The Naughty v Nice List

So! It’s that time of year again. Santa is busy finalising his most important document for the year: the Naughty v. Nice List. Which side of the ledger do you fall upon?

I am an angel, as always, but sometimes it is fun to dabble on the dark side – in the form of this black sequin minidress, tied with a satin bow between the shoulder blades. Or maybe light is right after all, so long as it comes with a twist? Either way, dresses with cut-outs on the back should not be worn with bra straps showing – that is very naughty indeed.

Yesterday I got my hair cut too, just in time for Christmas. Although my hair had barely reached my chin, it was driving me insane, on my neck in this hot weather we’re having at the moment in Melbourne.

While you finish up your last tasks to impress Santa with before the Big Day tomorrow, don’t forget to leave out the milk and cookies – he’ll be watching.

One more sleep! Enjoy your Christmas Eve.

Photo: Today

Mend Your Ways!

The infernal chain strap on this leather bag keeps disengaging from the interior hooks! My fourth New Year’s fashion resolution this year was to keep up with my mending, to stitch, darn, rip, bolt or glue as needed. You know those pesky little chores which you dismiss with that old excuse, ‘Oh, I’ll do that later …’? But later never comes, does it?

At least in my case (as we established in the last story) I don’t continue to wear ripped or holey garments, but it is aggravating to have one’s wardrobe reduced for such a petty reason. So I determined that I would mend my ways this year, and keep on top of the mending basket.

I do very well with mending seams and sewing buttons back on and the like, but I draw the line at wielding scissors at anything except a length of thread. I mend; not alter – that’s what professionals are for.

I’ll tell you a funny story though, the thing that forced me to change my wicked ways …

Two pairs of jewellery pliers come in useful to open the links at the ends of this chain. The metal is quite a heavy gauge, and the link quite small, so pliers are quite definitely needed to open and close the links – fingernails wouldn't cut the mustard

The Funny Story

Many years ago I purchased a lovely silk 1950s dress. I wore it usually to work only, although probably only once or twice a season. But it had one flaw: the hem was falling down. Because I wore it so seldom, I never remembered to fix the hem, so I would be forced to take emergency measures at work. Earlier this year, I finally laid the dress out, determined to repair the hem, and discovered not only that I had to tack up almost the entire hem, but I first had to remove a number of tiny black safety pins, a couple of lengths of double-sided sticky tape and even (I blush to confess) a staple!

You can laugh about it sure – but I can exactly picture the scandalised/amused/disbelieving look on my mum’s face if I were to tell her! After that mortifying discovery, I determined never to let things come to such a pass again!

If you’re going to take your mending seriously, you need to put together a basic sewing kit, as well as perhaps a few jewellery tools (used here to repair the chain strap of this vintage 70s snakeskin bag) and also glue for adhering different types of materials. There are some things you just can’t repair though.

Swinging Seventies!So, with half the year almost done, how’ve I gone with this resolution? … Not too badly. I have gone on the odd domestic frenzy and mended a heap of garments at once to clear a backlog. Admittedly, there are still a few sundry items still bubbling way back there, but mostly Santa would have to say I have been a Good Girl. (I wear size 39, in case you NTK.)

Ironically, I found that I had to finally remove and trash the chain strap on this bag – after it snapped off no less than three times on a single outing! The bag has since become a clutch.

Keeping Up With the Ironing

My third New Year’s resolution this year was to keep on top of my ironing – rather than letting it pile and pile into monstrous proportions for months on end. I am happy to report that my habits have improved (cough, cough) to the point where they pile up for only weeks on end. The garments in this picture taken in January, for example, have long since been pressed and put away.

At least we can be thankful irons have evolved from this cast-iron monstrosity from 1850! I once lifted an antique iron and it was incredibly heavy – you really would have got a workout using one of those!Ironing is such a boring chore. I know many people who find it so boring they don’t even bother with it at all. But I hate to wear wrinkled clothing, especially to work. It looks so slovenly. (Sorry, but it does.) Click here for an object lesson. Others (fashion editors) swear by the efficacy of hanging unironed clothing in the bathroom while they shower, saying that the wrinkles magically drop out with the steam. Pfffft! That is an outright fantasy. I’ve tried it, and it does not work at all.

