The Festival of Vintage in York - when I go shopping crazy (by my standards)

This weekend I, with TheVintage News, made my way up to York from Brighton to cover the Festival of Vintage.  I'd been to the Epsom edition of FOV last year but sadly didn't have any money then so was unable to pick up any goodies.  This time however, I'd put a little money aside so I could splash some cash (in the end I spent less than £70 but I felt giddy with extravagance nonetheless!)

Rather than tell you about the event (you can watch the newsreel when it comes out for that) I thought I'd show you a few of the things I bought.

Oooh, what could they be?

As some vintage fairs (especially ones as large and well curated as FOV) can be quite overwhelming with the sheer amount of nice stuff on offer, I decided to give myself a list so I actually bought things I wanted!  My list consisted of: a dress to wear for my birthday night out (where I will also be judging a twist competition, you know, as you do), a handbag, a novelty brooch and some cream gloves.  As you can see below, I did pretty well!

From instagram, where all the photos live...

The main thing I wanted to find was a dress for me to wear for my birthday next month.  I found an amazing English-made suit by Meredith Couture (and originally sold at Alexandrine Couture in Nottingham - nice to get some vintage that's not from America!).  I think it's late 1940s or possibly early '50s but I'm not completely sure.  It's a velvet halterneck wiggle dress with a matching hip length jacket.  The burgundy velvet is complemented by some cream lace around the collar, pockets and the neckline of the dress.  From the same stall I got a cream beret which as luck would have it, matches perfectly with my new outfit...

 

I assure you my nails have gold tips and (for once) aren't chipped

 

I've been needing a new handbag for a while, I only have one and it's bright red so doesn't go with a great deal!  I found this gorgeous cream one from Raiders Vintage, I just love the shape - the crochet ties in nicely with the suit (I can see an outfit forming...)

I saw a (quite expensive and not really worth it) fan brooch earlier in the day and thought, 'wouldn't it be nice to have a fan brooch, considering I make fans'.  And lo and behold, I found this one which was even nicer.

As I was just as I was about to leave, I spotted a plastic box full of bullet bras (at Dreamdate) and was lucky enough to find a black Triumph beauty in my size.  I think it's probably '60s, Triumph changed to Triumph International in 1959 but I can't find out anything more about the exact model (Exquisit Plast. anyone?)

And just as an aside, after I'd interviewed the lovely Anastasia from V&OAK magazine, I was flicking through the latest copy and I saw not one but three pictures of one of my fans!  I painted it a few months ago for Naomi Thompson and Liz Tregenza's upcoming book (another in the hugely successful Style Me Vintage series) and had forgotten all about it so it was a lovely surprise to see it in print.

 

 It was lovely to meet some of you in York.  Who else was at the Festival of Vintage?  Did you pick up any bargains?

And a gratuitous shot of my mug

*I did a photo shoot today wearing most of my new purchases, I'll post a link as soon as they're ready!

Amber Butchart's Fashion Miscellany - a review (I know, two in a row)

In advance of interviewing Amber Butchart later this week (more of that below), I was lucky enough to be sent her new book, Fashion Miscellany.  Before even opening Fashion Miscellany, you are struck by how beautifully it is presented, with a gorgeous hardback cover (in dare I say it, cerulean) and traditional gold lettering.  The book is organised much like a glossary and as such is easy to dip in and out of.  It is full of so much interesting information and covers all areas of fashion, from youth subcultures to tailoring terms, and fashion documentaries to Karl Lagerfeld's cat!  The tone of the book is very conversational, like a friend imparting a fact they've just learnt over tea and cake.

The book is also dotted with quotes regarding fashion and style from luminaries such as the ever quotable Coco Chanel and Oscar Wilde.  One of my favourites is "Style is the simple way of saying complicated things", said by Jean Cocteau (I also love Sophia Loren's "A woman's dress should be like a barbed wire fence: serving its purpose without obstructing the view"). 

