Models

Random Picture Spam: Eyeliner

amanda lear, eyeliner, Françoise Hardy, Make-up, marianne faithfull, maureen starkey, natalie wood, pamela des barres, peggy moffitt, penelope tree, sandie shaw, sixties

I’m far too tired, achy and discombobulated to post anything too long and rambly tonight, so here’s a random picture post so I can attempt to maintain my unusual prolificacy at the moment….

I wish it were profligacy though; I love how I have to really think about which word I want to use. Ah well, that will come soon enough when I’ve recovered from the multitude of stresses which are upon me at the moment. And when it does, I will be wearing lots of eyeliner and lashes and drinking a lot of brandy. So just you watch out!

Well there you go, I was a bit rambly. Ha!













Swinging Sixties: Happy Birthday Twiggy!

seventies fashion, sixties, twiggy

Cue lots of people moaning about how this makes them ‘feel old’. Our very own Twiggy is 60 today, and definitely still looks fabulous. And I’ll forgive her for nearly having my eye out with her elbow last year. Good excuse for a Twigster picture spam, non? Crazy crimpy-haired Twigs is my favourite era, so I might try to do that look today in her honour.
















And here’s a little something to remind you to have a celebratory brandy, Moonie would have wanted it that way…

Le Freak, C’est Chic: Ossies! Dancing Pattie!! Ossies!!!

amanda lear, ossie clark, Pattie Boyd

Pattie is shown wearing the ubiquitous scalloped edge trousersuit and Lamborghini. Interestingly named as ‘Georgy Porgy’ in the film. I wonder if that was the original name for the outfit or whether they called it Georgy Porgy as a joke reference to Mr Harrison? Oddly enough, I have greater Ossie-envy for Amanda Lear’s outfits [and, while I’m here, I want her hair!]. And the lucky cow who gets to wear the kicky flared ensemble (Dress of the Year at Bath in 1969 – see below). That’s probably the ultimate Ossie holy grail….for me at any rate.

Irritating that you could dance like that back then. I can dance like that, I could be one of the cool girls… Le sigh.

Sandie Shaw Boutique

1960s, cathy mcgowan, celebrity boutiques, jeff banks, personal collection, sandie shaw, twiggy

The other day I promised to show my Sandie Shaw dress. It’s a navy wool crepe with a very nifty little double layered collar (the top layer being in white moss crepe).

I can’t promise this will be a terribly long or informative blog post, because there’s so little information out there about the label. It opened in 1967 and, needless to say, Sandie didn’t design the dresses and shoes (although she had full ‘approval’). I suspect it didn’t last very long, much like Twiggy and Cathy McGowan’s boutique labels. Perhaps there was deemed a conflict of interests when she married designer Jeff Banks in 1968?

Sandie opening her boutique in 1967


I will make Sandie one of my Fashion Icons at some point, whereupon I shall write more comprehensively (if I ever do such a thing) about her and her style. But if any of you are not familiar with our girl, I should probably tell you that her trademark was to sing barefoot. So much was made of the fact that her label was producing shoes!

The images have been taken from footage shown in the BBC’s Queens of Pop programme.



Yes Sandie, I’d be grimacing if they put me in a wig like that!


A screengrab cannot truly capture the seriously groovy Sixties dancing going on at this point.




Ouch, bunions ahoy!

Be you Vamp? Showgirl? Romantic? or Sportster?

1970s, david bailey, eye candy, Inspirational Images, marie helvin, Vogue

No, it’s not a new Spice Girls line-up. David Bailey and Vogue posed this quartet of female styles back in 1974 and I think it’s a wonderful photoshoot, if a little bit silly in premise terms. Bailey can be a very hit-and-miss photographer, for me at any rate, so I thought it would be nice to show you one of the better shoots I’ve found in my stash of magazines! And while it’s certainly all a bit of silly fluffy nonsense, we all need a bit of silly fluffy fantasy when the weather is a bit grim and the world is all stressing about money….

