The hour... well and truly gone by

You might have seen advertised on television recently a programme set in the 1950s named The Hour, a short series based around the BBC. The British equivalent to the world reclaimed Mad Men, well that's what I heard anyway.
I've been trying to watch the Hour on and off when it's been on and I've got to say its a funny one. I know something is never going to be as authentic as the real thing because of course that time has been and gone, but that authenticity for me isn't there.I suppose because I'm such a big fan of Mad Men, the Hour had a lot to live up to. Where Mad Men has everything right down to the tiniest detail by getting truly antique bits and bobs (I've read up on it, that's how much of a dork I am), The Hour just doesn't look like they've made that much effort and it almost looks quite happy shopper I think. But then I do suppose it is down to budget and it seems the Americans had a whole bigger budget than the English.

I know as I said it has a lot to live up to in my eyes from Mad Men, for instance Mad Men is set in 1960s and the Hour is set in 1956 in post war Britain so the glamour isn't necessarily there however Britain and America were very different places during that time.

Saying that though I do think some of the outfits that the actresses wear in it are truly beautiful and have made me crave a vintage knit pencil dress but as I've got literally next to nothing on the expenses side I've got to let that one go... oh a girl can dream. I find that the main character Bel Rowley wears some classic dresses but yet the stylists have rather let her down because her hair has no authenticity to it and frankly I think looks quite scruffy for a main character, which is also similar to the male cast, now I know it may appear biased as I'm some what a 50s enthusiast and I know the quiff wasn't a popular style in all men during the era but I also think that their hair could do with a good brush and need a dollop of black and white grease or bryll cream! I personally don't think that the outfits of this series won't be as influential as what Mad Men was, which is a shame because it is often nice to see some key pieces on the high street.

Bel Rowley played by Romola Garai

Freddie Lyon played by Ben Whishaw

The sets are great and a lot of it is still very art deco which it was at the time, but I think some of them looks too well put together so it doesn't appear natural, it still looks good and would make amazing sets for shoots but once again it isn't as natural as Mad Men which could just about been made during the 60s.

What is similar in the two programmes is that they're both quite long winded which I like because you get to pay attention to some of the smaller details (hence this blog ha!).

I generally like the idea of the programme and I do think the story lines work perfectly, with murder,conspiracy and a bit of naughtiness on the side however I find that they tend to name drop a bit too much for it to be completely authentic, like they are trying to prove that it is set in the 50s, for example 'I've got Bill Haley's records' or 'I've got to go Jive', a bit cheesy don't you think?

I do think for anyone who hasn't seen it, it's definitely worth a look especially for anyone who is interested in vintage drama because like I said, the story lines are great and I do like the programme however I think some of the styling aspects haven't been addressed but who am I to judge, they did a lot better job than I ever could! I think I'm just too much of a geek and think if it isn't the real thing it's just no good, pfft what a load of old rubbish!

Until Next Time

Toodle Pip

xxx

Wildest cats in towns Bettina's style

I know this post is rather a bit late now as the Wildest cats in Town weekend is longgg gone but as promised in my last post I said I'd show outfits I wore to that weekend. The Wildest Cats, is well known for it's strong Teddy Boy following so you will see Drape after drape at this weekend, I felt like I stuck out like a sore thumb because even though it is a Ted weekend you get a lot of other characters there that I must say had the strangest dress sense with ankle boots and circle skirts as just one combination!
I tend to go to weekenders with at least one pair of jeans packed away in my case but this time I made sure I hid them away and packed skirts and Capri pants because I remember once stating in a post that I was going to try and stop wearing jeans as much, I haven't really done that since said  post, until the Wildest Cats!

The first outfit of Friday, very summery I think, a yellow 50s sun top and atomic circle skirt with a yellow thermoset jewellery set, excuse the tatty headscarf, my hair was all pin curled up! With my dearest daddy outside the bar.

Friday night outfit!

