The New Vintage Look at Proud Cabaret

Once again I apologise for lack of posting, I have been ridiculously busy organising something rather exciting! So I hope you will all let me off when you see the reasons why!

Between my friend Sarah and myself, we've been putting together what we hope will be the start of something a little bit amazing.
The New Vintage look! A vintage inspired charity evening full of fashion, fun and frightfully good music and burlesque! Tuesday 10th April at the renowned Proud Cabaret in the heart of London.

Personally I've wanted to do this show for a good couple of years now and finally the time has come.
The New Vintage look is a fashion evening showcasing some of the best 1940s and 50s reproduction clothing companies from the UK, Sweden, and USA, these include the amazing Bernie Dexter, Vintage suits by Mary, Collectif, Heyday vintage, Miss Fortune, Lady K Loves,Playful Promises, Outerlimitz, Stockings and Romance, the Pretty dress company, Miss Bamboo,Miss Candy floss, Oh Sew Vintage, Boo boo Kitty Couture and Scarlett's Vintage attire, wowee what a selection we have for all you lovely ladies out there!
These fabulous companies will be showcased in a catwalk where the gorgeous models will also be wearing Bow and Crossbones jewellery and Razorblaid Mermade jewellery!

As well as the show, there will be burlesque from the outstanding Tempest Rose, cabaret from Alex the Mind reader and Daisy Bourne - hoop artiste

To finish the night off we will have one of the UK's top bands on the Rockin Scene - Knocksville, who have toured with Imelda May and also recently played in Europe, so remember to bring your dancing shoes because these guys will have you on your feet!

If you fancy grabbing yourself a bargain then we'll have something right up your street, a charity auction! Lots of companies have given us great prizes including two pairs of Miss L fire shoes, a dress from Tara Starlet, a hair and make up voucher from The Vanity Box, a manicure voucher from Minnie Moons as well a whole lot more, so we're hoping you'll all dig deep and help raise lots more money!

All money raised is going to the Royal Brompton and Harefield Charity to help fund a neonatal incubator to treat seriously ill babies with heart and lung defects. This charity is a very personal one to me for close members of my family have been treated there and we want to say thank you for all their support! 

Tickets are £12 and are available from

http://www.wegottickets.com/event/159146  

When you buy a ticket you will be entered into a competition to win a pinup photo shoot worth over £250! 

So what are you waiting for, please show your support with us on Tuesday 10th April and make it a night to remember!

Check our website www.thenewvintagelook.co.uk
facebook.com/thenewvintagelook
twitter: @newvintagelook
Until Next Time

Toodle Pip

xxx

Dreamboats and Lindyhop

So there I was, single and valentines day was approaching, how would I ever get through I thought, well if I'm entirely honest I thought where can I go get intoxicated with friends and have a good night!?  I had been pondering about going out for sometime as I was completely skint at the time, so there I was thinking I was going to have to have a quiet night in all on my lonesome, until my friends Shona of Adventures in Vintage and Kessie of Lady K loves managed to twist my arm into going to It's a wonderful Vintage Love boat ball, to be honest it didn't take a lot of convincing as I was already contemplating going as you probably saw a couple of posts back.
The second of 'It's a wonderful' events and a second sell out, Olivia of Moon on a stick PR definitely done herself proud again with a fantastic night of live music and dancing.
After much hunting high and low for the Battersea barge (which seemed like a never ending maze) I arrived at the venue early to help set up with Verity of the Vanity Box and Kessie, my gosh I have never seen so many balloons!
I've got to be honest I wasn't convinced with the venue when I first arrived but once the decorations were up and the sun had gone down, there was definitely a romantic vibe to the boat and I was without a doubt feeling more chirpy then I was after my massive trek to find the place.

I put my glad rags on and brushed my curls out and I was ready to party,  I decided to wear my Bernie Dexter, 'Bettina' dress as it was red and hourglass galore! I'm certainly glad I did because I don't think I've ever had so many compliments in one night! Lets just say I know to wear that dress out again.

Caught getting ready before people arrived, phone in hand? Nothing changes!

The place soon filled up and everyone was soon on the floor (or should it be deck?) dancing the night away, a few people even got me on the floor, I kept insisting that I was a jive only girl but after several asked me to dance I found myself picking up some Lindy Hop moves so now I will feel less silly if anyone else ever asks me! 

There was a fabulous new burlesque act which broke up the music of the evening, miss Folly Gosh and her seaside striptease, definitely something quirky to add to the evenings events.

Some of us from the night, all immacutaly dressed if I do say so, me and Shona both wearing Bernie Dexter designs!

Up on the outside deck a few of us had to recreate the famous 'I'm flying Jack!' pose from titanic, and when you're a little  bit intoxicated it isn't always the safest idea to lean off the front of a boat that's half in the Thames, which leads me on to my other point, dancing on a half moving boat after a few vodkas does tend to make  you feel a bit seasick, lesson truly learnt! 