Vamp

You only ever see her at night: she hardly exists before 10pm. Her small house is all black velvet and mirrorglass, with a private bar and a fishtank bath, a hothouse where she grows spotted green orchids. Stomo Yamashata plays at the touch of a button at home and in her Panther Ferrari. She wears all shades of black and the Diaghilev colours – fuschia pink and violet, emerald and kingfisher – and the night scent, Norell. She puts crimson carnations in a porphyry vase of black ink overday, wears them to bring her luck at the Clermont. On rainy nights friends come through the wet to watch old movies in her private cinema – Bogart, Cagney, and her new favourite, LinoVentura.

Showgirl

A natural actress, show-off and scene-stealer. She arrives hours late for almost everything and her entrances are timed to perfection. She spends money like there’s no tomorrow and she makes it too. A born gambler, she cashes in her diamond chips and plays the stock market with gilt-edged assurance. She’ll have nothing but the best, including men. Her music? Mahler and the sound of oil wells. Her habitat: Annabel’s, Ritz bar anywhere, Mark’s Club. Her holiday: Las Hadas, Mexico, El Cuarton, Spain, Bali, Brazil. Her luggage: Vuitton. Her clothes: as you see here. Her scent: the newest. She travels by Lear jet, Rolls Corniche convertible, horse and carriage. She reads the Financial Times and there’s nothing average about her Dow-Jones.

Romantic

She’d like to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony. She’s a believe in love at first sight, a tarot card reader, a collector of ghost stories, a confidante. She has lunch at San Lorenzo, dinner at Tramps, tea for two under the pergola. She’ll only wear clothes with good vibrations – in other words, soft cool, free dresses, camisoles and cotton skirts. Her music: Vivaldi and Dylan. Her scent: Estee Lauder’s Alliage. Her clothes: Jap, Jean Muir, antique markets’. Her luggage: a carpet bag she picked up at a country auction, assorted straw baskets. Her transport: bus, Porsche, bicycle. Her natural habitat: home with faded prints, honeysuckle, herbs and French provincial furniture. Her holiday: a cottage in Wales, a farmhouse in Lucca, a schooner round the Isles of Greece- but she doesn’t have to travel to relax, her whole life’s a holiday.

Sportster
Buddy Holly, Bette Midler and David Bowie take turns on the tape. Her favourite clothes: shorts, Day-glo nylon scarves, metallised leather jackets, boots, things from Too Fast To Live Too Young to Die in the Kings Road, sports departments of Simpson and Lillywhites. Her scent, Helena Rubinstein’s Courant. Flies to the Black Raven at night, cruises around Europe on holiday, meeting up with a yacht in Italy.
Personally, I’m a romantic. I like the idea of being the vamp but it’s too much hard work. Showgirl requires money I simply cannot imagine ever having, and even if I did have it….aside from a Duran on one arm and a wardrobe full of Ossies and Vivienne Westwood frocks….I am not sure I wouldn’t feel awfully guilty every day for being such a glutton. Sportster? Couldn’t be further away from my personality, aside from the Bowie thing of course. Although I do like sports cars, I just can’t drive them!


…… What would you be?

Veruschka goes cheap

1970s, biba, british boutique movement, bus stop, Inspirational Images, jeff banks, telegraph magazine, veruschka


I must admit, I’ve never really understood the whole Veruschka ‘thing’. I mean, clearly she’s never encountered the ugly stick in her life but I find her looks to be a bit….well……blahhhhhh. I like unusual, quirky looking people and she is frequently described as ‘amazonian’ and exotic but I simply cannot understand or see this.

Anyway, I slightly changed my mind when I saw this gorgeous spread in The Telegraph Magazine (something of a Seventies boutique bible at times) from 1972. Touted as “The price of looking like Veruschka is less than you think” and showing her in inexpensive British Boutique clothes, she actually looks quite cute for once…..and I really love the background of Woburn Abbey.