  I love everything Hawaiian and I really think this dress brought the sun out for the weekend, well maybe not but it certainly brightened up my day (oh so cheesy!) The colours and patterns are so gorgeous, soft pastel blues and greens! I bought it at the Rhythm Riot last November and it is vintage, I'm not sure of what era I think quite possibly 60s or 70s but I think it looks perfect for a 50s weekend, it has changeable straps so it can be halterneck or spaghetti straps!
I teamed this with a vintage 50s white jewellery set and white wedge heels from New look.

Another view of my dress with my lovely mother in her Outerlimitz flamingo dress! (I really hate my posture in this picture I look huge!)

 The next day I noticed I managed to get lipstick marks on it, woops!

Day two - day time

Now don't I look attractive with my curlers in! This is a reproduction 40s leopard print beach set from Cal Noir of Hollywood! I was really nervous about wearing this but it was lovely weather for it so I thought I'd get my milk bottle legs out! I teamed it with black espadrilles and my wooden Enid Collins bag. This outfit is ideal for the beach (hence the name!) But I've worn it for shoots as well as at this weekend, I'd love to wear it to the High Rockabilly! 

Day two night time - Saturday night dress!

Saturday night of a weekender is the night to glam up so I thought I'd dust off my blue lurex dress I bought from Outerlimitz last year, I love this dress so much but it does scratch me something chronic! This dress can be worn to any event I think because I don't think it screams 50s too much so it could get away with being a dress bought out of a high street store, I love it and I love outerlimitz!
Because it is so low cut I put a cute vintage broach on the bust to stop my boobs making an appearance!
Once again teamed with my white jewellery set but this time I wore my vintage 50s Lucite heels and Lucite handbag, both very easy to find on eBay if you've got a lot of money and tiny feet (unfortunately I have clown feet but managed to get my shoes at a bargain price of seven quid!)

Another shot of my dress and my handbag with my daddy dearest, doesn't he look smart in his drape?

Day 3! Eek I had four changes on this day, how dramatic right? Well when a girl doesn't feel comfy she just doesn't feel comfy, I started off wearing my vintage 50s aqua cigarette pants but soon changed into my gorrrrgeous Bernie Dexter dress named after yours truly, yes the Scarlett dress!

I am well and truly in love with this dress, it is so comfy and the print is so cute! I teamed it with (my mothers) patent belt and my Vintage Aqua wicker handbag and cork heel wedges.
My dad said it was an evening dress but I thought it was perfect to wear on a gorgeous sunny day!

Evening Attire

I hadn't worn this dress since the Rockabilly Rave two whole years ago and I was so happy that I did again, I bought this dress at Hemsby a while ago and it is a vintage 50s yellow lace pencil dress and I have to say fits me like a glove (which makes it the more difficult to take off!) I was always too scared to wear it again because I love to jive and unfortunately in this dress I can't because of how tight it is under the arms, which most dresses were during the 50s!
But I kept it on for long enough to get an effect and I wore it with my gold Lucite handbag, Lucite heels and yellow thermoset earrings, this was definitely my favourite dress of the weekend, so simple but so stunning!

My dance outfit, yes I could breathe again! I made sure I wore comfy clothes so I could dance, a simple cream 50s blouse and a beautiful school themed 50s circle skirt I got at the Rockabilly Rave car boot this year! Oh and of course I teamed it with my Vivienne Westwood flats hehe!

I must admit even though it is not one of my most favourite weekenders going I have to say that I am pretty proud of myself for my outfit choices this time around, lets hope I can keep it up for Twinwood and Hemsby!  I still can't get over that I had nine outfit changes over three days, pretty mental huh? I'm a girl so it makes it OK!
Until Next Time

Toodle Pip

xxx

Images for Lady K clothing

Oh dear I'm getting behind on my blog again, seriously I really don't know how people can keep it up constanly, I've got so much to do at the moment it is unreal with trying to keep up with univesity work, modelling, my Uk Rock article I seem to forget about my followers on here, so I do apologise to you all!