So if you are interested in fashion history, learning more about the terms used or want a comprehensive index of the most influential fashion photographers throughout the past century, then this really is the book for you.  It was a joy to read Fashion Miscellany, and I'm sure I'll be looking up some of the facts now and again.  Congratulations to Amber as I hear Fashion Miscellany has almost sold out and is going into reprint and after having read it, I'm not surprised! 

*Bonus*

I'll be interviewing Amber this Friday at Puttin' on the Glitz at the British Library for The Vintage News, at a talk she is giving (along with Christopher Laverty of the Clothes on Film blog) on fashion in the 1920s and '30s.  There is also a cocktail party afterwards, hosted by our good friends The Vintage Mafia with entertainment from The AlexMendham Orchestra and hair and makeup from Pretty Me Vintage.

The eyes have it... A Bésame review

I've long had my eye on Bésame goodies since I first saw the gorgeous art nouveu packaging in What Katie Did.  I occasionally use the cream rouge (which is lovely) but had thus far not used any of their other products, so when I was sent their new Mascara, Eyeliner and Eyebrow Cake Colour, I was excited to try it.

 

Available in brown or black (I chose brown), and inspired by a 1930s cake mascara, the colour comes in a little palette that you must activate with water before applying.  It comes with a double ended brush - one side is a mascara wand, the other an eyeliner brush and it usually retails for $25 (not sure about the UK price).

 

I'm always slightly dubious about products that claim to 'do it all' and I think this does very well on two of the three counts.  After getting the consistency right (it took a while to work out the right amount of water to use) and trying not to get it all over my hands, I first used the wand to coat my lashes with a fairly thin but even layer.  I'm used to wearing black mascara with a thicker consistency, so it was a much subtler look than what I would normally wear.  I think it would particularly suit someone with a very fair complexion or someone that wanted their lashes to be slightly enhanced but remain natural looking.

I look so grumpy...
This is after doing my lashes and my eyebrows

Next I tried colouring my eyebrows.  I wasn't really that keen on the effect, I didn't feel that I could get as accurate a shape as I would've wanted (especially as I like to change the shape of my 'brows with my makeup). 

 

 

  

I really liked the application of the eyeliner (and more so the brush). It did take a few layers to get opaque coverage, but it was very easy to get a nice shape.  Because of when I put it on, I didn't wear the makeup for that long, but I did give it a quick rub to see if it stayed put and I must say it did pretty well.  It's a nice and gentle formula and I had no trouble taking it off with makeup remover wipes at the end of the day.

 

It's handy to have one little box that can sort out your eyeliner, lashes and brows, especially when travelling.  I think the eyeliner in particular is really good, however, I probably wouldn't use it for my eyebrows unless I was in a real fix.

 

The mirror got quite messy after only one try!

 

Have you tried the cake mascara, or any other Bésame products?

* I haven't edited the photos at all so you can get a good idea of the colour
 

 

An update and a few tattoos

I have been quite absent from the world of blogging recently, but all for very good reasons!

I've launched a new, atomic inspired collection over on my etsy shop, and blog namesake - The Vanity Case...

The lovely Jeni with the 'Atomic Baby' fan

 

My fans have been featured in a photoshoot with Frantic About Frances and Acid Doll (photos to follow shortly)...

Some of the new designs that were featured...

I recorded a tutorial on how to get a big ol' beehive, you may have seen a few photos in my last blog post.

 

My giant egg of a hairdo

I've recorded another show on mixcloud, this one is all about the birds and the bees...

 

There are some very exciting plans afoot involving The Gin Slingers and The Vintage Mafia, so watch this space...

One of Hanson's pictures from Rhythm Riot (sadly missing Tiny Flopsy).
We beat up a rival gang after this was taken.

So, as I haven't posted anything on here for such a long time, I thought I would put up a couple of photos from the Brighton Tattoo Convention which I attended at the weekend for The Vintage News.  There are more photos here if you like what you see

 

 

Shades. Inside. Getting a tattoo. Too cool.

 

Hopefully, I'm going to have a bit more spare time coming up so I'll try to get back to posting more than once every 6 weeks how many other bloggers have said this...?)

 

Did any of you attend the Brighton Tattoo Convention, did you get any work done? I was tempted, but not this time...

