And to you...

A very merry christmas from Fashin Dawg.

A Sign of Things to Come

Our sign is up! Look!

And this is the main room of the shop, all the shelves are up and the fitting room is nearly done! I love our big window to the street, it's nice to see what's going on outside, and while we've been working lots of people have been stopping by to see what we're up to. It's been a lot like being in a fish bowl, which has been weird, but we haven't minded at all. It's just so nice that people interested!

This is our lovely chandelier up close. My father made this out of waterbottles - the holders for the lights are the bottoms of the bottles, and all the little prisms are cut and folded from the bottle plastic.

...And this is the second shop room downstairs. It still needs a little bit of work but the shelves are up, the floor's been painted and it's really just small final touches to do before it's done (like maybe sorting out that very fashionable wire hanging from the ceiling).

My father has also made a lovely, simple glass top table for displaying jewellery and smaller hats which is installed in the downstairs room. It's been really nice to do the shop up as a family project, everyone has been working really well together, and we've also been recycling as much material as possible, making shelving and other bits from material we've recycled from what the previous tenant left behind.

So close now! Our 2DO list is still pretty long, but the jobs on there are getting smaller and smaller!

Outfit of the day - another Wicked Wednesday

Another week, another Wednesday. This particular Wednesday I'm taking the boyfriend to the airport shuttle as he's leaving me for two weeks. I'll be ronery. No amount of cute Cardin shoes can stop that. But they can probably distract me from it.

Outfit of the day - another week, another Tuesday

Tweed Tuesday this week, maybe? Kind of a hunting theme going on, but more birdwatching than foxhunting I think. Foxhunting is wrong, man.

Outfit of the day - Monday

It's snowing lots in Stockholm today, so boots-a-go-go. Metal Monday? This is such a great jacket - my mother wore it in the 80s and I like to imagine her strutting down the street like Cher in the video to Turn Back Time. Awesome.

Outfit of the day - Wednesday

Working Wednesday - I love this matching top and sweater, they are deadstock from the 1970s and have a tacky little airplane motif. The jeans are Versace, and the shoes are super comfy leather with a teeny tiny peeptoe.

Outfit of the day

I decided to pick some outfits out from the current stock, so this is Tantig Tuesday. Tantig is Swedish for granny style. I got a job lot of these super cute Mary Quant gold and silver lurex socks a while ago and have been a little bit in love with them for a while now. Mama Kellerman and I are taking turns to try to negotiate our way to adding some of the stock to our respective wardrobes, and it's things like these socks that make it so hard to resist!

More pictörs

And now the very sensual preggers lingerie shots!


Lovely quilted 1950s/60s house coat with embroidered flowers around the neck and on the very necessary pockets. Maybe for carrying some spare rollers around? Maybe your cigarVery very sweet nightgown and lacey housecoat combo. Not sure of the age of these so need to do some lingerie research as it can be a bit tricky.






Another very necessary piece of clothing in baby blue this time. Always makes me think of Cybil Fawlty from Fawlty Towers. You know the episode where she has an ingrown toenail and I'm pretty sure there's a moose head?

Stop sneaking gang signs into the photos!

Yesterday we did the first quick shoot in Sweden to start getting images together for promotion, and for the website. I also enjoy documenting as much of the clothes as possible and will keep a gallery updated on the website as much as I can.

So the lovely model is my little sister, who is almost 8 months pregnant with her second baby. The idea is that eventually we'll have done lots and lots of shoots with a great variety of women and of models.
I found lots of clothes which would fit her, and we chose a few outfits which went with the feel of the shoot. It was really nice to see how many garments fit her, especially with some of the lingerie which was so cute (and a little wrong with her pornstar posing and gang signs, which she brought out as soon as I turned my back to for a moment, but I edited that out so we won't get sued). More pictures coming soon!


Cotton 1960s babydoll dress with white button detail. 1980s earring with massive faux jewels - not so subtle but I love it. Ain't she the cutest?

1970s dress with huge sleeves and huge skirt and pretty much like a moomoo tent thing but with a lovely neckline and pullstrings which make an empire line.


1960s minidress in a crazy colourful print and with pocket detailing. Turquoise earring from the 1970s.

That's all folks! (for now)

Mödels

Unfortunately moving countries has left me with a shortage of model friends (not that there are no pretty people in Stockholm, I just don't know anyone here since I've been abroad for 15 years), so I must get working on getting the most photogenic people I know in England to come and visit first to get some shoots done.

We're also discussing getting a nice variety of women together to show how the brand can have appeal to a wider audience (I'm very open minded and PC - they can be different sizes and ethnicities and ages and everything. As long as they're hot).
Tonight the boyfriend arrives after two months of working in England, and that means we can start doing photoshoots again, which I'm very excited about! We're going to do a series of short shoots hopefully using a great variety of models, like my pregnant little sister, a couple of her friends maybe, a few of Mama Kellermans friends and so on.

