50s novelty

Probably fueled by the idea of making a circle skirt from my recently bought fruit pattered curtains, I've been looking at lots of 1950s full skirts and dresses on eBay and Etsy. I'm absolutely fascinated by the NOVELTY prints from that era.

 ∧ Now that's what I call a poodle skirt!

Both for sale here on Etsy.

 ∧  Bananas, pineapples, brown leaves and monkeys = want. 

If you do have a 25" waist you can buy it here on Etsy.

∧ Sold for $200 here.

 ∧ Shakespeare themed fabric!

Snap up a bargain due to slightly yellow stained armpits here on Etsy!

 

∧ Possibly my favourite: various brands of tobacco ands smoking paraphernalia. 
Unfortunately already sold here.

Bill Cunningham New York

Earlier this week I watched a lovely documentary on fashion photographer Bill Cunningham. Bill is 83 years old and has been photographing New York City street style for the last few decades. You see this kind of photography all over the place now, in magazines and fashion blogs, but Mr. Cunningham is its true godfather. Hardly anything was known about his personal life up until this documentary and it took the makers 10 years to make this movie, from which 8 were spend on trying to convince Bill to cooperate! In the end he gave in and the result is an amazing film about an amazing man; it didn't cease to amaze me!

Like, the man is the biggest workaholic ever. Every day, rain or shine, he cycles through NYC to capture the city's birds of paradise. During the day he snaps the extraordinary ordinary people on the street and at night he photographs the he rich and famous at charity events and galas for his weekly columns On the Street and Evening Hours in The New York Times. Uptown and downtown he goes and uptown again. He can't stop, he even takes pictures during his own award ceremony/party.

And like, the man has a backbone. He doesn't take money for his photographs, because "if you don't take money they can't tell you what to do". He doesn't care if the person in front of his lens is a celebrity or not; if he or she isn't wearing anything interesting he will not press the shutter. He will not tolerate that his photographs are being you used to ridicule people, to judge them and label them 'hot' or 'not'.

It's also remarkable that, as much as he loves beautiful, extravagant clothes, Mr. Cunningham looks rather inconspicuously. Always wearing  a very practical, janitor-like blue overcoat. He doesn't care for food (more than once we see him eating at Maccy D's), nor comfort - he has lived in a tiny apartment above Carnegie Hall for 60 years. His flat is filled with filing cabinets, containing his photos and film. Somewhere in between lies his bed (a mattress raised on magazines!) and there is no bathroom. Really, his life is his work (Bill: "it's not work; it's pleasure!"). He has his reasons for his lifestyle, and you get a hint of why at the end of the movie...

I won't spoil anymore of the peculiarities that this movie reveals on Bill Cunningham. Because you should watch it. It doesn't matter if you're into beautiful clothes or beautiful pictures or not, because that's not what this film is about. It really is "deeply moving and visually stunning".

∧ A few spreads from Bill's column On The Street in The New York Times. Bill also gives a weekly digest of what's going on fashion-wise on the streets of New York through an audio commentary and a slide show on the NY Times website. They are a joy!

Bill Cunningham New York is now screening in UK cinemas and is available on DVD.  Watch the trailer:

Pre-order 'What I Wore Today'!

You can now pre-order the book What I Wore Today - Doodle Yourself into a Style Icon by illustrator Gemma Correll on Amazon!

The book is based on Gemma's What I Wore Today blog and Flickr group, where people upload their drawings of, well, what they wore that day. The book is a sketchbook, journal, manual on how to draw and fashion guide all in one, that will let you "scribble, sketch and doodle your way through a year's worth of your best outfits, or biggest fashion mistakes". To provide some inspiration and examples they've picked a couple of drawings from the (5000+ items!) Flickr group, and one of those is me in what I call my 'straight laced' outfit!!

 I now realize I look rather chubby in this drawing hahaha.

Xmas in CPH

Happy New Year!! I hope your holidays were happy. Mine certainly were! In an attempt to escape the usual Christmas frenzy my beau and I spent Christmas in Copenhagen. Well we got what we bargained for! Because EVERYTHING shut down for 3 days. It was wonderful. 

Luckily we did mangage to do a little bit of shopping on the 23rd. We went to the Latin Quarter for some vintage shopping. Endless rows of Sarah Lund sweaters! (We watched the first episode of The Killing - Forbrydelsen in Danish - in Copenhagen and got absolutely hooked.) ∨

  

The Danes are fervent pipe smokers. A great chance for my boyfriend - a pipe smoker himself - to stock up on some exotic tobacco ∨

Even Tivoli, the charming amusement park in the city centre closed on the 24th and 25th, and closed early on the 23rd. A shame because I would have loved to wander around the park a little longer, with some gløgg (the Danish version of mulled wine) in my hand. I didn't even get to go on the 80 meter high carousel! ∨

  

But I was happy to sacrifice that ride on the carousel in favor of some Smørrebrød! It's the Danish delicacy of rye bread with i.a. cheese, shrimp, caviar, egg, red cabbage and (not in the picture) various types of pickled herring. Mmmm!! ∨

The rest of the days we spent on long walks exploring different parts of Copenhagen (and on emptying our hotel minibar..) ∨

And on doing some window shopping. Odd displays here and there.. ∨

 

I knew the little mermaid was going to be a bit of a disappointment, but it was a nice sunny day, perfect for a stroll along the waterfront. And besides, what else were we gonna do?! ∨

The Bill Cosby Sweater legacy

Last Saturday I went to a dinner party for a friend's birthday. The fact that he was the birthday boy wasn't the only thing that made him the focal point of the evening, his knitted cardigan made him the centre of attention as well! Opinions varied on his - what I would classify as a - Cosby sweater.

It's pretty amazing what an enormous influence Bill Cosby's sweaters have had; I mean, there's a whole type of garment named after it. And they still prove to be a source of inspiration to artists and designers today, even after a 30 odd years. Now I only recently found out that the guy who designed the sweaters is Dutch! His name is Koos van den Akker and he left fashionless Holland for New York in the early sixties. Vice interviewed him recently in his NY studio (watch it here - highly recommended!). Koos hits the nail on the head when he looks at the sweaters and says, with a very cute Dutch accent: 

"This is a very thin line between absolutely awful and something of genius. Somebody can look at this and say 'What the fuck is this? This is the most horrible thing I've ever seen' and you know, somebody else says.. 'it's inspiration'".

  

Inspired by this (pizza??) sweater, pictured above, Andrew Salomone created this jumper on a HACKED electronic knitting machine from the 1980s (God, I wish I was so nerdy as to be able to hack a knitting machine!! Watch the tutorial here on the Craft site). Bill on the sweater is wearing the sweater, so there's a nice Droste-effect!

 

Another Cosby sweater inspired project is The Cosby Sweater Project. Kelly Tucker makes drawings of patterns of all the knits worn on the show. Maybe it was the outrageous 80s, but everybody in the Cosby show seemed to wearing awesome sweaters!

Even musicians have been inspired by the sweater: a quick research shows the garment gets a mention in songs by Ghostface Killah, MF Doom and Yelawolf. In 2008 Oh Snap!! released The Cosby Sweater EP. This remix by Hostage is a proper banger, with a nice Miami Bass-y intro. "... the elbow's leather and there's pink and green and o and blue..." hahaha.

Oh Snap! - Bill Cosby Sweater (Hostage Remix). Download it here.