Thursday 23 September 2010

Salute to the 40s... in Chatham?!?!

Last year when I'd first moved down to the glorious area of which is Kent, I found a 40s event at a place called Chatham dockyard, I didn't know anything about the event then and I wanted to go dreadfully! But having only just moved, I hadn't made many friends so I had to give it a miss. When I found out they were doing it again this year I was thrilled and even better I had my man to take me there too! I checked out the website and found out it was 70 years since Dunkirk so it was also a remembrance as well as a jolly good day out!


  So off we went just after midday, I'd dolled myself up to the nines wearing my brand new Vivien of Holloway turquoise pencil dress and Hawaiian wedges, which after my man getting us lost and taking us on a tour of Chatham it seemed, my feet were lets say a bit on the sore side. However this did not put my spirits down and when we got there I felt like a little girl at Christmas!
    I didn't quite know what to expect as Chatham's not got the most going on but as I walked down to the main event it was fantastic to see everyone in original  40s clothing and in world war 2 uniforms, including police, army, firemen. Oh it was magnificent! Everyone was so friendly and looked like they were having the time of their lives! I was a bit nervous at first thinking I'd over dressed, how wrong I was! I felt under dressed in the end. Ladies in beautiful tea dresses and Dior inspired suits and hats, men in double breasted suits or sailor outfits.

Every girl's gotta have a man in the army..or two
Four lovely ladies lookin good!
    Every now and then I had the urge to have my photograph taken with a plane or with a car ( as you do!) and as my man was taking my photograph,I noticed other people doing it as well, how nice of them! I guessed from this event people put on their glad rags here and love to have their picture taken so I let them snap away!
My favourites from the day,opposite from each other but just as good

   There was live music from singers and bands, I only caught a few of them, two of my favourites were a t-chest bass blues band who did a lot of Elvis, of which I was happy to hear! Don't get me wrong I adore forties music but it was still a delight to hear my favourite! And also a very Andrew sisters inspired girl group who were just fabulous, they had the look down to a tee and their voices were just gorgeous!
      I gave out a few business cards hoping for some work to come my way, but if it doesn't I don't mind, there was a few stalls to buy clothes from and of course there was the Best of British magazine there so I made sure I got myself a couple of copies of that magazine, there was a woman making hand made snoods too so after treating myself to a pretty one on eBay I made sure I got myself another so I have a choice now! I'm still trying to get the hang of wearing them at the moment, because when I try it on, I seem to look more like a dinner lady then a forties starlet, better keep practising I say!  I also had to stay away from a lovely vintage dress that caught my eye, it was a beauty but I thought I'd better not!

Some lovely ladies getting their hair styled
   Do you know I could actually go on about this day forever, when I was walking home I kept saying to my man how I'd had such a good time and I honestly did, being a fifties girl I was a bit wary that I would get fed up with a day of the forties but how wrong I was! I definitely could tell a difference between the 1940's scene and the rockin scene. There is a lot more drinking involved in the 50s scene and the music where as 40s is more about the clothes and dancing, which to me is still just as good, I loved watching the couples lindyhopping and would love to do it myself but I'll just stick to my jiving, I can do that, I think I'd trip over my own feet and that would not look good!

  So after a long ole day we retired back to my house to go get ready to go out in the evening. A long day of glorious 40s music, dancing and great people.
    I'll be reporting on the London tattoo convention over the next few days so keep your eyes peeled
 Until then
Toodle Pip
xxx

 
In rememberance to people who lost their lives in the war

Wednesday 22 September 2010

A peek at some of my new images

So I haven't been able to do my blog for quite a while now, I've been distraught, I've felt lost, but this is due to the fact I had moved into my lovely new house with my lovely new house mates and gone back to university. But now I have it up and running I'll just post a short and sweet blog tonight just to get back into the swing of things and hopefully have a follow up of last weekends events at Chatham's historic dockyards! With some superdooper images to go with it, and of course I will also be posting about this weekends international tattoo convention (I can hardly contain my excitement honestly!) So you should all have some light reading to keep you busy for a little while.
Hope you enjoy it and keep your eyes open for my new post, be careful you might just miss it!
Until then
toodle pip!
xxx

 

