My Illustrative Life

My Dad was in Brussels last week, and brought back a magazine called Numero. My sister bagsy’d it, but let me rip out a few pages - I could have them if she didn’t want them. Which was fine, on the whole. But over one page in particular, I must confess - we fought!

A shame, I know. To be torn apart by a mere spread of garments! But I wanted it for inspiration, she wanted it for inspiration. Alas. Eventually we settled upon: I would have the dress from the centre, she would keep the shoes. And I had to let her take the following picture. I didn’t mind that at all, because this picture was a brilliant idea and I’m annoyed I didn’t think of it first. I will be using it again though.

My argument to keep it was that I would actually wear it in real life, and she wouldn’t. Which is true. I would wear the heck out of this!

I couldn’t figure out who the dress was by, because the magazine was in French and I have forgotten a shameful amount of the basic skills I ever had. And I don’t know what she’s done with the page, now, either. I’ll update if/when I can!

So, you may have noticed that I kid of dig Jane Marple clothing. And it’s true, I do! I’m wearing it today, top and bottom. I think JM is the best brand I ever did have the pleasure of wearing. Or viewing, actually - it may not be couture, but it taps my rhythms just right. It’s a Japanese company, and they don’t sell online - or that widely at all, I believe. A few outlets here and there, one or two official boutiques? I know there’s one place in Australia that carries their lines!

I don’t live in Australia (or Japan) though, and have no plans to visit. Plus, of course, Jane does not come cheap - first-hand Marple asks for more pieces of eight than I’m willing to part with. Thus: Rinkya.

It’s quite easy to feel that Jane Maple is far beyond your possibilities. I found the brand through the first FRUiTS volume and followed it onto the various Street Style LJ comms, and I wasn’t the only one (by far!) bemoaning the impossibility of getting my hands on these gorgeous garments. Proxy bidding services just aren’t a part of a lot of (most?) people’s internet consciousness; I only tried Rinkya after a lot of encouragement from a fellow JM appreciator who wanted everyone who felt the urge to enjoy their clothes! So I’m trying to Pay It Forward: USE RINKYA! IT’S GREAT!

You can find the FAQ here and an explanation of their fee system here - but the gist of the matter is that they let you browse the yahoo!japan auctions without knowing the language, and act as a middle man between you and sellers who don’t ship outside the country (a lot of them, actually!) or speak (or are willing to speak) English (or whatever you speak!). They’re friendly!

But instead of just talking, I’m gonna show you the best Jane Marple items available on Rinkya right now that I’m not going to buy. Because I want to spread the bounty, but I also (like Jackie) want what I want. OK, Let’s go!

Seriously, LOOK AT THESE. They are smart. I don’t wear heels that aren’t made of purple glittery platform, but if I did, they would be these.

Satin. Drop-waist. Lace collar. Pleats. It looks gen-yu-wine twenties good girl (secretly spunky) rich daughter London//country estate, but it ain’t. Which is good, because it means you don’t have to worry that it’ll fall apart!

That’s just pretty. Delicate, yet mysterious.

If you don’t think that The Sound of Music is one of the most stylish films going, you should probably watch it again. You won’t mind, because that film has singing nuns. And Captain Von Trapp is very fruity; it is marvelous to watch once you have realised.

Purple. Textured knit. Thigh-high. Going for only 500 yen.

I WANT THIS. But belts never fit me. Ever.

Spring and summer are coming, and these are so forest-pretty with the promise of secret toughness (leather, wood, brass for stabbing). I don’t wear open-toes shoes because I get pebbles under my toes, and I don’t really like inflexible soles or having my hair being held rigid. I do have one or two very pretty hairslides that I use to keep scarves in place, though, so maybe you could try this for that..?

Interesting but not pointless exploration of jersey! Sweaterdress for cooler weather, check, vest for cooler-than-hot weather, CHECK! I’m not keen on the “Love me”, but if that’s your thing then I say thank goodness for diversity of opinion. I really like the orange sherrrrr-berrrrt with the candypink on the vest; JM uses a lot of off-track colours, actually.