All ratted up like a teenage jezebel

I have a dream when I close my eyes, I wish my hair was 10 feet high...

I had to stop for food while I did mine. Back-combing sure takes a while!

 

Those of you who follow me on instagram *waves*, you may have seen my hair looking a little bit... bigger than usual a few weeks back.  It was all in honour of a screening of Hairspray (1988) at the Komedia in sunny ol' Brighton which was followed by a bop for all the hair-hoppers and trashy teens (including myself, Hayley and Becca).  Well, after a few Christmas cocktails beforehand we actually managed to miss the screening (woops) but I've seen it so many times, I didn't really mind (I do love a bit of John Waters kitsch-o-rama).  The dance put on by the Big Itch boys afterwards was well worth the trip out in the rain though.  Becca and I even managed to make it into the final two couples of the dance competition - and we got to crack out the Madison!

But anyway, I'm here to write about what I wore, and of course, the hair.  When I heard that there was going to be a John Waters/Hairspray party my first dilemma was, do I go as a Drape from Cry Baby (who doesn't want to be Wanda?!) or one of the teenage jezebels from Hairspray?  Then I decided that I actually just wanted massive hair, so Hairspray it was.  I'd like to say that I had an elaborate plan with detailed setting patterns, paddings and lotions, but in truth, I just back-combed my hair and hoped for the best.  Inspired by an interview with John Waters where he said that all of the actresses' hair in the film was their own i.e. no hairpieces (although I imagine he's not including Debbie Harry's wig-bomb at the end) I decided that just using my own hair was the way to go (also, I have no hair pieces or wigs so that helped make up my mind!) 

Mid 'feathering' as Tracy would say. My arms were getting tired by this point

 So, with quite dirty hair, I set about back-combing as if my life depended on it.  I even took a photo half way through because I'd got bored as it was taking such a long time (an hour and a half from start to finish).  When I had finished creating this halo of hair, I smoothed it down into a beehive with a few curls left down - all held together with A LOT of hairspray.  And here's the finished result...



Sadly, the Christmas decoration wasn't attached

I thought the brooch looked like a suitably festive wreath

 

The back was pretty messy
but I was just shoving pins in and guessing really

 

I thought these looked pretty atomic
(they're actually for wrapping presents)

 I wore the same dress that I'd previously worn to Singing in the Rain as I thought it was just on the cusp of late fifties/early sixties, much like the film...  As the party was just before Christmas, I thought I'd be a little bit festive, so I had some foil decorations in my hair and a lovely wreath-style brooch from the '60s.  I also wore deadstock 1960s stockings and some plain white plimsolls.  I think kitten heels would've completed the look, but alas, I own none.  My makeup was a bit bolder than usual, with darker brows and frosted eyes and lips.

 

You can see my makeup and the sweater-guard a little better here

Dress - handmade early '60s

Cardigan - Zara

Brooch - '60s (a present)

Sweater-guard - made by me from some '60s jewellery 

I want to try more '60s styles in the future, especially as once I'd finished the back-combing, the style didn't take that long.  It did also have the benefit of lasting, completely intact until the next day.  Let me tell you, the brushing out was not fun!  

 

Are there any styles you think I should try or any spectacular 'dos you've had success with?

Penny and Tracy in all their glory

  

And before you ask - there are no 'roaches in my hair - this girl's a clean teen.  Well, teen might be pushing it...

Interviewing the Puppini Sisters...

A couple of weeks ago, I was lucky enough to interview The Puppini Sisters for my job with The Vintage News.  They were mid-way through their winter tour and were stopping off in Brighton at St George's church in Kemp Town.  The start of the evening didn't go quite to plan - their car broke down on the way to Brighton which meant that instead of interviewing them at 6, we eventually had our chat at half past ten.  The ladies were so lovely - you wouldn't even know they'd just spent four hours in a Little Chef!  It did mean that we were able to enjoy the whole concert - with the entire first floor gallery of the gorgeous 17th century church to ourselves.