A work colleague swears by her steam iron, a magical laundry gadget judging by her description. Sadly, I do not have room in my tiny studio apartment to store such a piece of machinery, although I suppose I could consider a portable version. 

Making ironing look beautiful: A Laundry Maid Ironing, Henry Morland 1716–1797This Victorian woman uses an iron similar to the cast iron version pictured aboveObviously a good iron is preferable, but one thing that really makes a huge difference in completing this tedious business is a high-quality ironing board that doesn’t wobble and threaten to collapse with every movement, and which has a good cover on it with plenty of padding. Little padding beneath the cover means quite often you can iron the grill pattern of the board into your clothes.

one thing that really makes a huge difference … is a high-quality ironing board

Once I determine to tackle one of these big mothers (as above) though, I set to with a will. Often I will put on a DVD for entertainment relief, although it’s better I choose something I have watched before, so that I am not pulled into the story and distracted from the main task at hand. This was how one year I got through all the documentaries and commentaries on The Lord of the Rings. I’m vaguely interested in the commentaries, but I certainly don’t want to sit down and watch them exclusively. Another time I found myself rediscovering that old classic, Dirty Dancing very late at night. I hadn’t watched that film since I was a teenager!

Sometimes I will simply listen to quiet music while I iron, and find that combined with the hush and hiss of the iron put me into a soothing, meditative state where my mind wanders down pathways I seldom visit during busy days. It’s a great way to do some creative thinking.

Even Ava Gardner did the ironing (in heels of course)!I have this childhood memory of my mother doing the ironing in the lounge room in the evenings: she would turn on the radio to the old 3AK radio station, an easy-listening music station, and work at one end of the L-shaped room under the lights, while I would lounge on a couch at the other end of the room in the dimness, daydreaming in a somnolent state prior to going to bed. There is something very comforting about that memory. That’s probably why to this day I prefer to do my ironing late at night, with the lights turned down low.

Speaking of which, I just happen to have one of these monsters breeding on an armchair: something I should tackle this weekend. I will wear slippers however.

Scarf Mania

The magic suitcase!Nearly a half-year has gone past! How have I done with my New Year’s resolutions? Well, I passed resolution one with flying colours: I did not get sunburned. My second resolution had all to do with wearing scarves.

I know this sounds extremely frivolous and ridiculous, but the fact is I love scarves and shawls and have such an enormous collection. Many of them are vintage – and I so rarely wear them. Though I already own more than enough for three of me, I keep buying more whenever I stumble across one I find irresistible – especially when it’s some lovely scrap of coloured silk, or a square of cashmere, or Scottish angora plaid. I’m a moth to a flame.

My problem is twofold: I am always in a hurry in the morning to get ready for work. When I think accessories, they are not the first items that come to mind – they are a non-essential extra. Choosing a scarf and knotting it properly always takes extra time that I can’t spare.

These vintage square silk scarves both feature square motifs.The other problem lies in that old adage, ‘out of sight, out of mind’. I do have a scarf rack – one of those nifty contraptions bought in Ikea: a vertical hanging rack of circles that are crocheted together. You thread the scarves through the loops. It hangs on a wall in my closet, a convenient display, but the trouble is that the circles are too large to thread small square scarves onto them (they would slip out), and so all these are stored away in a vintage suitcase, along with a number of large shawls that I would simply not thread on the scarf rack at all.

That’s a New Year’s Resolution FAIL!

So exactly how many times during the summer did I wear a scarf? Exactly once. Uh-huh. And I made a special effort to achieve that! That’s a New Year’s Resolution FAIL!

