The Secret Sisters

If you don't know about these gals,Lydia and Laura Rogers, from Alabama, you should ! They have the most fabulous voices.
Imagine you are in a dance hall in the 1920's midwest USA, close your eyes & listen, i swear they will transport you back in time !
The Secret Sisters recorded in a crazy two-week recording time frame. The producers used vintage analogue recording equipment and vintage microphones, determined to properly capture The Secret Sisters’ magical harmonizing and stunning vocal power.
“In The Secret Sisters, you can hear the history of rural American music from the 1920s and a reverence for every musical genre since,” stated their grammy winning producer T Bone Burnett.
Listen to them here and here

Their website is here.

Japan ~ a different point of view

I wanted to share an email i recieved from a friend.
It is amazing. At a time when one could simply moan and whine this woman is so positive. I find her words inspiring.




Hello My Lovely Friends,
First I want to thank you so very much for your concern for me. I am very touched. I also wish to apologize for a generic message to you all. But it seems the best way at the moment to get my message to you.

Things here in Sendai have been rather surreal. But I am very blessed to have wonderful friends who are helping me a lot. Since my shack is even more worthy of that name, I am now staying at a friend's home. We share supplies like water, food and a kerosene heater. We sleep lined up in one room, eat by candlelight, share stories. It is warm, friendly, and beautiful.
During the day we help each other clean up the mess in our homes. People sit in their cars, looking at news on their navigation screens, or line up to get drinking water when a source is open. If someone has water running in their home, they put out sign so people can come to fill up their jugs and buckets.
Utterly amazingly where I am there has been no looting, no pushing in lines. People leave their front door open, as it is safer when an earthquake strikes. People keep saying, "Oh, this is how it used to be in the old days when everyone helped one another."
Quakes keep coming. Last night they struck about every 15 minutes. Sirens are constant and helicopters pass overhead often.
We got water for a few hours in our homes last night, and now it is for half a day. Electricity came on this afternoon. Gas has not yet come on. But all of this is by area. Some people have these things, others do not. No one has washed for several days. We feel grubby, but there are so much more important concerns than that for us now. I love this peeling away of non-essentials. Living fully on the level of instinct, of intuition, of caring, of what is needed for survival, not just of me, but of the entire group.
There are strange parallel universes happening. Houses a mess in some places, yet then a house with futons or laundry out drying in the sun. People lining up for water and food, and yet a few people out walking their dogs. All happening at the same time.
Other unexpected touches of beauty are first, the silence at night. No cars. No one out on the streets. And the heavens at night are scattered with stars. I usually can see about two, but now the whole sky is filled. The mountains are Sendai are solid and with the crisp air we can see them silhouetted against the sky magnificently.
And the Japanese themselves are so wonderful. I come back to my shack to check on it each day, now to send this e-mail since the electricity is on, and I find food and water left in my entranceway. I have no idea from whom, but it is there. Old men in green hats go from door to door checking to see if everyone is OK. People talk to complete strangers asking if they need help. I see no signs of fear. Resignation, yes, but fear or panic, no.
They tell us we can expect aftershocks, and even other major quakes, for another month or more. And we are getting constant tremors, rolls, shaking, rumbling. I am blessed in that I live in a part of Sendai that is a bit elevated, a bit more solid than other parts. So, so far this area is better off than others. Last night my friend's husband came in from the country, bringing food and water. Blessed again.
Somehow at this time I realize from direct experience that there is indeed an enormous Cosmic evolutionary step that is occurring all over the world right at this moment. And somehow as I experience the events happening now in Japan, I can feel my heart opening very wide. My brother asked me if I felt so small because of all that is happening. I don't. Rather, I feel as part of something happening that much larger than myself.
This wave of birthing (worldwide) is hard, and yet magnificent.

Spring Looks 2011

Spring 2011 Dior ~ i can't wait to see how these make up & hair styles and John Galliano's designs filter down to the street.
I am loving his tight pencil skirts,peplums and volumous dresses and when combined with amazing makeup & hair do's it equals va va voom !


For spring 2011 Galliano was inspired the 40's and 50's and by Rene Gruau a fabulous and well renowned fashion illustrator who is best known for his marketing images for Miss Dior perfume, the House of Dior and magazines including Balmain, Schiaparelli, Balenciaga,Vogue, and Harper's Bazaar.
Gruau's love affair with fashion spanned over 50 years.





