Photo to prove a point

Labels: , , , - Thursday, 8 April 2010

This is an update to my previous post as I was surfing around, as you do and came across the blog, Swing Fashionista and the Marina Diamandis in Eudon Choi post and lo and behold the lady is in a gorgeous green dress whose fabric swaths her curves beautifully. Then I scroll down.... same dress.... different person.... skinny model and boy what a difference that makes! 

Photo 1 - courtesy of
http://www.swingfashionista.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/marina.jpg


Photo 2 - courtesy of 
http://www.swingfashionista.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/eudonchoi.jpg


The difference smacked me in the face like a wet fish. This dress looks awful on her and it is a promotional shot but as you can see from my previous post it certainly does show the dress... You can see the line of the dress, the angle of the gathering, the width of the shoulders, drape (or should I say drop in this photo) of the fabric. Then when you look at the first photo, you don't necessarily see the draping or its angles but you see how beautiful the fabric drapes the body, it is almost as if the body and dress do a vulcan mind meld to become one. Unlike the promo shot were you 'see' a model wearing a dress.


I hope from these two pictures you can see what I'm talking about, how skinny = dress wears the person, curvy = person wears the dress and serious vavavoomability!


Also, hopefully I will make you feel a little better about not having a size 6/8 body, next time you get dress you'll know that it is you that is making the outfit and not the outfit going it alone... 


Enjoy your curves, they are a blessing that take you far, far away from being a coathanger.


Ciao Bella x

Favourite Vintage Site

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I absolutely adore this site not only for its wealth of gorgeous pin-up style clothes but it goes up to a size 2x which according to conversion charts (us 18-20) is UK 20-22, so its definitely for the curvy girls out there. Which is what they are all about. The sexiness of pin-up styling is unmistakeable and this site glorifies sexy curves. 


Pinup Girl Clothing are adorable!

This is simply a divine photo


I'd much rather see healthy girls than those aneroxic models that we are told are the ideal.


I have a theory on why designers use skinny models.  When I was doing my Fashion Design degree I too used small sizes for my designs. For me it saved money on the costs of the outfits also tailor's mannequins are a standard small size. The biggest reason I have found as well as the costs of fabrics to make larger sizes is that... Skinny models are clothes horses/coat hangers, simple as that. 


On skinny models clothes stand out more and to a large extent the model becomes unimportant to the clothes (in fashion that is not in any genre that exemplifies and salutes curves). It is the clothes that are important and they take over the significance. 


However, put the same outfit on someone curvier and WOW it looks amazing. It is only then that the clothes take a back seat and become enhancers for the woman, it becomes a complete package... a person who's clothes can make them shine. Put a skinny girl next to a curvy girl in the same outfit and I bet you'd see what I mean, you would notice how good the girl looks and not how good the clothes look. I hope I'm explaning myself right and you can let yourself see what I mean by that I mean we are trained as a society to see beauty in what we are told to see beauty in. The media is awash with skinniness which focuses on, well, that that must beautiful and something to aim for, by really looking you are now seeing for yourself, analysing and coming to your own conclusions and not what the media say you should.


I'm not going to even attempt to look at what beauty is, beauty is individual and an individual preference.


This of course is only my interpretation and theory not necessary the case but I hope that it may allow someone to see with their own eyes and not through the eyes of what the media allows us to look at.


My interpretation of look, is to use our eyes to look at something but seeing is our interpretation of what we look at, as an artist, seeing is all important to me as it allows deeper meaning and future cognitive connections.


So the moral of the tale is clothes don't look better on skinny models but on real women, clothes make the skinny girl but the curvy girl makes the clothes...


Ciao Bella x

Ruche Shop

- Monday, 5 April 2010

I've just found this site, its modern but with vintage styling...

Ruche

Vintage Finds

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I'm always on the look out for vintage inspiration and with the renewed interest in vintage  there is so much out there now. So I'll keep you posted on my vintagey finds and if I get some time I'll photograph my collection for you to see.

Today's link is Blue Velvet Vintage who's website offers not only true vintage but vintage 'style' clothes. I am sort of a purist in I prefer real vintage but as our bodies are very rarely shaped anything like they were then vintage 'style' clothes are a definite plus. Bringing the style of the eras' to those of us who do not possess that vintage figure. Dita von Teese is of course the exception to the rule, who has a very definite corset adjusted waste.