A silk shawl I have actually worn – victory! This is a vintage 1920s navy piano shawl (bought on Etsy a couple of years ago), thickly embroidered in white and featuring a deep knotted fringe. It's so huge it would trail on the ground if I draped it around me like a cloak. I saw a 1920s film a while back (the name of which I can't recall) and the lead actress flung her shawl around her shoulders exactly like that.I am doing better during the winter, because scarves of course are a necessary extra layer of warmth on a chilly day, and these long winter scarves are too fat for complicated knots – I usually wrap them across my chest under my coat, or loop them around my neck over the top of my outerwear.

So what is the answer to this sartorial dilemma? I know what it is: I have simply got to get up earlier. I ought to have made that my first New Year’s Resolution!

Sunburn is So Out This Year

Happy New Year Snapettes! Nearly the whole of January has passed already. I had meant to make my big comeback before this, but I wanted to do a whole new story instead of using my enormous backlog of unpublished pictures, and I have had a black eye. Well, it was actually mauve rather than black (black is so out this year), but it was quite swollen and unsightly. It is almost better now and fit for public viewing. So here I am at last, huzzah!

January of course is the traditional time to make New Year’s Resolutions. I have made a few for 2015, divided under the category of Personal and Fashion. I am going to share my fashion resolutions with you just for a giggle.

The first one regards sunburn, and I shall go into detail here, but I shall only briefly mention the others or this story will be extremely long and I shall have nothing to write about later. The second has to do with scarves, the third with ironing, and the fourth with mending.

Is anything bigger than a sombrero? From ‘The Century of Hats’ by Susie Hopkins; (Chartwell Books, 1999). No picture credit provided.So, back to sunburn. I hereby and forthwith declare I will not get sunburned in 2015. (This will be a real feat if I succeed, for it’s summer in Melbourne … although this summer has been quite paltry thus far, so I may yet triumph.)

I am not big on suntans, but I am even less big on suntan lines. I loathe and abominate suntan lines with every fibre of my being. Ugh. Especially on my chest (I wear a lot of scoop-neck tops.) Also, you know, wrinkles, and skin cancer. It ain’t called a sunburn for no reason!

Some of you might at this point be thinking, ‘Um, what about sunscreen?’

I hate sunscreen. It’s disgusting and sticky and gross. The only time I wear it is on the beach. I am aware this is a foolhardy stance for someone who lives in southern Australia, so close to the hole in the sky. And the sun here really does wicked burn – it’s no surprise that one sees a lot of holidaying Brits here the colour of lobsters.

… it’s no surprise that one sees a lot of holidaying Brits here the colour of lobsters

Hat by Sybilla, late 1980s; from ’Hats’ by Colin McDowell (Thames & Hudson, 1992) This is why many years ago I started wearing hats. I began as a teen with wide-brimmed summer hats purely for sun protection, and that gradually lead me into my passion (some of my friends may say mania) for vintage millinery. However, not all hats are wide-brimmed enough for sun protection, and that is why more often than not I will carry a parasol. It covers a larger area too, obviously.

When I first started using parasols, I was absolutely the only person for miles around that did so. Skip forward just a few years (cough, cough) to the present day when I have even seen men using umbrellas as parasols. (That was an extraordinary and hitherto undocumented moment for Australian men’s fashion.)

A small parasol provides shade for a day at the races, Deauville, France; from ‘Style Book’ by Elizabeth Walker (Flammarion, 2010)This is a true story: I remember once waiting at some pedestrian lights with my parasol held aloft, where I was accosted by an African girl with very dark skin, who admired my incredible courage in carrying a parasol. (I wasn’t aware this was a dangerous occupation.) She confided that she actually had a skin condition, which she had been recommended by doctors to alleviate with the use of a parasol – but she was too embarrassed to carry one. She pleaded for my advice. I promptly gave her sartorial permission to deploy one. I don’t know if she availed herself of it, but it’s true a parasol is a common sight on Melburnian streets nowadays.

Here is my pictorial treatise in the various summer hats that have recently passed into my hands. Every one of these is secondhand. Most of them are natural straw.

