been trying to come up with a name for her. Something like Patricia or Charlotte. The result, through photographer David Bellemere’s lens, is dreamy and saturated in golden light. The shots are as pretty as the clothing.

Still pondering her name… I’ll have to come up with something soon, or I’ll just have to call her Fenella as a joke.

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1957 Dior

A little mid-day eye-candy, courtesy of My Vintage Vogue.

Best Ketchup Ad Ever.

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…for a sweetheart of a figure

I love old lingerie ads. There’s something so sweet and innocently naughty about the pictures and the copy, with all the fresh-faced girls giving saucy looks over the prim underthings they’re modelling. These are all from the Formfit line, and are such a pleasure to see– relief from the slack jaws and bulging implants all too prevalent in modern ads. I love the coquettish glances and the unabashed enormity of the garments. So much fun to see.

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On a bicycle built for ten…

Vintage Vogue Covers: 1913-1919

I was snooping about through the Condé Nast Website when I saw that they had copies of their old covers for sale. The entire selection was most definitely covet-worthy, but what particularly obsessed me were the covers from the nineteen-teens. They give such an interesting look into the world of the time. The illustrations, mainly by Helen Dryden and George Wolfe Plank, are stunningly beautiful by themselves, but it is the subject matter that particularly fascinates me. It’s beautiful to see the profusion of exotic themes, and the prevalence of mythological and folkloric elements. I objectively knew that these were the trends of the decade, but it’s a whole other matter to see them in full colour and to actually imagine women buying these magazines and inserting some of this style into their lives.

I had a little thought process about the lack of any reference to major events of the time period– namely, World War 1– but then I realised that I actually found it reassuring to see Vogue stick so firmly to its escapist guns. Import from France banned? No issue! Fashion goes on.

1930s Shanghai

Shanghai in the 1930s has always seemed to be a impossibly romantic place. By then, it was the fifth largest city in the world, filled with the glorious cultural mixture from its colonial past. Its bustling ports and the opium trade made it the centre for business in Asia. Foreigners flocked to the city, giving it a foreign population of nearly 70,000 people. It became known as “The Paris of the Orient.”

Since the time, it’s served as an inspiration for an endless variety of things, with its unique mix of cultural influences, and the romantic mixture of seedy gangsters, fabulous wealth, and political scheming. Some of my favourite films are set there (go out and see Lust, Caution right now if you haven’t… though be aware that’s it’s very explicit in parts.) I’ve also always been so inspired by the fashion I see from pictures there. The mixture of traditional Chinese elements with Western influences produces some truly beautiful results.

All this is to say that I was dreamily searching around the web today for pictures of Shanghai in the 1930s, when I came across this photoset on Flickr. It’s from Natalie Zee Drieu, who really does have one of the most glamourous grandmothers of all time. These photos are treasures, showing what I at least envision as to be the mood of the time. I feel rather odd putting up pictures of someone else’s grandmother, but hopefully if she sees it she’ll understand that it’s done with nothing but respect and amazement for the beauty of the pictures. I wish I could know more about this woman… what interesting stories she must have from this time!

Natalie Zee Drieu also runs Coquette, which is a marvellous fashion blog.