Favourite Words

Lune is one of my favourite words. It's lovely to say, it's lovely to think about. It's a wondrous thing to look at as in below, especially with some old lamp posts thrown in for ambience. And a bit of snow. Very still..... and quiet. Just out of reach......

Photo by Franco Ferri Mala

..... or sleek and stylised like this Red Eye Loon. I just love black and white with a bit of red nearby. Not sure about the green, but he wears it well.

Do you think you'd say he was covered in feathers if you didn't know that he was?

I don't think you would...

A bygone era

Sometimes I like to imagine myself as a seamstress type person living in the early 20th century. I've just set myself up in a shop (or salon rather) and I'm making things for glamourous ladies. Maybe I have a gaggle of women who work with me like Evie and Beatrice from The House of Elliot and I go to lavish restaurants and parties like they do. 

This is my studio, so it's easy to imagine such things.... although no gossiping chooks here

Everyday I admire my painted floor which I did myself. I liked them so much I made Tim paint our floor at home. Although it should have been me as I did a much better job. He sees it as a chore whereas I like painting surfaces.

Maybe my beau could be Carlo Mollino. He could pick me up for evening drinks in his plane that he designed and flew himself. Is there anyone around these days like him? 

Anyway a lot of dresses that I make seem to be reminiscent of the 30's or thereabouts. Well that's what I thought and it's certainly what people seem to think of them, but just now, when looking for some examples of this I could only find two brides. But that's mostly because I have no say in the final styling of it all of course. Still, I think it's a good thing to have a piece that is not screamingly modern because it's really a family heirloom in a way. To be cherished and tried on again when one is feeling nostalgic, to hold pride of place in the cupboard and then finally the dress up box when the kids arrrive! 

This is Katharine. Her dress was made from a crazy Italian Macrame lace that is all squiggly and looks like string. It had a layer of silk satin and silk chiffon underneath that and the back was quite textured with pieces of Italian silk tulle and extra macrame lace. 

Some photographers can't help themselves with the old Dutch tilt can they??

This is Jessica getting married at The Carrington I think, in Katoomba. Great place. People used to go up there in the 20's to drink martinis, smoke gaspers and indulge in a bit of partner swapping!

Her dress was made with French lace on the bodice and to the waist. The skirts were silk tulle over silk satin. Her cap sleeves were also silk tulle trimmed with French lace. I think she had a sprinkling of small crystals here and there on the lace. 

But if I'd been around then I would have had the war to contend with and that would have been a bore to say the least!

x

A Cool Haiku

The pheasant - 

She has indeed

A handsome lover

Alexander McQueen's idea of male beauty from Winter 2009

I like it

I bet this man appreciates a Haiku

Photos by Tranism

Lacey Real Brides

Hello, I love the internet. After years of dawdling around on it,  just barely a bystander, I've finally got the hang of finding and collecting images. I've put all my brides into files and I feel organised at last.

So, here below is my lovely bride Alison and her hubby. They were married in Autumn. Her dress was made from silk satin with an Italian Macrame lace overlay. The lace is crazy actually when you look at it but it makes up to be quite vintage looking. It's not for everyone and it's certainly not traditional but who cares about that! 

The back was very low on the dress and the macrame fell in fishtail pieces under the buttons. I guess the front is quite low too but it's not a cheeky dress. It's a simple style and one that can look completely different depending on the fabrication. It has a little Hollywood glamour in an unfussy way. 

 

That is one enormous bouquet! 

Here's a bride from a while ago - Penny. A very cool chick who worked at Sass & Bide. This is taken in my old shop in Paddington (thanks be to God that I am no longer in Paddington!) which is why she looks less sparkly than the usual bride.

This fabric is also a crazy Italian lace. A silk linen with big burn out flowers. It was only ever creative people who bought it. In fact it took me some time to think of what to make in it! But I do love it. I don;t have any left now and I miss it! 

Finally to continue the theme of unusual lace, here is a dress for Danielle. This is obviously not her although she is the only person I have ever made a dress for who has the exact same measurements as my mannequin, so in many ways this is her!

The lace and colour underneath were her idea, the style mine. We wanted it to look like a vintage dress from the 50's. Which it does. She had green eyes so it looked amazing on her. Which was lucky as when she first bought in the rather acid green silk for underneath I almost wanted to run a mile! 

The lace was corded which is my favourite kind of lace. Anyway that's enough about that, Tim has made me a chai tea (his own special recipe) and it's calling me...... x

This is my bride Anastasia who got married earlier in the year. She was very tall and willowy and a lovely girl. Although maybe not too lovely by the looks of this murderous red! It was a very simple dress and quite sexy really. 

There's no such thing as the perfect red that I can ever find in a silk. I always end up dying the fabric to get the colour I want. The first time I ever did it, I went to the paint shop and got a colour card of an almost perfect colour, then off to the make up shop for some nail polish. Once I'd painted over the card with the nail polish, the colour was right. Luckily the fabric dyer is such a clever man who never gives one any grief no matter how pie in the sky one's requests are. For Anastasia, we took the colour from a velvet top of hers. But as velvet is never a flat colour it was the depth of red half way down the pile that we wanted, not what you could see when you looked at it from above. The dyer had to look through it, which he just might have done as he got it right. I do so love this shade of red.

This is a good red too. You have to look in the middle of the leaf, not the ends....

And this is good too, although it's more of a burgundy, but you can't be too picky about that when it comes to vintage cars. You'd never get a colour like this these days..... now they're all taupey and neutral...... what's the world coming to?

The piece de resistance in red though is to be found here.
This marvelous burst of nature is as perfect a red as ever could be found. Are we all just a bunch of cheap imitators? Mother Earth has already done it a hundred times over with more aplomb and attention to detail than we sentient beings would ever dream up.  

Here is another great girl - Pip. I love these photos, she and her husband look very cool and glamourous in a nonchalant way I think. I also like the fact that he apparently does not like champagne and could care less for pretense! Sometimes I feel so sorry for some men made to play act in wedding photos. 

Pip's dress was a sort of tutu. A long version. Her belt was in a gorgeous red and it had a hand made silk chrysanthemum on it. I didn't make it, a fabulous girl called Jen did. I'll have to put her details on here. The tulle of the skirt was draped from the waist and it dropped and came up again from there. It had a slightly bubble effect in some places and not in others. Anyway it looked quite fun, delicate but not too precious. I think in years to come their kids will look at these pics and marvel at what groovers their parents were!

I hope my daughter thinks that about Tim and I.

A splash of Fuscia

This is my lovely bride Daria. She was about 5 or 6 months or maybe 7 months pregnant. I love the berries and  flowers in her hair. Hence the fuscia ribbon.

Because Daria was pregnant, it was important to make a dress that flattered her new shape without hiding it or showing it off. We wanted something that was soft and romantic, so the under layer was a silk satin which was cut quite close to the figure and then over the top were silk chiffon pieces coming from the under bust which could move as they wished when she walked. Having these pieces dropping from this point gave the dress a sense of elongation. The hem looks nice and swishy in the sea breeze too.

I always feel a little weird about the kissing photos but at least in this photo they're doing a nose kiss!

I think it's nice that their baby got to go the wedding also.