The Sailor

This whimsical black hat at first glance resembles a beret, but either it is too small for my head to be worn as such, or it is in fact a sailor hat, and meant to be worn atop the head. It offers little to no protection, but it looks very fetching! This is one of two that is not made of natural straw, and does not have a label inside. I think I paid about $7 for it.

The Fedora

Made from chocolate brown straw, this fedora has quickly become one of my favourite casual hats to wear. (I wore it for almost the entirety of my trip to Sydney last November, where, incidentally, I got quite burned on my chest.) It is Italian-made, by Milana. When I bought this in a Red Cross thrift store, it still had the original tag attached – the owner had clearly not worn it once! I paid $4 for it, and in fashion dollars that has whittled down to mere cents. (That’s called shopping sense.)

The Boater (I)

I never used to like boaters. I’m not sure why. Maybe I saw too many period films set in the Edwardian era and conceived a dislike of them. Anyway, I came across this $5 English hat made by Headliner in a thrift store in Lorne, on the Victorian coast. That band is made of grosgrain ribbon, one of the commonest millinery trimmings.

The Boater (II)

This boater was produced by Australian label Peter Jago, and is wider-brimmed than boater #1, which makes it marginally more practical and less decorative. The grosgrain ribbon is olive coloured, a rather unusual choice. Boaters can, at least, look more saucy when worn at a tilt. In fact, it ought to be mandatory for all hats to be worn with a rakish tilt! I can’t recall what I paid for it, but I am fairly certain it was not more than $4–$5.

The Picture Hat

A picture hat, sometimes known as a Gainsborough, is an elaborate wide-brimmed hat, and is so-called from the way the broad brim frames the face to create a ‘picture’ (thank you Wikipedia). Mine is by Witchery, an Australian fashion chain. I actually purchased it at the same Vinnies thrift store for $10, (along with the sailor hat and the olive-banded boater – some fearless lady had clearly donated hats in a big lump sum).

The Cartwheel

I bought this vintage 1970s hat on Etsy. It is the widest-brimmed hat (available for purchase at least) that I have ever seen. My search in fact was inspired by a fashion photo I had seen somewhere of some 1930s or 40s Hollywood startlet wearing just such a hat. I immediately hankered after one. After I purchased it, the seller told me she had a famous New York bridal fashion magazine begging to borrow it for a photoshoot! The brim measures about 23cm (or 9”) and is so wide and floppy that I feel like I might take off in a high wind like the Flying Nun. It is not made from natural straw; however, it has tassels, and tassels compensate for anything.

The Parasol

However, notwithstanding their decorative nature, the amount of sun protection hats offer is obviously limited. To really confound the burning rays of our Australian sun, the big guns are required. If you hold a parasol at the right angle, you can even protect your naked sandalled feet (who remembers to daily slather sunscreen on their feet?).

This umbrella is vintage – 1960s perhaps. I found it in an antique bazaar a couple of years ago in Geelong, a small Victorian city, and pounced on it immediately. Kelly green! I love Kelly green. It has a yellow plastic handle, with a cord loop for convenient wrist-endanglement. 

I, in my alter ego as the Umbrella Killer, know umbrellas, and I can inform you that they don’t make them like they used to (you probably know this already). Vintage umbrella frames are made from a better-quality steel that does not break or warp easily in strong winds. The designs are usually more interesting too. And, bonus points: they often bear a steel pointy end, which makes them a magnificent weapon of self-defence to fend off muggers! Win, win, win!

It is a pity, considering our climate, that manufacturers don’t produce attractive fabric parasols (they are missing a unique opportunity in the market thereby), but a plastic rain umbrella can be substituted, and in the case of Melbourne with its freakishly erratic weather, it is likely to be mighty useful in fending off the rain all on the same day!

So, there you have it. I believe I am in possession of quite an adequate arsenal with which to protect my fair complexion, and so far I can proudly report I have escaped sunburn. Although that might have something more to do with the quantity of rain we’ve had this summer than anything else!