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
Sneak preview of new book: A Life in Frocks
Book club & High Tea at The Victoria Room
I’m finally able to talk about the new book, and am starting to feel really excited about seeing it in print in just a few short months… finished copies hit shelves on 1 November.
What’s it all about? Well… for as long as I can remember, I’ve been passionate about clothes. They are my first, and most enduring, love affair to date. I buy far too many glossy magazines, and puzzle over how I can spend half my life shopping, yet still find myself standing in front of a vast rack of outfits each morning, despairing that I have nothing to wear. Over the years, clothes have comforted me, given me confidence, lured potential lovers, made me invisible, secured jobs, aged me and given back my youth. And yes, they have betrayed me.
A Life in Frocks is about the ‘divine obsession’, a woman’s love for clothes. In particular, it’s meant to be a personal, entertaining, joyous – and seductive – exploration of the significance of clothes, filtered through my lifelong sartorial infatuation.
To read pre-publication endorsements from Vogue’s Kirstie Clements and Melissa Hoyer, click here and scroll down the page. The first event in the schedule is a book club talk at The Victoria Room on Saturday 20 November, with Books & Nooks. More details to follow soon.
AWW craft… and another book or two
Photo album cover in a Florence Broadhurst signature print
Phew – it’s been a busy few weeks. Firstly, I’ve been writing and shooting a bunch of things for Australian Women’s Weekly with my lovely mate, Dean Wilmot. Here’s one project I can show you above, which was just published in the May issue last week. To see the full article and step-by-step instructions, click here. The fabric is from Signature Prints, and the toile de jouy paper I used to line the inside is from favourite stationers, Cavallini Papers & Co. (via Balmain’s Duck Egg Blue).
Secondly, I’ve been writing a big piece for Vogue and interviewing people in all sorts of time zones lately, which can be quite tricky for a fuzzy brain to keep track of. I’m almost done, and it’s due to appear later in the year.
And thirdly, I’ve been working on the almost-final draft of my next book, a memoir… which is very different from the crafting, but I hope not such a surprise when you see it. Plus I’ve just signed on for another crafty book with Murdoch Books, to be published next year. Stay tuned for more news soon!
One thing I have been reading and enjoying for all the beautiful pics is my dear friend Lisa’s new blog, Stiff White Peaks about her travels in New York… Ah, to be there… I feel like I’m tripping through Manhattan vicariously though, just reading about all the things she’s been up to. I love the inspiration of setting up a blog as a sort-of journal of a time… it’s a great idea, non? And must save one from repeating themselves in all those emails home!
The School of Life
The School of Life bookstore, London WC1
The past year has been so unsettling for so many people, what with all the economic uncertainty and job losses. The upside is that it’s forced a lot of us to take a good look at our lives, and that’s where wonderful ideas like this really come to the fore:
The School of Life is a bookstore in London specialising in an edited selection of books on all the great topics crucial to leading a good life. They describe their stock as: ‘a mix of high and low, new and old, predictable and astonishing… we have created a kind of chemist for the mind, where you can find shelves such as “how to enjoy your own company”, “how to make a difference” or “how to survive insomnia”.’
They also run workshops and what they call ‘bibliotherapy’ sessions, constructing a recommended reading list for people who want to broaden their horizons. Clever business idea – I like it a lot.
Make your own book
I’m not usually fond of self-published books, no matter how worthy the subject – there’s something quite special about having a team of people working together on a book project to come up with the very best of all visions. Throughout the process of producing The Crafty Minx, my clever publisher Kay Scarlett, editor Sophia Oravecz or designer Vivien Valk would suggest something that changed my direction or influenced the book here and there. It always made an improvement – more heads are better than one.
That said, I read about this service on Daily Addict and felt it was too good not to mention: Blurb.com provides software you can download to make your own books, and inexpensive printing and postage. I’m thinking of making a book of our family life, just for us (and for Olive to see when she’s big) and maybe an additional copy for my lovely in-laws. This is a great idea for publishing images of your own photography, design or craft projects, don’t you think?
Orchids on Your Budget
Live chicly but cheaply
I usually find books like this amusing enough. I’ll read a few pages or chapters then pop them on the shelf, never to be opened again. But I started Orchids on Your Budget after receiving it as a gift from my friend Cassy, and couldn’t put it down until I’d read the entire thing.
First published in 1937 by ex-Vogue staffer Marjorie Hillis (author of Live Alone and Like It – love it) this is a little gem and funny to boot – it had me laughing aloud. With a few exceptions (in the chapter Please Dress, Marjorie advocates an awful lot of staple wardrobe items in what she calls toast brown… hmm) it couldn’t be more relevant.
Case in point:
‘It’s not difficult to have fun out of economising (up to a point), both because of the sense of achievement it gives you and because everyone else is doing it, too… A slight financial pressure sharpens the wits, though it needn’t sharpen the disposition. But it takes an interesting person to have an attractive ménage on a shoe-string and to run it with gaiety and charm… Maybe you would rather play polo than pingpong, but if you’ve got an old pingpong set and no ponies, you’ll get a lot more fun out of life from being a pingpong champion than from taking a dispirited whack with a polo mallet every now and then.’
Well said, Marjorie. Tally ho.
Clever solution or one OCD step too far?
My OCD colour coding
For years friends and colleagues have teased me mercilessly about colour coding book spines. I saw it in a design magazine once and have been quite obsessive about it since. It’s true the books in that feature were coffee table-type tomes (not weighty, worthy classics) but I think the concept holds true: not only is it aesthetically pleasing, but if you’re at all a visual person, it’s a great way to organise your books (or anything else facing spine out ie DVDs, CDs… pesky, ugly things to display and far better left in a closed box or cupboard, if you ask me).
Simply think of the book cover and you can usually locate it within minutes.
Bedroom bookshelf
Pretty
Very bright book collection