Click the pictures to get to the auctions. They’re all in yen (divide by 100 to get an approximate dollar value), and you need to sign up to rinkya before you can bid (don’t forget to read the rules!). But. The point is: it is worth it. These clothes are well-made and off-beat, and despite the fact that most of them are second hand there are a LOT of clothes still with tags on, or worn only two or three times.

I feel like whenever I buy with this service, I’m supporting my favourite brand. One the one hand by wearing their things, and on the other by freeing up wardrobe space and spare cash for the girls who do buy new. It’s the circle of life, and it moves us all.

Post up at warmthblog with a tutorial on fixin’ jeans (and making them look even better than they did before).

It’s actually a pretty old tutorial; I did it in.. October maybe? November? Last year and never got round to writing it up properly.

Click the picture to visit, as always!

The mask in my previous post was made for my sister to wear to a masked ball one of her friends was having for their eighteenth (I think?). She asked me to craft one for her even though I’d never tried masks before because she is a good sister and believes me when I say “I can do anything!”.

I agreed because I also believe me when I say this, and because I figured it’d be fun. I was right! Skill-expansion is awesome! Awesome enough to share.

I had a great reel of aluminium wire from previous craft-based sculpture experiments (just under half a centimetre diameter (I can’t find the box to check exactly!)) and a blue 80s leather jacket I’d bought with Kenshiro in mind and which therefore had no need for its sleeves; the leather is thin and soft and easy to sew by hand.

Well, I say “easy”. My digit-skin might tell you differently. Callouses!

I basically winged it. I find that a very satisfying way to work, because I am full of i-told-you-so pride and like to feel I have won a vicious ambushed battle, not simply made a thing. I wanted to have a finished product that could be worn and taken off with ease like glasses, because I find elastic and tie-based masks are very often extremely annoying, because they mess up one’s hair. And, at a dance of the like that demands new faux-snake heels, messy hair is not in desired order.

I cut a length of wire that would reach all around her noggin and used my knowledge of the human head to mould a basic ears-cheeks-nose outline that would rest on her face like lower-placed glasses (she looked like she was wearing a retainer). Then I took her head, and adjusted the moulding until it sat comfortably. Aluminium bends really, really easily, so you can just do this by touch. After it was comfortable enough to be forgettable whilst on, I cut out a Ninja Turtle-style mask -

- from the leather sleeve that was definitely wider and longer than the finished mask would need. Seam allowance and so forth, you see? You need a leather that’s soft enough to fold in to the contours of your subject’s face. Draw with a pen just around the inside of the wearer’s eye socket (that is, under the brow bone and along the top of the cheekbone). I cut out these holes.

Having sewed the floppy leather mask-piece onto the front of the aluminium “retainer”, cut another length of wire that reaches from the tip of the nose up and back to the crown. Mould this to the wearer’s profile. The ridge of the nose needs to be closely followed, but the remaining portion that spikes back over the head doesn’t need to lie flat. Do as you will with it! You can remove it, even; it’s not necessary.

The rest, I think, is figure-outable from these pictures. The orange arrows (forgive their sloppiness! I didn’t have my tablet available, and Pixen hates touchpads!) are where there’s wire piped in, the lilac ones are where there’s no wire. Just pinch and add darts or channels where they’re needed, to fit it to the face of the intended wearer. If you want a mask to be worn bare-leather, you’ll need to be more discerning in your thread-colour choices than I was. Upholstery thread is also a good bet for a project like this - you can find it in any craft or fabric shop.

As uncomfortable and sloppy as this looks when worn it feels perfect. If you’re striving for perfection, I’d advise lining your finished mask with felt. Just cut out the shapes the front is ‘made of’ and glue them inside.

Here are some useful links!