 

After the concert, with the furniture being packed away around us, I managed to grab a few words with Marcella Puppini, Kate Mullins and Emma Smith.  I must apologise for the wording of some of the questions.  I was quite tired (it was 10.30 and I hadn't had any dinner!) and I basically forgot how to put words in their proper order!

So, the interview...

Sadie Doherty (Me) - Hello, I'm here with The Puppini Sisters. How do you think the gig went?

Marcella Puppini -  It was great fun for us, so if it was great fun for us, there is a good chance that everybody else had fun as well.

Emma Smith - It's definitely a good sign if we're having fun!

 

SD - How has your sound changed since the last album?

MP - Well... we actually evolve constantly.  Obviously, we have a new member in the band; Emma, so that is bound to bring changes and they are all wonderful changes.  And we evolve with whatever we listen to, with whatever we love.  At the moment, we are very interested in four-to-the-floor...

Kate Mullins - Yeah, giving it a disco beat definitely helps [us when performing] live, to give it that energy and people actually then stand up and start dancing to it.

SD - I did notice that quite a few [of the] songs sound different to how are on the album...

KM - We must've done Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy I don't know how many thousands of times... Mr Sandman, you know, all of those kind of songs so many times.  For us, we just need to keep it interesting... and fun so we enjoy singing them.

ES - It's important to keep it varied for our regular audience.  They want to hear a bit of variety, they want to witness our sound changing with the years as well. That's the whole part, the whole point of being a fan of a band - you get to witness their development.

KM - We always write a set list assuming that somebody's come last year and the year before and you want to try and keep it fresh.

 

SD - It's the tenth anniversary of the Puppini Sisters soon, are there plans for a big celebration?

MP - Ooh, we hadn't thought about it, so thank you for that!

ES - Marcella always cooks lamb of leg at any...

KM & MP - Lamb of leg?!

[all laughing]

ES - Lamb of leg?! No, leg of lamb! ...at any kind of celebration, she's whipping out the legs.

MP - Yep, all legs!

KM - Yeah, we'll have to think about it.  We should commemorate it, you're right.

SD - So you have done quite a bit in America (apologies for such poor wording), do you get a different reaction over there?

KM - Yeah

MP - Well for them, it's more... it's part of their heritage, so they know it really well.  Everybody knows who all the sisters groups are.  They say [in an American accent] 'oh, that arrangement, that was The Andrews Sisters, wasn't that The Boswells?' ... 'no, actually that was us'. They really want to get involved.

ES - yeah, they're really in to it, it's a really big deal out there

SD - One of the reasons you've spent a fair bit of time in America is Michael Bublé. How did that all come about?

KM - He asked us!  He said he'd been listening to our Christmas album whilst exercising for the last couple of years and decided to do... well, I think he decided to do one of his own a long time ago. But you know, ended up taking three or four of the same songs as from our album.  And we took that as a nice compliment and then he also very kindly asked us to come and collaborate on Jingle Bells. So we had a fab time, a fab time.

ES - And we're on his new album as well; To Be Loved and that's a track that we did called Nevertheless which is a Dean Martin tribute.

KM - Yeah, he's very talented, [a] very, very nice guy, we've thoroughly enjoyed working with him

ES - Yeah we do love him

SD - Apart from Michael Bublé, you've done a few other collaborations - not necessarily musically, but Vivienne Westwood for the Jilted video and Janie Bryant [who designed] your costumes for the Hollywood tour.  How was it working with them?

KM - She's [Janie Bryant] amazing, she's a lovely, lovely lady as well, we're still in contact.

MP - Yeah, Janie [is] really talented, she's got such an eye and she can capture the look with nothing.  She doesn't need to even get proper vintage, she'll find things that look vintage and she has [the look] completely.

SD - She seems to have really honed her craft working on Mad Men.

KM - God yeah, she knows what she's doing.

MP - And she's really good fun as well.

ES - Which you have to be if you want to hang out with us!

SD - It's really nice watching you live because a lot of bands will just say 'this is this song, here it is', but you really interact with the audience...

KM - Well, today we were slightly hysterical because we broke down on our way here, so there was a lot of pent up 'arrggggh'...

SD - We should say that the car broke down rather than you broke down!

