Kelly Doust introduces readers to her wonderful world of reviving and customising vintage pieces, while bringing a modern and unique twist to wearing vintage clothes – Dita Von Teese
Cara Mia Vintage
Vivienne Westwood hoop(la!) skirt from Cara Mia Vintage
A few weeks ago I re-organised the entire wardrobe, pulling together an Autumn look and passing on old items to a friend’s teenage daughter. Out came anything needing spot cleaning or repairs, as well as those pieces earmarked for full or partial overhauls with snipping and embellishing, which I’ve been working my way through. And I kept a notepad nearby to jot down items to find so I could wear others more often, as and when they sprung to mind.
First on the wishlist was a vintage fur gilet, and I found the best version on shopCOLLECT‘s Etsy site. It struck me how totally gorgeous and professional the online styling for vintage has become – with pieces modelled just as beautifully as any designer shopping site such as Net-a-Porter or Shopbop. To me this is the acme of vintage appreciation, proving the old has become just as desirable as the new (if not more so for its rarity) in fashion. I don’t buy a helluva lot online because I like staying local and trying things on, but accessories and outerwear can be brilliant if you’re stuck finding them elsewhere.
I mentioned Cara Mia Vintage recently, having cooed over some of the most divine and archival designer pieces I’ve seen in the flesh at Love Vintage. Her collection rivals the designer vintage stores I’ve visited in London and Paris, and sits right up there with the Dress Box Vintage concession at Liberty, despite being quite a bit smaller. I wanted to share with you some of my favourites, just to show you how fab these classic vintage looks can work when worn with modern style. This is the way to wear vintage today, and it’s truly inspiring. More please.
Anonymous feather chubby & Pucci skirt
D&G supermodel bustier
Pretty Pucci sundress
Christian Dior lace cutwork blouse
Yves Saint Laurent green linen jacket
Garage Sale Trail
Raggedy Ann 1930s sundress - before
Have you heard about this huge annual sustainability event, organised by the clever people at City of Sydney and local councils across Australia?
This Saturday 5 May’s Garage Sale Trail is looking to be massive, with ambassadors Marnie Skillings and Liane Rossler (Dinosaur Designs) on board, and sales all over the city at Cloth Fabric, The Society Inc. etc. Let’s hope the gorgeous weather holds out for some enthusiastic bargain-hunting. For some excellent guerilla garage sale shopping tips, click here.
I’ll be doing a workshop at the Sydney Antique Centre from 2-4pm this Saturday on how to upcycle vintage & secondhand clothes. There’s a few spots left if you’re keen to sign up, and I’ll be posting some images here on the blog soon so you can see some of the transformations we made to tired & damaged pieces.
... and after
Waxing Koigu
Knitting with Koigu - socks designed by Barbara Brown
How darned cute are these? Socks from the new Koigu Magazine in ‘Autumn Berries’ and some scarves to make you wish for colder weather.
I’ve almost completed a crochet project with Japanese Koigu yarn in various shades from lemon to hot pink, and it’s such a buzz to work with. Not for the delicious texture alone, which is soft and fine and anything but sticky, but the delight in watching its variegated colours play out. And it looks amazing on smaller items such as roses or scarves for little people. I’m going to give the knitted iPod case just completed at my Corner Shop workshop a go in a zesty lemon-lime-tomato combination next, with Koigu from Calico & Ivy Balmain.
Now the days are getting cooler, I’m keen to be knitting and crocheting when I can. And I’ve gotten to the sweet spot with crocheting where I can watch a film or chat and still concentrate on keeping up a pattern, which is heaven.
The challenge this winter? To learn how to make socks, so I can give a pair or two to friends with mid-year birthdays. Wish me luck.
Home sewing is easy!
Esther Han interviewed me for this piece in the Sydney Morning Herald today.
Apparently dressmaking courses are seeing a huge surge in popularity, with much of the buzz about recreating all the vintage-style frocks we’re going in for of late. Lovely news (or at least nicer than the other headlines I read this morning) because not everyone can find a true vintage frock to fit, much as they’d like to.
I’ve been dying to make a vintage frock from scratch for aeons. Inner Westies should try the Summer Hill Sewing Emporium if you can’t get to Beverley’s classes in Penshurst, or any of the squillion on offer at TAFE.
Convinced? For inspiration, see Cara Mia Vintage for some lustworthy original designer pieces from the likes of Balenciaga, Chanel, Dior, Gucci, Pucci, Moschino, Vivienne Westwood and Ungaro. Cara Weinstock’s pieces had me positively drooling at the last Love Vintage.
Bellissima, darlings!
Itchy fingers
Carmen Cass gets toasty
I’m like the grasshopper who sang all summer (except I was getting superfit working out five times a week – no weight loss, but I can run up hills now, big ones, and not pass out or be sick, bonus! – and writing books not blog posts and making monumental plans to overhaul my life), and now it’s autumn and I have 50 projects to make for the next book, which I handed in last February but is about to be shot in just over 2 months time, and it’s scaring the bejeezus out of me. Yikes!
Met with my lovely new publisher, Tracy Lines (former Creative Director of Inside Out) on Wednesday, and she succeeded in lighting a fire underneath my butt (totally necessary – I even had Olive help me overhaul a hatstand yesterday, how desperate is that? Just a tip, three year olds make rubbish helpers). Fortunately I won’t starve or go begging the ants anytime soon, but it’s time to stop squawking.
