What could be a better way of staring 2015 than by quoting Chicago? Actually I guess that depends on your opinion of that movie but I love it (back when Renée Zellweger had her original face and all) so I think it’s a great start to the year! This year I have numerous New Years(…)
These couture designs seem to mostly be by French fashion designer Lucien Lelong, who ran a French fashion house from the 1920s-1940s. Hubert de Givenchy trailed as a designer for Lelong, and Garbo and Gloria Swanson were amongst the celebrities who wore his fashions. Aren’t these designs glorious? Way better than the modernized versions of(…)
I just wanted to share this delightful 1920s advert for Chanel No.5 perfume today. As I’m sure you know by now (I’ve gone on about it enough) this is the perfume I wear and I so prefer the charm of the flighty flapper in this ad to the modern over-airbrushed perfume ads. It was drawn(…)
As you might have seen in my post last week, I’ve started painting again. I’s hard to find the time, and I’m still very new to it all but I’ve had great fun having a go and painting some of my favourite Hollywood stars. I’d be intrigued to know whether you can tell who the(…)
Three fantastic posters from the 1918 silent move Salome starring Theda Bara. Sadly this movie has been lost so I can’t share a clip with you, but there is a photo from the movie which I’ve posted below. Doesn’t she look fabulous? How on earth did that happen to so many old movies?
I realise caricatures are generally quite unflattering, but this seems to be quite poisonous for no apparent reason! The artist was Georges Goursat (Sem) and the piece appeared in Le grand monde à l’envers in 1919. The caption reads: Mam’selle Coco j’voudrais un beau chapeau pour le Dimanche Which, if my schoolgirl French suffices, translates as(…)
I did this sketch a while ago and forgot to post it. I love the combination of red and white, so clean and vibrant, but difficult to wash without colour-run in real life! Both of these dresses are sixties-inspired and I’d love to be able to make them myself, but sadly I don’t really have(…)
This sketch started out being a 1950s evening dress, but (being a bit of a Star Wars geek) the folds and draping just really shouted ‘Princess Leia’ to me so I couldn’t resist adding bagel-bun hair and a cape just to make it a little more sci-fi. What do you think? Would Leia wear this(…)
A 1920s movie poster for the Clara Bow movie The Wild Party which was released in 1929. It was Clara Bow’s first talkie (i.e non-silent movie) but the movie was also released as a silent movie for theatres which didn’t have sound equipment.
This was inspired partly by Marilyn’s iconic red dress from Gentlemen Perfer Blondes, and partly by her habit of wearing sexy little wiggle dresses. What do you think?
I haven’t posted a design for a while (so much for my New Year’s resolution eh?), but this is one I did a few weeks ago with Jean Harlow in mind – the dress would be made from a gorgeous ivory satin with draping around the neck and a (faux) fur stole with tan Mary(…)
I felt like designing something 20s inspired, but couldn’t be bothered with drawing all the beading and fringing you normally get in a flapper dress, so here’s an adaptation of the tennis-dress I designed for the ClothesBox competition. It’s just a bit simpler and a bit sleeker and I thought Clara Bow would look great(…)
One of my new year’s resolutions this year is to do more drawing, so I thought I’d start by designing a dress for one of my favourite fifties fashion icons: Grace Kelly. What do you think? Would she have looked good in this? (Obviously she would have looked good dressed in a bin-liner but you(…)