Thursday 9 September 2010

Name that style... Just call it vintage darling

So here are a few of  peoples gorgeous mug shots I took in and around London and Norwich for part of my creative styling summer project for university, the idea was we had to create some vox pops, be style hunters, take snap shots of any passers by that I caught my eye. Now being into everything 50s I could of easily gone and took photos of any rockin people but I thought no I'm going to give myself a challenge, and boy did I set myself a challenge, because where I'm originally from, Lowestoft, the most easterly point in Britain, the town that gave birth to glam rock band the Darkness, basically a very dreary old town with not a lot going on (can you see why I moved away!) , you're not exactly going to see the next  Alexa Chung wandering the streets!
    Trying to find interesting people to take pictures of in Lowestoft was rather tricky, unless I wanted chav chic or emo edge, I had to get outta town. So after running up to people and making a div of myself here are a few of the people I got some snaps of... Enjoy!




























































So all a bit different wouldn't you say? It did make me giggle to myself that when I asked each one how they would describe their style, they all said vintage, the question is though vintage what? What decade of vintage? I think its very obvious that vintage is heavily in fashion and people don't like to stick to one decade like me (Which I will admit can limit ideas sometimes!) And I think why not, that's what fashion is all about, experimenting with a bit of everything until you find your own style, so maybe that is why these lovelies found it so difficult to pinpoint what they were, they were still just experimenting!
I still have a good few more to take, I didn't put all of the images I had taken up, just my few favourites, I took all of their names but at the moment the piece of paper with these details on are somewhere in a cardboard box packed away until I move!
Until Next Time

Toodle pip!
xxx

Monday 6 September 2010

Hi ho Hi ho its off to school I go

So here I am again, this time things are slightly more familiar... Yes that's it, I'm going back to university for my second year!
  Gone are my first day nerves, will I fit in, what should I wear, will I get my head flushed down the toilet by the bigger kids.... OK maybe not that extreme but everyone has first day jitters don't they!  And now I'm going to my second year pretty sharpish!
      
    
 I still rememeber moving into halls and thinking OH MY GOSH!! WHERE WILL ALL MY CLOTHES GO!! Remembering leaving my parents and speaking to my (not then) boyfriend to reassure me I was doing the right thing... Then of course was the "house warming" party- where I met lots of great people and spent most of my evening hugging the toilet due to drinking a wee bit of vodka.. which of course I learnt a valuable lesson from that well until freshers week.
  The first year went tremendous and I enjoyed every minute with work experience at Vivien of Holloway, Tatty Devine and fashion shows! Here I am now nearly back in Rockin Rochester (well the delightful Chatham) sharing a house with 3 gorgeous girls!
   Of course there is the urge to buy "back to school" pens and "uniform" (of which I mean spending spree on Ebay!) But instead I'm here shopping, finding some delightful vintage styled signs for our home, Im quite lucky my house mate Rosie has similar taste so we can both buy anything vintage and know we'll both like it!
  I've got quite used to being under my mothers wing so I'll find it hard to leave her and my dad again but its a good job I'll be seeing them at the annual London tattoo convention in a few weeks!
   Who knows what the second year will bring, of course fun and frolics with my lovely ladies, oodles of experience in the fashion industry and god only knows what else! But if it goes as quick as the last year did I better start sending out the cv's otherwise its hello job centre!!

But until next time
Toodle pip!

Thursday 2 September 2010

Gil Elvgren I do love you!

I've received some images of a shoot I did recently with the fabulous Dominic Fenn, a local photographer who is quickly getting a great reputation for taking fantastic images!
When he first emailed me he hit the nail on the head straight away by saying he wanted to do images in the style of Gil Elvgren, one of the most famous pin up artists of all time. I had been wanting to do this style of shoot for a while now but was having trouble finding the right photographer. So after having a first successful Hollywood glamour styled shoot we quickly arranged our Gil inspired shoot!
   When I'd got organised I met Dom and he had done so well picking up little accessories and bits and bobs for the shoot, vintage phone, diy books, a giant parcel! Even bubbles and ice cream, he was well prepared I'd say!
    It was a lot of fun and I think we created some great images, all with a Elvgren vibe, I took a extremely full suitcase of clothes as I usually do, I think this time though I had to sit on the suitcase to shut it!
   So here are a few of my favourite images from the days shoot! Hope you like them, would love to hear some feed back to see what you think!
We were quite lucky that the images didn't need too much editing!
Happy Birthday from Bettina
Wearing vintage 50s black Sun top and atomic circle skirt!
Wearing What Katie Did  stockings and a
 1950s dressing gown

Some lovely bubbles to end the shoot with