In the meantime, Mama Kellerman has totally mastered eBay and is acquiring gorgeous vintage quickly. We're still working on getting her to appreciate things which aren't exactly in her style, but I think a nicely styled shoot should do the trick.

We're also halfway to getting a shop in SoFo, and meeting with the landlady on Friday, hoping to get everything signed and done then. Keep your fingers crossed for that one - I don't think I fully comprehend all the technicalities so will be on time and look smart and hope that that will be enough.

Shiny, shiny!

Mum ordered a job lot of jewellery which arrived today. It's lurvely. I only had time to take a picture of my favourite piece, which is this very sweet crystal necklace. I love these necklaces, they're so simple but the good ones catch the light in the most amazing way:

AND as a bonus, if you look closely (although I really wouldn't recommend it) you can see that I haven't been complaining and not posting for nothing - I have big ole blisters to prove how hard I've been working.

Lots and lots happening at the moment. We'll know about the venue we want this week, and are also waiting for some rather exciting eBay finds to arrive. Let's get this shop rolling, y'all.

Happy Halloween, y'all!

Interlude

Looking at shops in Stockholm, one looks particularly promising at the moment! Very exciting though stressful times.

In the meantime:

Mama's hats

Mama Kellerman has a website with many of her pretty hats now. You can have a look HERE.

My mama

Mama has decided to join forces with me, and we'll be setting a shop up together, which is excellent news. It also means we'll be stocking some of her lovely hats. Like so:

Sneak peek

Preview from a recent shoot for Chatham Girl's gorgeous hats:

Photography by Rikard Osterlund
Makeup by Chantelle Queenbarrows
The beautiful Rebecca was our model, and there was styling with vintage from little old me.

As icing on this fashin cake, I'm hoping to stock some of the very lovely Chatham Girl hats in the shop! For now, you can find them on Etsy - here.

Dunk Me!

So we've got apples and pears, but at the end of the day... we're all fruit.

Want to dress for your shape? Have no ideas of your own? Don't worry, the Guardian will tell you what to do.

>Here

Summertime lull

A nice short article about vintage from The Guardian. It also links to a very nice online shop which has an amazing assortment of dresses, and even some lovely bridal wear, which I'm also hoping to stock. Currently I've got a few lovely Gunne Sax wedding dresses, which are such a great blend of southern belle and Edwardian style. Hopefully they will go down well with the Swedes, as the label isn't really very common in Europe as vintage yet.

I'm just a slave to it all, couture, some more, aaah, fashion.

Lovely behind-the scenes photos from the Dior couture show, although I can't help but wonder whether some of the clothes got lost in transit and Galliano tried to pass it off as edgy styling.

Dribble, dribble, drivel.

Have a look at these lovely pictures from the couture shows from the Guardian (and the Lacroix wedding dress, it's the best thing ever - and not just fashion-wise).

These questions bounce in my empty head.

So I don't know if I've mentioned much about my plans for the shop I want to open, but you'll just have to trust me that it'll be good. Part of my idea is to cater to an audience which I do not think is being served as well as they could be at the moment.

An article in this month’s VOGUE (capital letters means fashin superstar quality, shouldn’t you be making notes?) discusses why older women (and by older, fashin people mean over 40. Sorry) rarely buy vintage. Essentially, it boils down to:

Changing rooms: In your 50s, you may not feel comfortable or happy about stripping off in front of a crowd in an only occasionally cleaned warehouse.

Fit: We're shaped differently today from how women were shaped 50 years ago. Also, most of us don't suffer with girdles and bras which could have someone's eye out, so many things which were made for a 1950s silhouette, for instance, will not fit the vast majority of women today.

I also think that there are a few more reasons, like:

Time: When most women are past their twenties and thirties, they have accumulated a family or a demanding job or both. This means that if you have a free Sunday, you might prefer to spend it having a glass of wine with friends or a nice meal with your family rather than being on your hands and knees rummaging through a bin liner trying to find something to wear.

Trends: A friend made a very good observation the other day, which went a little something like "when a young woman puts on vintage, she looks cool and edgy, but when a middle-aged or older woman puts it on, she just looks like she's had it in her wardrobe for ages". Unfortunate, but unfortunately often true. If you wear the wrong kind of vintage, that is.

So the aim becomes to solve these issues, through design of shop and selection of stock.

The idea for the shop is that the clothing should work on a number of women (and men, if they are so inclined), whether they lived through the time period in question or not. I think it's possible, it just needs some clever editing.

Hopefully all this will be resolved, and of course there is still more to think about. Like why do some younger people not buy vintage?

