Helloween!

While I don’t – along with many of my compatriots – actually celebrate Halloween, I am getting into the ‘spirit’ of things with this little spooky series of photos taken in the installation 1000 Doors, by Christian Wagstaff and Keith Courtney, at the 2018 Melbourne International Arts Festival.

The ticket for entry was a tiny and quaint brass key, which made me feel a bit like Alice. Laid out like a maze of doors in a house of horrors, the installation was complete with dilapidated walls, crumbling wallpaper, vintage furniture and Bakelite telephones, the smelly carpet of a seedy hotel, and a myriad mysterious vintage photographs littering every surface.

It was a lot of fun to traipse through, and the only thing that would have made it better and spookier was if we had been able to go late at night without the crowds of people – but this was a popular installation and there was no hope of that. For the occasion, I am wearing a vintage 1940s hat, and a Diane von Furstenberg dress bought in a thrift store.

I enjoyed hamming it up a little for these photos, and must confess in the last frame I had in mind Freddy’s tongue from one of the Elm Street nightmares. I was pretty young when I saw that scene, and ran away from the tv shuddering. Answering a telephone is akin to opening the door to the creepy cellar!

Happy Halloween.

Photos: October 2018. With thanks to my friend Rapunzel for taking them.

The Cartwheel Hat

Now that the warm weather is here at last (hurrah!), I am already thinking, “Now, how can I cover up to prevent sunburn?” Big hats are the answer! I own a lot of big cartwheels, as very wide brimmed hats are known. The origin of the name is obvious, but they began to be very popular in the Edwardian era, in the years prior to WWI.

This hat I am wearing is actually quite wide-brimmed – wider than it seems in the picture, but, when you scroll down and see the next hat you it will seem quite paltry by comparison.

Now THIS is a cartwheel hat! I think it is as big as an actual cartwheel. It is woven from a very sturdy grass, and the edges are wicker. It’s quite heavy and unwieldy to wear, as well as uncomfortable on the forehead, which makes me suspect it was never meant to be worn, or perhaps it was a theatre prop. It decorates the wall in my bedroom.

One of the problems with cartwheel hats is that there is a lot of area that can easily catch the wind, and the usual thin elastic attached to the inside of the brim of most hats is not enough to keep it safely on one’s head. A ribbon is a better option, as the cartwheel has.

So, is this the biggest hat in the world, or what …?

What? What’s that you say? Jacquemus?

OMG. That thing is practically a TENT. Look how big it is! A whole family could shelter under there. No more beach umbrellas! You could take off like Mary Poppins with that thing on your head!

I WANT ONE.

Photos: March 2018

Let it Rain!

In a Melbourne spring, one must be prepared for rain at all times. Melburnians are famous for vigilantly checking the weather forecast no matter what the season, and many of us keep a tiny folding umbrella in our totes, or in our drawers at work against sudden need. I am no exception to this rule, and I own a formidable array of vintage umbrellas in different colours so that I can match my outfits.

This vintage 60s frilled umbrella is one of my favourites. I have owned it for a long time. I love vintage brollies for they are generally sturdier than their modern counterparts because their skeletons have more ribs, made from steel unlike the flimsy aluminium contraptions manufactured today. They are therefore much stronger in a high wind. However, mishaps can still occur, and last year they did.

I felt a bit dreadful about this, like a vintage murderer …

First of all, I lost the tip of one spoke, which meant that the covering pulled away. There are no umbrella repairers these days, so I came up with my own solution: find another vintage umbrella in an op shop and cannibalise it for parts! I felt a bit dreadful about this, like a vintage murderer, but I managed to find one – in a vivacious shade of lime green – that was already broken: it was unable to be opened. This made me feel better about hacking off its limbs. (It annoyed me that the op shop was still charging $5 for it, the same price as a functional umbrella, but I supposed it possessed, after all, what I required.)

Naturally, while I was doing this photoshoot and after amputating the silver tips, the umbrella suddenly operated normally! Typical. However, it must have been aggravating for the original owner if the umbrella was randomly becoming stuck – most inconvenient at the sudden onset of a shower. But I had what I needed and repaired the blue brolly, squirreling the remaining tips away.

… some time later another freak accident tragically occurred.

After all these misadventures, some time later another freak accident tragically occurred. One day, when I was walking along the street with the blue umbrella dangling from my wrist by its tassel, an aforementioned high wind suddenly gusted along and bizarrely caught the umbrella against my own limbs and snapped off the handle! Who would even expect such a thing to happen? I was quite indignant.

Fortunately I work at a theatre that has a Props department, and I paid a visit to its manager. He is an amiable man, and was happy to be of assistance. A few days later, my umbrella appeared on my desk, and when I saw him, he told me he had reinforced the shaft with a length of steel, and then had glued the plastic handle back on. What a miracle worker! He warned me to treat it gently henceforth, but it certainly seems very sturdy again – not that I plan a bout of play sword-fighting or anything anytime soon.

Hurrah! LET IT RAIN.

Photos: March 2017, September 2018

Clear Gilt

On Monday, after I completed some errands in the neighbourhood, I happened to pass a thrift store on my way home. Naturally I had to go in.

I saw on a shelf what looked like a giant bottle of Chanel No. 5 and was exceedingly amused to discover that it was a hard plastic handbag! It came complete with a faux gold label and chain strap, and aptly, the stopper was the clasp. There’s no visible branding, so likely it was a whimsical but inexpensive purchase by its original owner.

It is a guilty purchase for me too, I must admit, for while I have always had a sneaking liking for transparent handbags, they are not very practical, and lose their aesthetic appeal when filled with an evening’s accoutrements – unless they happen to be very, very beautiful. That’s probably why it was in the thrift store in the first place.

Aptly, I have photographed ‘Chanel’ bag with bottles of French perfume, and it does look very pretty, oui?

Photo: Yesterday

The Assistant

Vintage 1950s robin's egg blue elbow-length nylon gloves, and pale blue wrist-length leather gloves.

I can’t believe I didn’t know it was International Cat Day this week, on Wednesday! How remiss of me. My little ginger Mimi loves to get involved when I am taking photos of clothing – like most cats she is extremely curious, and her antics are often very amusing.

Recently I decided that I needed to photograph all my vintage gloves, as my collection has been growing exponentially with all the vintage pairs I’ve been finding in thrift stores of late. I decided to enter them all into the cataloguing app I use for my hats, to make it easier to see exactly what I have when planning an outfit.

The iPhone app is called 'What’s in my Wardrobe' and has proven indispensable when I am trying to find a particular hat, as they are all stored in different hat boxes. There are various filters to enable quick selection and location of any given hat. The app is not designed specifically for hats; one can also use it for any type of item, as long as one has time to photograph and enter all the data.

Accordingly, I laid out a calico dropsheet and began the pleasurable task of photographing all my gloves. I was clearly having too much fun for Mimi though, and pointing the noisy glowing rectangle thing at something other than herself, so she thought she had better investigate this untoward occurrence immediately.

“What are these long things?” she sniffed curiously. “I don’t know, but I like them, and they are mine – and they will look better if I sit on top of them.”

She did the exact same thing a couple weeks later when I was photographing some new hats, and I could not get rid of my unwanted photographic assistant! At least I don’t have to pay her.