I made a mask.

I’ve mentioned a few times the thought processes that go into my “work wardrobe”; I want to feel like myself but appropriate. For me, this has meant diving from the [1960s professional lady] board. There’s a character archetype that the neat, softened-geometric shapes and clear colours that thick work-grade fabric evokes. When we (I) watch professionally-set stories set in the 60s, we (I) know that:

1. she’s smart
2. she’s good at her job
3. she can handle the people she encounters in the line of duty with grace and skill
4. she’s underestimated

It’s clear why these are aspirational traits, no? The last, in particular, is important, because I do not feel quite comfortable being an “office worker”. This is no slight to those who are - I simply am myself and not them!

Of course it’s no secret that Ms Joan Holloway is the bees knees right now, and it’s certainly true that she is costumed impeccably.

But who is responsible? Who chose the clothes that make the woman? I will tell you know, and you should read these names:

Tiger Curran: costume assistant / wardrobe intern (26 episodes, 2008-2009)

Allison Leach: assistant costume designer (18 episodes, 2007-2009)

Joanne Bradley: tailor (17 episodes, 2007-2008)

Tiffany White: costume production assistant / costumer / … (17 episodes, 2007-2008)

Michael Castellano: costumer (12 episodes, 2007-2008)

Bud Clark: costume supervisor (12 episodes, 2007)

Le Dawson: costume supervisor / costumer / … (9 episodes, 2007-2009)

Kristine N. Haag: costumer (9 episodes, 2008)

J.R. Hawbaker: costumer (7 episodes, 2008)

Kimberly Nickerson: costumer (6 episodes, 2007)

Lynn Ollie: costumer (6 episodes, 2007)

Hannah Jacobs: costume production assistant (5 episodes, 2008)

Thanks IMDB!

But Joan wasn’t the first! Of course she wasn’t. She’s a throwback, she’s created now. She may be a marvelous depiction of a lady of ‘63ish (I don’t actually know.. I can’t watch Mad Men, because I believe I would burst re: injustice, prejudice, social horror) but she’s a product of 2007.

So, who was really there?

I’ll tell you!

Wende Wagner played Lenore “Casey” Case in The Green Hornet, a show I happen to heart. Bruce Lee’s tv break, too. Am I looking forward to the movie? NO.

Casey was Brit Reid’s secretary. Brit Reid was the editor-owner of the Daily Sentinel, a newspaper. He was also by night the Green Hornet, a asked crimefighter who went about his vigilante business by pretending to be a worse criminal than anyone else. I love that. Casey was one of the three people who knew of Brit’s alternate identity, and she was often involved in his cases. There was no romance between them, and he respected her as a professional and a friend. Andrew Pallack is credited in IMDB as the men’s wardrobe master. I will check my dvds to see if there’s any info on the women’s costumier.

Eve Whitfield was costumed by Grady Hunt. She was an Officer on Ironside’s team, an integral member. She was kind of a hardass sometimes, actually. But look how she dressed! So good!

Photobucket wouldnt take the collage whole! I had to chop it, and I was in a bad, tired mood.. :/

The last, smallest wardrobe featured is that worn by Scott Bakula as Sam Beckett as Samantha “Sam” Stormer (yeah, it’s a maze of a show) in the episode “What Price Gloria?” of Quantum Leap. This was probably costumed by Jean-Pierre Dorleac, but Jacqueline Saint Anne also took charge of the wardrobe duties on “unknown episodes”. Produced in the eighties/early nineties, rather than the 60s proper, but OH that episode gives me the envies. Marvelous.

Thanks, costume designers and wardrobe departments. When you do your jobs, you make stories so much better.

You might not think, on first assumption, that 1940s British Girls’ School Stories (for young ladies) and 1970s american punk groups would have anything in common. (You might think that they might, in which case hurray for you and you maybe have nothing to learn here. Stick around anyway!)

They do though! I shall tell you some ways how, but in a roundabout fashion.