The front cover in a Jeff Banks smock is my joint favourite with the window shot of her in Bus Stop cheesecloth. But they’re all pretty fabulous……enjoy!!

From top: Blue Bus Stop cheesecloth dress; Issey Miyake pedal pushers; Anthony Price for Che Guevara top and pedal pushers; Biba print dress

Little Miss Hornby and a gap now filled

1960s, british boutique movement, celebrity boutiques, eye candy, personal collection, twiggy, vintage fangirl squee

As many of you know from reading my blog and my website, I’m quite a keen collector as well as a seller. Together with the fact that I love wearing British Boutique-era clothing as well, it’s a wonder I ever sell anything. But thankfully, for you, I do and I don’t hold back the good stuff either. But occasionally, with something magnificent and as yet unrepresented in my collection, I do decide to buy something for myself and myself alone. It’s my ambition to have a representative collection of British Boutique designers and boutiques, some designers I will always have more than others because I have more of an interest in their career. But for some, one representative piece is all I can possibly hope for (or even afford). Like Thea Porter, or Bill Gibb…….or now, Twiggy.

Twiggy’s own label started in 1966, designed by RCA graduates Pam Proctor and Paul Babb, as one of the many ways in which Twiggy and her manager/boyfriend Justin De Villeneuve could utilize her fame and bankability. Twiggy was eager to be involved in the entire process of the clothes production, as a keen home dressmaker and frustrated designer herself, and this means that it was perhaps one of the better made and most genuinely stylish celebrity boutique labels of the time. Originally the idea had been mooted by Berkertex, but when Twiggy realised they were simply wanting to put her name on an existing range of clothes with no input by her, she turned to the Taramina Textiles firm. Smaller but happy to leave the creative decisions to the Twiggy camp and the two designers.

“We made sure the dresses were really good and they were all things that I would be happy to wear. I still think it was a very good, young collection of clothes–cat-suits, print shifts gathered under the bust, Bermuda-length jump suits, shirt dresses with long pointed collars, jersey culotte dresses, a pinstripe gangster style trouser suit–and all for between six and twelve guineas.” Twiggy by Twiggy (p51)

The launch was promoted by Twiggy’s only catwalk appearance and photographs taken by the legendary Barry Lategan.

Sadly, the small British manufacturers behind the label were unable to keep up with the demand the Twiggy line had produced in both Europe and the USA and the line eventually folded by the end of the decade. This leaves the label as one of the rarest and most highly sought after boutique brands of the time, due to the iconic status of Twiggy and the brevity of its existence.

I was overjoyed to finally get me a piece of Twiggy’s range, it had been a glaring hole in my collection so far. Then a few days later, I was sorting out my image files on my computer and found these photos of Twiggy actually wearing the dress in question. Unfortunately it does show me that the sleeves have been hacked off at some point…..but honestly, I care not! I have photos of Twiggy in my dress and as any regular readers will know, I’m slightly obsessed with original photos and particularly of the designers in or with the garments in question.

Don’t mind me, I’m just doing a little happy dance here!

If you can’t afford the car, try this instead…

1960s, alice pollock, british boutique movement, celia birtwell, ossie clark, radley, twiggy

Certainly a worthy recipient of the name Lamborghini, just look at the sleek lines and general aesthetically pleasing-ness of it all. Ossie was one of the main proponents of the trouser suit, and this swiftly became one of his most iconic pieces once Twiggy wore the ‘couture’ original. It was also produced for Radley in the first year of their collaboration with Ossie and Alice Pollock, successfully showing that their designs could easily be manufactured more affordably.

It’s a real stunner. From the classic Ossie suit tailoring (often overlooked in favour of the dresses) in champagne satin, to Celia Birtwell’s chinoiserie print trousers. I must confess that the chinoiserie is one of my favourites, it just works so well on satin! Although obviously Ossies are born to be worn, this beauty is certainly a collector’s dream and a rare museum quality piece by one of the most revered designers this country has ever had. Wearable art.