So when I went back up to Lowestoft in my reading week I managed to fill it fully with photo shoots because I didn't know when I'd get a chance to do that many when I got back to Kent. One photo shoot I did was for the clothing company Lady K Loves  which is a rather lovely rockabilly 50s inspired clothing line, the lovely lady behind this is Miss Kessie May, me and her got talking over the wonders of facebook and thought it would be great to collaborate for a photo shoot, I'd had my eye on Lady K's clothing for a while and always wanted to shoot in some of it and now was my chance!

Lady K Loves are based in the lovely town of Brighton and if you got to the Hemsby weekend you will see their clothing on the Round Up Records stall there and it's great! Feminine and figure hugging with a neo twist on all things Vintage, what more could a girl want in this day and age?

I had a great shoot with the photographer Emily Jane  who I worked with last summer, a great girl and an AMAZING photographer and here are some of the results we got on a very cold day shooting at the Plantation gardens in Norwich.

Wearing Delores Jacket and skirt

You can't tell luckily how cold it was on that day but we managed it and had a great shoot!

I can't wait to see these outfits on Lady K's website

Until Next Time

Toodle Pip

xxx



Four in a Million... coming to a theatre near you

I love going to the theatre when I can, but unfortunately living in the little town of Lowestoft has never let me explore it properly, I have seen a few in my short 21 years luckily as Norwich is just up the road from where I live during non uni times and they occasionally have some good shows! A few I've managed to see was Singing in the Rain, Buddy and Doctor Dolittle (with Philip Scofield in!!) I see going to the theatre as something quite old fashioned, for quite some time people would frequently go there for an nice evening out, this obviously still happens today but then it was more seen as a necessity to go out to the theatre and it was for more of the upper class. I love it because you can put on your glad rags for an evening of watching something that you love!

Which leads me onto the subject of this post!

The Million Dollar Quartet is hitting London, no not the real one, that would be slightly bizzare if it was the real thing, even though amazing but bizzare never the less, of course I mean the show, for those of you who don't know of the Million Dollar Quartet then you have missed out.

On 4th December in the year of 1956 four men came together and recorded some of their most favourite songs , these were Elvis Presely, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis. And it all happened in the widely known studios that was Sun Recording studio in Memphis, Sam Phillips (then owner) saw a moment not to be missed when Elvis came on in Carl Perkins recording session and started possibly one of the most famous jam sessions in History, and Phillips made sure he recorded it and now the Million Dollar Quartet are one of the iconic groups of the Rock n Roll/Rockabilly world, they chose to sing a mixture of different songs from Country, Gospel and other famous rock n roll hits from singers such as Little Richard and Chuck Berry and the rest was how they say, history?

The Million Dollar Quartet has been taking the stage in America for a while now with people such as Eddie Clendening performing in it (Eddie is a well known stage performer, performing with stars such as Scotty Moore and many others) with rave reviews and it was such a  big hit they decided to bring it to good ole England, damn right they should too, I havent seen a decent rock n roll musical since Buddy!

The show kicks off on the 8th Feb at the Noel Coward Theatre in London, I'm booking up so make sure you don't forget to!!

Until Next Time

Toodle Pip

xxx

My pick of the pops!

This is something completely off topic and something I haven't really wrote about before however I think it is something I may keep up with if I find people are interested in it (please let me know!)
I've decided to mention a few songs that I am somewhat obsessed with at the moment and I'd like to see if I can get a few of you liking them too, there will be a mixture of music as I am rather eclectic in what I listen to! So here goes...

The first one is by a guy who goes by the name of J.D McPherson and the song is North Side gal, my friend sent me the link to this on YouTube a few weeks back and then I heard it played at a Rockabilly club one night too! Jimmy Sutton is involved with the band playing bass I do believe (those who don't know of him, he is an amazing double bass player and singer from America! check him out!) and to be honest I wouldn't say the song is straight out rockabilly but I do like it, he has got one hell of a voice and I'm hoping to get his album soon!