But an interesting fun night out overall catching up with some of my lovely ladies, also met a few new people which is always nice! And as for the men dressing in their sailor attire, well what can I say I would let them save me if I fell overboard any day!

Can't you tell I was merry?!

Verity of the Vanity Box and Shona of Adventures in vintage

Of what I could see everyone who went had a fantastic time, there wasn't a moment when the dance floor wasn't full, I'm not a converted 40s enthusiast yet but I am starting to enjoy it all a whole lot more, maybe I'm becoming more open minded in my old age!

Don't forget to buy your tickets for It's a wonderful Vintage Jubilee Jamboree which is happening in May, I've been asked to model so I suppose I'll just have to go! Oh what a hard life one leads! 
For more info check out the It's a wonderful vintage special events page: www.facebook.com/ItsaWonderfulVintageSpecailEvents
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

1950s pin up girls ... At Hemsby!

So this time last weekend I was finishing Hemsby 46 off with a bang, what a blast it was, apart from managing to drink practically a bottle of Sailor J's to myself on the first night and it reappearing the next morning which I have to say, I don't intend on doing until the next one at least... But Yes it was a superb weekend. Hemsby is like a home from home to me, I've been going since no. 39 and each time is different because of the people, the bands and the atmosphere.

This time was just as great as the last 8 (oh my gosh has it really been that many!!) I have been to. I cannot tell you how nice it was to catch up with friends I hadn't seen in what seemed like forever! I'm not going to go in depth about it all because frankly 1. I don't want to bore you all with a review of every single band I saw and 2. Most of it has just become a blur now like most weekenders tend to do after a while!

But a few highlights for me were: turning up on the Thursday to see my face all over the Hemsby 47 flyer!(that's right Octobers weekend!)

Photography by Dominic Fenn

Now I've been published in a few magazines and I've never really seen it as a wow factor but this was something quite surreal because my face was EVERYWHERE!!! on every table, on every windowsill, on stalls, my gosh! But a massive thank you to the fabulous Andy Brittan who asked me if he could do this, because he wanted someone different on the cover!

 Apparently he wants to do this with each pin up contest winner, which I think is such a great idea! It'll give a lot of girls more publicity!

Which leads me onto my second highlight of the weekend

Judging the 2011 Hemsby/Outerlimitz Pin up Contest!

Because of winning the first ever one last year (yes a whole year, can you believe it??) I had the great pleasure of being one of the judges for this years contest, alongside the gorgeous and lovely Miss Jessica Orbit  , singer of Jessie and the Orbits and a fantastic model, Julie Cooper of Big Girl's Blouse and Mr Levi Dexter himself (for those of you don't know, Bernie Dexter's singer husband! and a truly lovely man!)

What a fabulous judging panel wouldn't you say, it was a great honour to be beside these lovelies on the comfy sofas watching some stunners strut their stuff! I tell you what those girls sure had some balls, I remember doing it last year and how scary it was, so I made sure I gave the girls some encouragement before they went on, according to Di from Outerlimitz  it was really appreciated which is nice to hear!!

Of course I made sure I had bought a brand new (well brand new vintage that is) dress for the occasion, every girl needs a Saturday night dress at a weekender and I made sure I had that, a summery, green and white Hawaiian 1960s maxi dress, rather special some of you might say, I would have to say that too!

Julie, Myself and Bernie all looking rather Flowery (Bernie in her Scarlett dress  she named after me)But back to the girls of the contest, it really was hard to choose the winner but eventually after seeing 9 girls prance around the stage showing their perfectly pin up poses the winner was to be Pip Love, a true vintage fanatic and a super girl! With two runners up being Miss Cherrie Mae and Carrie Hope (a little pin  up in the making I think).

Don't they look brilliant? (Photo's courtesy of Ruth Archer, I hope you don't mind me pinching these few)

Bernie, Miss Hemsby 2011 and me (Miss Hemsby 2010 hehe)

A super way to get Saturday night started I'd say!
The rest of the weekend was just amazing, one of the most famous modern day pin ups graced us with her presence and that would be of course Bernie Dexter, it was so nice to see her, I did get to spend some time with her and Levi over the weekend and it was lovely having a chat about everything from modelling to swollen feet and barfing alcohol (see the famous ones do it too!!)

Me, Bernie and Miss Stefani Jay, another great gal!!
I did notice this year there was a very strong pin up vibe through out the weekend, with a lot of other models I know off face book,model mayhem etc turning up, which is great to see because it's obviously getting them involved in the rockabilly scene which can only be a good thing! A lot of these girls are true beaut's and it was so nice for even one of them (Ronnie) to come up and say hello because she was following me on face book!! Yes a little claim to fame there!! So for any of you vintage girls who want to know what the rockin scene is all about and to have a great weekend, take a trip on down to Hemsby in October where you'll see me staggering around or hogging the dance floor, and of course my mush on the programme.. You know I'm honestly surprised I didn't see one on a dart board or with a mustache drawn on! Heaven forbid!

