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
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’.
Market hopping
No space for a Singer
What does the perfect weekend consist of? Good weather, good food, a family trip to the beach, high tea with friends and a spot of market hopping.
Here’s a few of the bargains I didn’t buy: an antique Singer, leather doctor’s bag, and these sweet ballerina prints texted by my neighbour Anna, and seen too late.
You snooze, you lose.
Doctor, Doctor
Gone but not forgotten
Maybe the best market find… ever
My $70 find
Lordy I love a good flea market. For those of you in Sydney, I’ve unearthed some spectacular treasures at Rozelle Markets, the likes of which you’d be hard pressed to find even at Paris’ Les Puces.
But nothing beats this – a while back I woke up at the crack of dawn one fiery-hot Saturday, kissed my lovely husband and daughter goodbye and headed off. Stall holders were still setting up when I saw this black woollen dress hanging on a rack all by its lonesome. I swooped in and asked to try it on… possibly the only reason it hadn’t been nabbed already was the sweltering heat. But I purloined it early, and it fit like a glove. Joy.
I only hope there’s no bad karma attached… A gift from the former owner’s ex-husband twenty years before, the dress lasted longer than the marriage but she couldn’t bear to look at it any longer. Enter, me.
All it needs is a few stitches to the hem but it’s otherwise perfect. Sigh.