This above is one of my favourite photographs. I pinched it off punk77’s “Women of Punk” sub-site, which is a good place to visit. Go visit.

They’re so gangly and angle-y and you can feel the momentum in the moment. The black splashes are just right against the high-contrast washed out background colours and the facial expressions are wild-goofy and candid. They look like they’re having fun and feeling their own power; not power over or against something but just the power that it is to have a body that’s yours and enough of a purpose to be able to blow it off for a while and resent having to work if you feel like it. It’s two teen girls in matching bikinis and boots but skimpiness isn’t always exploitative, and even if it’s meant that way sometimes the sheer self-contained awesomeness of the wearer blasts through that and turns a “hey, jailbait’ll sell” bikini into an outfit that actually says “I am so fantastic and alive that I could go naked, but y’all have no right to my privates so HAH”.

Now I don’t know what made that photo, but that’s what it says to me. When I saw it (researching feminism in punk as a prelude to character design) the Runaways became one of my favourite bands. The fact that their music speaks to me and is, actually, really good is just the silver icing on my cloud-shaped cake.

I darned my dad’s jumper earlier:

I wasn’t taught darning at school. We had FT, which was Food (and?) Technology, where we learnt (or rather, did) basic-ish cooking and learnt how to thread a sewing machine and did a couple of fabric projects (make a bag, make a hand-puppet) but darning was old hat, I guess? Whatever the reason, I wasn’t taught it.

When I was very small I read my first “grown up” Enid Blyton book, Claudine at St. Clare’s. It is still my favourite Blyton, though maybe tying with Fifth Formers at St. Clare’s.

St. Clare’s was a girls’ boarding school somewhere in England, and the series of books followed a pair of twins and their classmates through their journey up the school. Claudine was a French girl, niece of the French Mistress, who joined in what I think is year ten and made much charming mischief whilst learning that English-British values are not so outmoded after all. I do not pretend that Ms Blyton was a perfect author, and there are many aspects of her books that make me go “oh, no.” such as cultural stereotyping, bullying and the free ride that Fathers get in regards to their daughters’ upbringing in many of her books (I never read one of her gollywog-featuring stories).

Naturally perhaps, I heroine-worshiped Claudine. She was slight and brunette, just like me, and everybody liked her even though she was a bit naughty. She could get her way quite easily, and she was funny and talented. What she was talented at was sewing. To get out of gym class (she was not one for sports) she purposefully crossed (the) Matron, knowing that she would be assigned darning to do in her sports-time; this was a harsh punishment to the majority of the very Good, English Gels. Claudine did her darning perfectly, and enjoyed it, and finished in good time enabling her to take tea with her aunt before her classmates returned inside.

Darning, for me, is a symbol of capability and charm.

Nineteen-forties British Girls School novels and nineteen-seventies American punk bands have this in common: they are a proof that feminism is not just something you protest for and dream of and work towards. It is something that you have, because of your innate human power. You can come out on top, in the moment, however you go there and no matter what you come from. It’s not all about getting a law changed or a policy implemented; feminist victory is a part of your everyday life.

You Can Do It.

Thermal-patch DIY tutorial up over at my other blog! Click picture for the link.

Things might be a bit sparse her the next two weeks; I have some work experience lined up. But I have quite a bit to post, so.. fingers crossed, huh?

Pumpkin Soup (the ultimate autumn food) with wensleydale. For the recipe, click here for my other blog.

By the end of this week I’ll have another entry up there; a “how I made this thermal vest into an awesome wearable shirt” post. I love thermals, personally, and I like multi-purpose clothes. Having vests and undershirts that also work as day-shirts pleases me! The one I’m wearing today has a Tomb of Dracula decal (thanks to bronze age of blogs). One of my favourite comics on one of my favourite types of clothing.. That makes for a happy me!

So: if you like it, watch that space, right?