But for now I'll leave you with a image from Thursday night events,

a girl, a bike, and a whole lot of rum ...
Until Next Time

Toodle Pip

xxx

What to do what to do

At the moment I feel so lost with who I am as a person because of uni commitments, this really gets to me because unfortunately due to be a second year student my work load has become somewhat unreal and having a life beyond this for me is not quite happening, I've just handed in my project and have gone crash bang wallop into my last one of the year which is involving film so I'm slightly terrified! As well as having dissertations and essays coming out of my ears I don't really know how to handle it all!

What really worries me is that I seem to have let go of my blog and my modelling and the whole vintage aspect on life.Whatever am I to do?!

I'm hoping I can organise my life somehow in a way I don't quite know but as this project is a 10 week one I'm going to attempt to keep up with this blog and try and do more vintage articles instead of fashion as this is somehow taking over my life at the moment, not that it's a bad thing but I miss writing about things that are close to my heart, so there is nothing holding me back now so I've got to get my backside in gear and sort my life out right?!
In the next month or so I've got a few shoots coming up, well I hope, I had to cancel some last month and I was really annoyed at myself that I did but work comes first! Also I've got lots of exciting rockabilly gigs that I'm going to so I might even do a couple of reviews on here for you! So to be honest there's nothing else for it than to get on with it really is there?!

A bit of exciting news, I was featured on Adorn London's website (www.adorn-london.com) from London Fashion week for their street style

there I am! looking rather startled I must say!

and also the fabulous Bernie Dexter has designed a dress for me and named it after me (yes another one!!)
so first we have the Bettina

(this has to be one of the most comfortable dresses I own!)

And now we have the Scarlett! how amazingly beautiful is this!!
I can't wait to get my hands on this stunner (oh and the dress!)
Check these gorgeous dresses on Bernie's website www.berniedexter.com

So more positive thinking for me and I've just got to learn to handle my busy life!
Oh what a chore!

Until Next Time

Toodle Pip

xxx

Kenzo : Fashion in Motion

A couple of weeks ago I got a notice saying the fashion company Kenzo were putting on a free (YES FREE!) fashion show at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, to celebrate 40 years in the fashion business, wowee doesn't time fly!! It was part of the museums "Fashion in Motion" series, so when we found out, Rosie stayed on the phone to the V&A for a good twenty minutes, bare in mind we had a photo shoot that day but some things are just far more important!

Now for all of you who might not know who Kenzo is, the company was started by Takada Kenzo who was originally from Japan, during 1970 and opened his first boutique in Paris, as well as Women's wear they also do collections for men and children! So there is something for everyone!

But anyway back to the night itself...

Rosie managed to nab 4 free tickets for this show so we grabbed a couple of chums and made it a girls night out with cocktails, do I hear Sex and the City? Yes we were trying to figure out which one each one of us were, apparently I'm Carrie?? Hmmmm I'll let you followers decide!
Anyway we got to the V&A rather early so we got a couple of cosmopolitans down us and had a good ole catch up. We decided to make the effort as Uni does kind of drag the glamour out of you! So I decided to put on my prize dress from winning the Hemsby pin up contest, which was my "Bettina" dress (yes you did hear that right!) designed by the gorgeous Bernie Dexter

Wearing my lovely Red Bettina dress whilst sipping a cocktail, I've done my hair in a 40s style up "do" with mock Victory Rolls as I've not quite grasped it yet!

So it came to near on 8pm and we started queuing up for our seats and oh my it was so exciting, the queue seemed never ending! We sat in our seats, 3 rows from the front so I had a cracking view to take some shots! The show, like any main fashion event started late but once it started, oh my we were all in awe!! I've never seen anything quite like it, girls wearing very floral printed garments with African inspired head dresses and Japanese Geisha inspired shoes, I didn't know where to look  and couldn't seem to click my camera quick enough!

Models wearing pastel pinks with over layering effect and hoop inspired skirts

I love the shades of green and pink in this collection it was just magnificent customising it with vintage styled bra's I love it!

This seemed so African inspired, the fabric looks really exotic and the colours are quite calmer compared to the previous

I  wanted to steal the jacket off this model, it was so nice and is actually wearable other than on the catwalk!!

I found that the darker collections seemed more wearable than the pastel colours, the fabric in this dress seems quite Japanese because of the wave print, very Oriental.

What a Finale! The girls and I did wonder whether the models were doing rather quick changes, but with those head dresses and all that layering I think they would have been there until next week!

So my first Designer fashion show, it made me appreciate the course I am doing at University and made me also realise I am on the right career path, when I was there the atmosphere was unreal and has made me think I want more!
So next Fashion in Motion here I come!

Oh yes before I forget! We had a invite to the Kenzo store in a fortnight for a cocktail party, I may have to check my diary but you know I think I may just go.

Until next time

Toodle pip

xxx