Make up artist artist Pat McGrath conceptualised a technicolor Bettie Page themed look with matte, bright coloured lids painted in bright aqua blue, canary yellow, calypso orange,stop sign red and grass green shades and then topping it off with a flaming red show stopping lip, winged black eyeliner and a lashing of black mascara.
Hairstylist Orlando Pita created a Bettie bangs,1940's waves and updo's to compliment the collection along with some fabulous headpieces.
Personally i am just excited by colour and cannot wait to try to recreate some of these looks !

Febuary Inspiration

This month i am revisiting the movie Taxi Driver. I just love Jodie Foster's wardrobe in this film.
I was excited then when i saw Marc Jacobs Spring release for this year. Someone had definately been inspired by Taxi Drive too ! Its all 70's meets 30's.











How cool is the makeup ? I am loving the shiny green eyes contrasted by the matte lip.
"We were inspired by Angelica Huston in the '70s," lead makeup artist François Nars explained. To create the bold matte lip, he applied his own Pure Matte lipstick in Volga, along with African Queen lip liner and eyeliner pencil in Mambo. The glossy dark green eye was created with Night Porter and Nouveau Monde eyeshadows; Celebrate soft touch shadow pencil; and Larger Than Life mascara. On cheeks, models wore Nars' cult-fave blush Orgasm. Notably absent: eyebrows, which were bleached before the show.

"the inventor of the pin-up"

Jean-Gabriel Domergue (French / 1889-1962 )
Domergue specialised in portraits of Parisian women. His work defined a particular kind of swan-necked doe-eyed female beauty.
According to winkipedia ~ Domergue was born on March 4, 1889 in Bordeaux and studied at the École nationale supérieure des Beaux-Arts. From the 1920s onward he concentrated on portraits, and claimed to be "ma première pin-up" ~ "the inventor of the pin-up"

He also designed clothes for the couturier Paul Poiret.
From 1955 until 1962 he was the curator of the Musée Jacquemart-André, organising exhibitions of the works of Van Gogh, Toulouse-Lautrec, Goya and others.









You can buy digital collage sheets here on Etsy.

Illamasqua Inspired Heart Manicure

I am in love with the manicure featured in the new Throb collection.

I have been wanting to try and do a manicure inspired by the Alex Box one so here it is !

I took a bottle of Wet & Wild 449C white nail polish and added 2 drops of yellow and 2 drops of dark beige polish into it to achieve a good cream colour.
Below is a pic of all 3 polishes we used for this manicure. We thought we had a matte black polish but didn't, but since this was our first attempt at it we used what we had.
I painted the cream polish ( that explains why it looks messy ~you have to remember i was the child that coloured outside the animals in her colouring-in book )and then did the hearts.

Next step , paint with the new cream polish

Then paint on the outline of the heart shape with So Easy Strike Right in black.

Then fill in with black nail polish and viola all done !



Can't wait to do this again but with matte black polish and a steady hand.


Next time will use a matte black polish & i will try and stay inside the lines ! weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee

Step Right Up Folks !

January brings a long love of all things vintage big top related. Carnival stripes, circus girls, elephant handlers, snake charmers, fairy floss, clown hats and side show alley( and yes i still heart you Pee Wee !)







The amazing Miss Batcakes makes the coolest circus hats !


I am lusting after her circus collar !

This past week i have also re watched the fabulous HBO series Carnivale. Every time i watch it i see new things, draw new inspiration, fall in love with a different character, and think "why did i not notice THAT, last time i watched this series ?

The set & costume design inspire me endlessly and now i want to live in a 1920's circus trailer with Management, blood red velvet drapes, beautiful dark wood,chandeliers, dust bowl print fabrics, old glass, 1000 leather bound books and a bottle of absinthe.
Who wants to run away with me & join the circus ? And speaking of the circus, due for release in April 2011 is Water For Elephants. Staring Reece Witherspoon and Robert Pattinson it is a film adaptation of Sara Gruen’s bestselling novel about a love triangle set in a 1930's circus.






Have not decided whether i will redbox this film or not. It usually happens if i fall in love with a book then the film usually disappoints me.
I will see it purely for the visuals, the set and costume design and that way i won't get caught up in how close the film follows the book.
Movies like these i like to watch at home so i can stop,sketch an outfit or idea and then restart it, but, i also love seeing it on a big screen too.
You can Watch the trailer here.
Let the show begin !!!