From a graphic/web designers point of view Blue Velvet Vintage's website is not a polished site and the useability is not ideal. The categorisation is simply but lacks definition. When you click on Retro Clothing for examply you are presented with 9 pages of items, there is no sub category in which to browse, by size and style would be nice.  However, the lack in useability affectiveness is strongly outweighed by the sites product details and product shots, they are very informative. Describing the products to a point that you can picture the item from its description. The sizing information is also highly commendable giving detailed sizing and even 'stretch up to' information. It may take a while to browse due to the lack of categorisation but blimey it will be well worth it for the information, imagery and of course beautiful items available.

Here's an example page of their product information page, the Bettie Page Curves 50s Style Black Pencil Dress I love this dress yummy!

I would put a picture up but I don't want to infringe copyright.

I first really got into wearing vintage (after using it as dress up as a kid) when I left school and went to college. In those days you really did get good vintage finds in the charity shops, there was abounding amounts of 50s and 60s clothes up for grabs. This was the mid to late 80s when it wasn't hip to wear vintage but I did it anyway. I'd buy cute little mod dresses and dress it up with belts, crazy tights and shoes. I really was considered strange back then I but didn't care and I took it as a compliment! If only I'd kept all my vintage clothes.

Enjoy Blue Velvet Vintage my dears....

Ciao Bella

My Mum - My History in Clothes - I love Vintage

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I have had a vintage fixation from being a very small child.  I was born in 1968 (I know I shouldn't tell you my age) and my Mum still had some amazing clothes from the 50s and early 60s, which she let me use for dress up, I only wish I still had them. I remember the feel and flow of the fabrics, the construction (yes I was a seam checker back then too) and how exotic they felt. I've grown up in a family of seamstresses and crafts people so I could thread a needle and sewing machine for as long as I can remember, well I can't remember NOT being able to. Which has made me enjoy the quality of construction and those vintage dresses were not the quickly put together nonsense we see today in our clothes, no quick overlocked seams back then.

Anyway I digress, my Mum was a stunning lady and I have lots of photos of her in her youth in the 1940s which I fell in love with as an era, young. Seeing Mum look so beautiful and refined in her mostly hand made clothes made me wish I was born then too.

This pic was taken in the early 60s I think in 1963 in Australia, where they lived. I love this suit, its simplicity but with a touch of something a little different in the sleeves and collar. Mum as always was finished to perfection with matching bag, gloves and beret. I still have a lot of Mum gloves, sadly she never kept her handbags (strange as we are bagaholics).

I've never been one to overtly follow fashion in my choice of clothes and have always enjoyed styling myself and others that asked for it, in an individual way. Since I started buying my own clothes in my teens I have gone for things rather different, well the clothes themselves haven't always been different but the way I put them together were. Different, that is to the majority of people in my town.

I started making my own clothes at the age of 14, I didn't have any pattern cutting skills back then so if my design was complicated my sister would cut them out, for me to sew. But generally I cut them myself thankfully it was the early 80s so the odd cuts I came up with worked.

to come.... vintage links and web reviews

Ciao Bella 
(Bella is also a nickname of mine from Mum, Pumperninkel as a child, then Julibelle which got shortened to Bella as an adult, Bella is how I have always signed my name to anything for my parents)

Expensive Anti-Ageing Stuff

Labels: , , - Sunday, 4 April 2010

Whoa, can you believe this... Is this the most expensive anti-ageing serum? Who knows but at £250 for a mere 30ml I'd bet its right up there.

I have to say I'm a sucker for a gimmick and if I had £250 plus p&p(they do offers too) spare then I would probably try it, sadly I don't, anyone fancy getting me one? Only joking but hey worth a shot right?


Serum's are brilliant but here's the catch you have to use it before using your moistureriser so you'd spend £250 on the serum then you'd just have to buy the moisturiser, right oh and then you remember your eyes need some tlc too.  Créme de la Mer's website conveniently puts all the products you need as hints at the bottom of the page so here's the total for all the products you'd need for 'optimum' results:

The Regenerating Serum  £210
The Eye Concentrate        £123
The Lifting Face Serum    £179
The Moisturiser                 £92

Which makes a grand total and what a grand one it is at £604! Wow Créme de la Mer also conveniently show you all the items you need when you are in your shopping basket, so it is nice and easy to spend those lovely pounds!

Well I'll keep looking for the miracle but hopefully something I'll be able to afford.. 

Ciao Bella x

Image copyright of Créme de la Mer

Shoes to love

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Just found out about a UK shoe designer called Miss L Fire through the us website ModCloth. They are simple stunning reminiscent of my fave brand Irregular Choice... simply divine and one for all occasions, a flat, med height wedge and a heel...

I love the vintage styling on those wedges they look amazing and they look comfortable too, they tick so many boxes for me!

Miss L Fire on ModCloth 

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