Next track up is by another up and coming singer that everyone must have heard of by now, yes it's that love to hate fella Si Cranstoun, I'm not going to put up his song dynamo because it has been played so much in the last few months and I imagine everyone is tired of hearing it now, even though it is a brilliant dance track! I am going to mention another song off his album, alternative dance floor fillers, 50s pin up girl (how coincidental I know) but this is another great dancer and it has been stuck in my head ever since the Rhythm Riot, I do have a soft spot for Si because of his and his brothers ska band the Dualers, yes when I was around 15 I was a little Ska chick so when I heard them I knew I'd like them! But yes here is Si Cranstoun's 50s pin up girl, it is a live video I found on YouTube! 

.

Now going back to the time where the first two songs were inspired by here are a couple of originals that I am still obsessing over even though I have heard them time and time again.

The first one is Jackie Wilson, I'll be satisfied, I completely blame my fella for getting me obsessed with Mr Wilson (not that it's a bad thing of course) but I've come to hear a lot more of his tracks since being with him and this is one of them, definitely one of my favourites I think and I was so happy to hear the Cleftones sing it at the Rhythm Riot in November! Jackie Wilson was amazing during the fifties and went on to do some great stuff in the sixties and seventies too which I love just as much!

The second one is Wynona Carr, til the wells run dry, I'd always known of Wynona Carr but never had heard this song until recently, I must have been living in a dream land honestly!, I had heard her most famous of course which are ding dong daddy and touch and go but this had slipped on by without me realising, another dance floor filler and is always one to get me in a good mood! So play this out and you'll have me dancing!

.

I hope you enjoy these songs I've put up for you lovely lot, any requests and I'll put them up as and when I can. 

Keep an eye out for my new set of pin up pictures that are doing the rounds at the moment!
Until next time

Toodle Pip

xxx

Entry for Miss Alternative UK

Hi everyone just a quick blog here to let you know that I have decided to enter Miss Alternative Uk! And there is nothing I would love more if you lovely lot could vote for me in January!! I will be constantly sharing this blog and the website so please keep your eyes peeled. I am one of the very few pin up's in the contest so I am hoping  I stand a good chance because of this!! Please help me to get to the final 20!

You never know it might open up a few more places for pin ups like me to go places! There is certainly a mixture of beautiful alternative girls here so get voting!!

Bettina

xxx

The Rhythm Riot 2010

It seems a life time ago now but it's only been a couple of weeks! Yes ladies and gents the Rhythm Riot has come and gone again for this year and what a blast it was, even if a tad on the chilly side!

This year it was my first ever Rhythm Riot, can you believe it?! I certainly can't! I was always a bit hesitant about going because being a bit of a  rockabilly/rock n roll girl, I thought there wouldn't be much for me to dance to! How wrong could someone be?

I saw the line up a few months ago and thought I'd best get my bum in gear and book up! I even managed to convince my parents to go as so it was their first one too!

I don't know what I was expecting, I suppose I thought I wouldn't enjoy it because I expected it to be heavily 1940s influenced with Lindy hoppers everywhere, the only thing I knew was that it would be blooming cold! I Certainly got that right, so I packed my sweaters and away I went. I turned up with my folks on the Friday afternoon and noticed straight away how different it was from other weekenders, probably because I'm so used to turning up on the Thursday! I booked in, dropped my stuff off to the ever so ever so cold chalet which seemed a million miles away, further than my one in the summer at the Rockabilly Rave, was that possible???

First port of call, well of course the vintage clothes stalls! Unfortunately though I couldn't have a proper look around because it seemed that everyone else had the same idea and also headed for them, however I did manage to pick up a vintage yellow checked 49er jacket!!

As the day went by, the sun was going down which meant we better start getting ready so back to the chalet we went. I decided the night before to pin curl my hair, which was my first ever attempt and you know it didn't turn out half bad! I decided to wear my blue Hawaiian dress made for me by Di from Outerlimitz.