Su-su-su-summertime

Summer is almost here (I don’t care what the Inglish weather says – it’s mid-May and I’m going to have some ice cream and plan a nice day at the beach), and looking at the summer beach trends, things aren’t looking too bad. Ok, so it’s the same trends as last year, only done in better quality, with the deck shoes and the big woven bags and the kaftans and that, but there’s a comfy angle which I really like. When it gets really warm and sticky, no one should be running around in strappy heels slicing their feet with every step, tugging at a ra-ra skirt which keeps sliding up, while their makeup inches its way around the face like a buttery blob. We should all be breezing along in cotton maxis and sun dresses, in comfortable and (ugh) sensible shoes with proper sun screen on.

The main problem I have with summer is the bathing suits, because they seem to become smaller every year, and I don’t want to spend every minute at the beach tugging and adjusting things to preserve some dignity. Vintage bathing suits are perfect for this, because they actually cover what they’re supposed to cover and stay in place. The problem with them is that they are sponge-like in their absorbency and you weigh about twice as much coming out of the water as you did going in. There’s just no winning here. But at least they look great, and I’m hoping to do a beachy shoot soon (when it gets just a little warmer – otherwise it’s just cruel to the model).

Chapter 9 - part the final.

Last few edits from the 80s shoot now. The credits are rolling, but the best is still to come.

Pad exhibit E - Big shoulder pads for a light dress (so, proportionally, some of the biggest) in this Chanel rip-off.

Pad exhibit F - F is for final, and also for favourite. I love this dress. It's 80s, it's Dynasty, it lends itself beautifully to matchy-matchy, the shoulder pads are absolutely massive, and it's Lanvin. It's made from this beautiful crepe material (enlarge the picture and have a look), and I'm currently considering a lard-and-cream diet to be able to fill it out and keep it to myself. None of my other clothes would fit, but - frankly - that's a sacrifice I'm willing to make. I could whisper sweet nothings into its sleeves, and it could make me best dressed at any cocktail party. We really would make a beautiful couple.

And that's it for now! Hoping to do another shoot soon; there's a Valentino blouse flirting with me from the rail across the room, along with some lovely tailoring, and hopefully some new pieces very soon (eBay has not been my friend lately, but we're going to give it another try).

Chapter 9 -Part the second

The padillisciousness continues now...

Pad exhibit C - Minimal pads in this Gaultier Jeans jacket, but it's still 80s-ness in a good way, so it gets to stay in.

Pad Exhibit D - Now we're talkin'. Proper shoulder padding and some 80s-tastic tailoring. Still looking into this label, trying to work the Vintage Fashion Guild to find out a little more about it.

...all that padding and still more to come? You got it.

Chapter 9 - It was acceptable in the 80s

Just as we thought the 80s thing was finally coming to a spluttering end, it turned around and slapped us right in the face with the previously mentioned spaced out shoulder pad "trend". In celebration of this (even if somewhat dubious) - here's a paddiriffic shoot.

Our very talented resident photographer is of course Mr Michael, and the beautiful Beccie is my 80s victim.

Pad exhibit A: Medium paddage with this wool and velvet Versace skirt suit.

(partially photoshopped plug socket: stylist's own)

Pad exhibit B: light pads in a Karl Lagerfeld for Chloe skirt suit.

More paddage to follow.

Springtime for Vintage

So spring is upon us and in my step and there is sunshine and birds singing and… shoulder pads, apparently. I’m guessing it’s one of those trends which hasn’t quite reached the Garden of England in any widespread way yet. In this article, Hadley Freeman tries to explain why the pads are big this season, and narrows it down to:
a) The Allmighty (capital A!) Credit Crunch
b) People feeling moody (and, you know, credit crunchy)
c) Making people look thin
d) Alien invasion

Don’t know about you, but my vote is on the skinny factor.

So, in celebration of this supposed trend, we’ve only gone and done a powerdressing, kickassing, shoulderpadding 80s shoot for your delectation. That’s right. It will be edited and posted soon.

Chapter 6 - le finale!

The evening wear at last! And that concludes the March shoot edit - another two shoots in the pipeline, so hopefully I can get those done soon enough. Meanwhile, look at this star quality:

Chapter 6 - interlude

Little bit of day-to-evening-wear, anyone?

Our lovely model is looking all mysterioso in a 1960s cape and Dior hat with millions of multicoloured feathers. I love this hat. It's glorious. The feathers are super soft and delicate and make it look almost painted, I think. You like?

Chapter 6 - pretty pictures

Have faaaynally finished a first edit and shop of March's shoot!

Photography: Mr Michael McCarthy

Model: Lovely Miss Laura

Hair/Makeup/faffing/cous cous: Me

Let's do a little daywear selection first, yes?

Frilly pink 70s dress which makes me go "cupcake lady!" at Laura:

Turquise day dress with belt and 50s gloves; she's going sightseeing! Look at that pro work with the camera.

Back at home now, making a tasty cake in a printed jersey dress (whisk and pot - stylist's own):

Coming up - evening wear.