KM - No, no, not us! The vehicle broke down, but inadvertently, we may also have broken down.

MP - We did.

ES - We spent four hours in a Little Chef is Warwick

MP - [a little despondent] I broke down there...

KM - So there was a little bit of hysteria to the banter today, but nonetheless we do always try and keep it as fresh as possible and really try and listen to the audience and interact with how they're feeling.

SD - What is next for The Puppini Sisters?

KM - We've got a lot of plans, we're working with lots of different producers and working on lots of different sounds.

ES - there may be a new album in the pipeline, so watch this space

SD - When you are writing new material, how does the process go? Do you all sit down together or do you go off separately?

MP - It used to be that everybody would write separately and that worked really well.  But then we decided to try writing together a little bit more and that is working brilliantly.  We've been collaborating with other people as well, [it] is always great to bring in fresh ideas.  We tended to be a little one stop shop, each of us - we can write, arrange and produce pretty much - [even] sew the costumes!

MP - We're going to Germany...

KM - We're going to raid the Christmas markets for presents.

MP - And then that's it! Then it's turkeys for about two weeks...

KM - ... Goose! We're a goose band not a turkey band!

MP - Oh yeah, you're doing goose.  I've never had a turkey in my life, I'm Italian - we have pork.  Just as an aside - do with it what you will!
 

Thank you to Marcella, Kate and Emma (and to Tom and Jenny for setting up the interview).

Just in case you were wondering, I was wearing a wool, Betty Levay dress with a lovely grapes/leaves brooch I was given.  I'm also pretty pleased with my hair, I didn't have time to re-set it after the Chap Ball so I just had to brush it out.

 

When my 45s and I took a spin up to London

I have been incredibly rubbish at posting anything recently, and for that I can only apologise.  The reason for my lack of writing is that I've just been so busy - mostly fun things so hopefully I'll get round to writing about them all at some point!

Anyway, I thought I'd write about something I did last Monday (I've still got to write about the Chap Ball and interviewing the Puppini Sisters as well, but I'll get to them).   As I mentioned in my last post, I occasionally DJ and as a result, I was lucky enough to be asked by Diddy Wah to guest on his monthly radio show that goes out on NTS.  Diddy Wah's shows always have a theme and because of my sideline of painting fans for my etsy shop, The Vanity Case, the theme was temperature - keeping cool, getting hot - that sort of thing.  The show itself is recorded in a little booth just off of Kingsland High Street in Dalston and I was asked to take a handful of 45s to play during the show.

Me and Adam (aka Diddy Wah) during the show.

In between the records, we had a little chat about some of the stuff I get up to, mainly DJing with The Gin Slingers, filming with The Vintage News and hand-painting fans for The Vanity Case.  Rather than write much more, I'll leave you with my selection of temperature-tinged tracks.  If you like what you hear, you can listen to the whole show on NTS's mixcloud.  I've also just posted my latest mixcloud show which you can listen to here, and as it's the festive season... it's all about booze!

 

Got the Water Boilin' - Tommy Bruce and the Bruisers (1960).  The b-side to their gravelly rendition of Ain't Misbehavin', Got the Water Boilin' was originally a doo-wop record from 1955 by The Regals, a version that is well worth searching out.

 

Jungle Fever - The Tornados (1962).  Jungle Fever is the flipside to The Tornados #1 hit, Telstar, famously a Joe Meek production, recorded at his home studio on Holloway Road in North London.

 

Chills and Fever - Jet Harris (1962).  There are many great versions of Chills and Fever (including Tom Jones' debut single) and this one was released by Jet Harris just one month after he left The Shadows and is the 'chills' to Tom Jones' 'fever'.

 

Turkish Coffee - Tony Osborne (1962).  I just love this instrumental track from Tony Osborne (who worked as the musical director of The Six-Five Special on the BBC) as it has a great middle-eastern sound.  Fun fact, this is the record I'm holding in the picture above. Oh, and it's also featured in my latest mixcloud.

 

Fever - The McCoys (1965).  Released on Immediate, this much covered song is given the garage treatment as you can see in this clip from US show Hulabaloo.