Me and my girls Laura and Clare

Now I'm going to be honest here, I can't quite remember some of the bands that played Friday night as I imagine I was slightly intoxicated, my excuse was I was keeping the cold out with all that vodka! I do remember one band and that was Lil Linn and the Lookout boys, I didn't see much of them unfortunately as I forgot my pass when I went back the chalet (I'm sorry but this is where wrist bands come in mighty handy!) But of what I did see they were a fabulous band with a mix of western swing, hillbilly and early rockabilly with a beautiful lady belting out some tunes! I got a text from my friend who I was sharing my chalet with telling me I must go back to the chalet right away, so I did and how sweet of them, they had blown up balloons and got me a very early birthday cake!(Chocolate of course) what a brilliant start to the weekend!! so after having lots of hugs and cake I went back to do some dancing!

I woke up the next day without a hangover which is always good! I had another wander around the stalls and as the day was going on I headed to the queen Vic(no puns please) to watch a band known as the Ladykillers, now I'd heard a lot about these because they were young and up and coming, so I was looking forward to seeing them. I wasn't disappointed, young and full of energy they were very modern  rockabilly and definitely got the crowd going who seemed more then happy with their performance! I am hoping to see them in December when I am back home at the Star fighter Rock n roll club.
The evening came by again, mum and dad headed out early and I spent what seemed like forever deciding what to wear, eventually choosing a vintage aqua wiggle dress.

A image that photographer Ophelia Wynne took of me showing off my dress i wore that night and my lovely vintage 60s wicker handbag

Me and my man scrub up nice don't you think?

 First band I saw, and the only band that I wanted to see was the Cleftones, a doo wop band from the 50s &60s singing songs like their classics Heart & Soul and Can't we be sweethearts, amazing, that's all I can describe them as, since being with my fella I've become a little bit Doo wop obsessed so we both really enjoyed them even though he'd seen then at previous riots.

The Cleftones!!

Next band up was Si Cranstoun, now everyone must have heard of him and his dance floor filler Dynamo? Once again I wasn't quite sure what to expect because he was one half of the Ska band the Dualers, which to me was fine because I am partial to a bit of ska every now and then but I was wondering whether he'd be able to do a full set of rock n roll tracks, but yes wrong again he did tracks such as Don't be angry by Nappy Brown and also got Bobby Brooks Hamilton on stage with him to sing Sam Cook's twisting the night away! I would keep on about the bands of Saturday night but I fear this blog may turn into a bit of a essay! However I will say other top bands of the night were Big Sandy, Lil Gizelle and Dollar Bill!

Big Sandy!

Dollar Bill

The final day of course was Sunday, I told myself that I would go to the car boot, but why lie? I never manage to drag myself out of bed even for a bargain,but what I eventually did drag myself out for was my parents buying me a fab gab (oo bit of rhyming there) jacket as an early birthday present and my fella getting me a beautiful vintage green day dress for Christmas, how spoilt can a girl be? Now on a Sunday night at the Riot was Hawaiian night, fortunately I knew this in advanced so I came prepared with my vintage red Hawaiian dress that I Purchased at Hemsby.

Me in my hawaiian and my man in his vintage pegs and shirt

Now there were only a couple of bands I payed attention to Sunday night and these were Bobby Brooks Hamilton (who is allegedly Jackie Wilson's son but I am very unsure!) and Mike Sanchez, Bobby Brooks looked and sounded like Jackie Wilson so was very entertaining however I thought he could of sung a lot more of Wilson's more popular tracks than some covers he did. Mike Sanchez was awesome as ever, you always know what you're getting from Mike!

The highlights of that night was Big Sandy recognising me (yes not the other way round!) and having a lovely chat with him and just having a brilliant end to the weekend with great Dj's playing some fab floor fillers!
I couldn't get enough of this weekend, it was right up my street because it was mainly 50s RnB which is what I love! it was relaxed and a lot of my good friends were there the only thing I didn't like was the fact it was only Friday- Sunday instead of Thursday-Sunday, it seemed like a lot was squeezed into such a short weekend! And also the fact it was so cold, but hey you can't change the weather can you? 

Any one of you out there who are thinking about trying out the Riot I highly recommend it!!

Until Next Time

Toodle Pip

xxx