Naturellement, this was all feeling a bit stressful. So I took off to The Corner Shop in The Strand Arcade last night to learn how to knit as part of the Campaign for Wool (thank you Corner Shop, you’re my favourite) and despite now fantasising about making my own clotted cream-coloured slouchy knit for winter (I can purl!), à la the one spotted here on the enigmatic Ms Kass, I’m also considering signing up for the always-fab workshops at Calico & Ivy Balmain over winter because my fingers are itchy, dammit, and I’m going in for a spot of work avoidance behaviour (WAB) this week. When you make for a living, making for the selfish hell of it feels gloriously subversive.
Wool week at London's Selfridges
What else?
Cloth is selling off cute bundles of all their archived fabrics at their online store, so I might pop in for a nosy at those this afternoon and urge you to do the same.
I went to Rozelle Markets for the first time in months last Sunday and was wooed by my ruggedly handsome paramour all over again (don’t tell my husband). Sometimes a vintage vixen starts to feel pure Second Hand Rose when she’s up to her ears in marketeering, but I bought a bangin’ black miniskirt, secondhand Sass & Bide tux jacket and lambskin floor rug for under 50 bucks, and now I’m biding my time until our 8am tryst tomorrow. Gotta love those cheap thrills.
Rozelle Markets, I heart you
And I’m appearing at Sydney Writers’ Festival in a month with Indira Naidoo to talk DIY! All the superlatives in the world can’t cover how XXXXXXXX I am to be part of the best festival in The Showgirl’s calendar. Love SWF to pieces. I will finish reading The Marriage Plot and Why Be Happy When You Can Be Normal? before I see Mr Eugenides and Ms Winterson next month, I will I will I will.
I won’t promise to blog more, and I won’t wish to fit more in my week. I broke fast with one of my dearest friends in the world this morning, and life is GOOD (I’ve been up since 3am, can you tell?)
Much love to you & yours & keep on truckin’.
Lucy Folk jewellery
Burger Rings
I can’t quite believe I haven’t mentioned Lucy Folk here before. I’ve adored her pretzel and taco pieces since first spying them at wonderful Melbourne store, Alice Euphemia years ago, but they still rock hard. This is my favourite kind of jewellery: tongue-in-cheek, high-fashion, precious, and capable of dressing up the very best thriftstore threads or anything, really.
And how cute is the girl herself? Totally crushing on the taco pendant below, which is on the wishlist. Love love.
Friendship bracelet
Lucy Folk
Spicy!
Anhedonia
I came across this word in a Jonathan Franzen novel recently (the man’s a genius – I can’t imagine forgetting Freedom like, ever) and keep returning to it. What’s it mean? The inability to experience joy when you really should be.
That’s about the exact opposite of what I’m aiming for. I want to remember why life is so awesome. Every. Single. Day. When lazing on the sofa, licking the bowl, mastering a tricky skill or experiencing the pure thrill of not collapsing after a set of crunches. Needless to say, a happy family, fine meal and all the other super good stuff should inspire paroxysms of the stuff. Yep. That’s my goal.
Seems like every email or newsletter I receive lately, someone is harping on about how busy they are. So busy! No time to breathe! I’m the same – every message or conversation starts with “Sorry I haven’t been in touch / apologies for the delay responding.” Note to self: journey, journey, journey.
I want to share with you this very American TED talk I’m trying to live by. It’s about training your brain to be happy and redefining your idea of success. Which can only be a good thing, right?
Knit-in at The Corner Shop
You know knitting’s on-trend when they start doing it at The Corner Shop… check out these free classes being offered in-store to promote the Campaign for Wool, and look to Lion Brand and Purl Harbour for inspiration on the coolest knits this winter. Planning to crack out the crochet this weekend… toasty!
Lion Brand Yarn catwalk event
Annual Fashion Less Waste competition
Robert J. Carroll from Strand Hatters with the entrants awarded for having the best accesssory hats in 2011. Photography by Stuart Humphreys.
Have you heard about Fashion Less Waste, the Australian Museum’s annual fashion design competition? I hadn’t, but it sounds brilliant: entrants are asked to design and construct an outfit mostly made from materials used for non-clothing purposes/recycled materials, which are judged by such luminaries as Akira Isogawa, Dinosaur Designs’ Louise Olsen and Kelley Sheenan of the excellent Peppermint Magazine. This year, entrants are asked to find inspiration from creatures of the deep.
Fashion Less Waste aims to encourage a more sustainable fashion industry and foster an appreciation of the natural world. Entrants can win cash prizes, have their outfit featured at a gala catwalk event, and the winners’ work will be on public display at Sydney venues including the Museum, Strand Arcade and Reverse Garbage. The finalists will be revealed at a fashion parade on 26 July at the Museum itself.
Entries close 5pm 8 May 2012. For competition details and more photos and videos from previous years, click here.
Nicola Jacobsen models the 2011 winning entry by Stephanie Powell from Sydney
Isabella Mason wears the runner-up design of Katie Coogan-Mason & Maiki-Jane Blakeney from the Shoalhaven region of NSW, 2011
Top birds: Harlequin Market
Bluebird brooch
I love the girls at Harlequin Market – check out these fab new birdy brooches, just in. Perfect for adorning your cocoon coat this winter.
If you’re searching for costume sparklers, cuffs, Lucite bags, unserious Bakelite pieces from the twenties onwards and anything statement, this is the best vintage jewellery store in Sydney, with pieces sourced from all over the world by owner Bruna Harrison. Start saving those pennies.
Vintage gold Chanel cuff from Harlequin Market
Hello Polly