Criminal Minds is one of my favourite shows. I have to hide my face at the really nasty gore bits and I can’t watch more than one epiosde at a time or I have (weird) nightmares, but I think it’s well written and gripping and I think Paget Brewster is kind of fantastic. She’s Birdgirl! And on this show, capable and badass but still totally warm! And I identify with her anyway because she’s approximately my physical type!

The other characters are also interesting and have (no, really) proper character arcs. The show GOT BETTER after the main and mainstay character left and was replaced. It has Joe Mantegna in, who I enjoy partly for his role in Airheads and partly because his name is so fun to say. Like a vocal jigsaw.

Anyway. My point is, I make a point to watch it even though it tends to upset me. And usually this is in a OH GOSH NO! way, not a “oh no, that’s so sad” way. Today was an “oh no, that’s so sad” episode! And then I watched Law & Order: Criminal Intent, which was all about particularly tragic, useless forms of social prejudice.. also very sad. The kinds of episodes where you just have to feel sorry for EVERYONE. I must say, it’s nice to have that kind of full-on sadness-for-perp every now and then. I can’t stand constant cynicism, it exasperates me. Plus, it is dishonest.

Those two are my favourite L&O coppas though. The guy who wears tartan ties and has white hair at the temples (the rest is reddish black?) and the lady with short hair and A MILLION FRECKLES. She’s just so fun! Her looks are COMPLETELY at odds with grim’n'grtty, it’s so helpful for my enjoyment of such a generally pessimistic-atmosphere’d show. She is sarcastic, too, I just like them both.

My business cards arrived today! I feel quite giddy with it. Today has just been a good day! My beloved had GOOD NEWS re: future employment. I am so pleased! And I have even been busy:

Not finished yet. Feathers on leather, one wing so far. Bad pictures because my parents took the camera on holiday with them! I think this shall become a pectoral.

Upon sorting out a bunch of my old packed-away things, I discovered a third of one of my A level art projects. I made three leather hoods that were about feeling really bad and the ways in which it is possible to hide it. This one is the hide-in-prettiness third. I wonder where the other two are?My head is called Hyacinth.

Part of this side is missing, there was something woven down the rim. I don’t remember what, but maybe I’ll re-vamp it?

I got a C for A level Art.

Unrelated to the rest of this post, Dirty Diana is a really great song. Michael Jackson music makes my joints move like cogs. Funky, badass cogs.I like to feel like I am ready to live in a dieselpunk world.And I like to have lots of pockets (preferably detachable, preferably leather).The stones on the top of my boots are for luck; stones with holes worn through them are magical.And I am a classy dame at all times (fur trousers are too FANTASTIC to not show off).

Thanks for the title, TV Tropes!

 Today I had one of those dawnings of realisation that are too small and ridiculous to be called epiphanies. ‘Hey.. maybe it was called that Arts and Crafts movement not because some of them did art and some did crafts.. but because the objects they made were at once both ART and CRAFTS!’ :O

How clever I am sometimes. Haha! I can’t believe I missed that for so long. The reason for my thoughts on the matter:

I started experimenting with dolls.. back in my foundation year, I think?My first effort was fully plush, then I moved to DAS clay with individual wire joints, then Fimo with wire armatures, then with thicker wire, then wire wrapped in fabric and padded, with the shaping details sewn in. This is my favourite way to work, so far. It’s especially satisfying because I hadn’t seen it done before I tried it. I’m sure there are other people working this way, obviously, but.. they didn’t help me! I’ve always been particular about that sort of thing. Except when I’m not.This hand is what I started today. before it’s been full-body investigations, but I’ve been straying from my plan to do the hands for the small dolls in Fimo. I wanted to practice on a large-scale before trying small wire and fabric hands. I also just recently started experimenting like so:Working into the plain white “skin” (which, by the way, is white simply because curtain lining tends to be plain bleached cotton and the only “fabric shop” I could find in the town I just moved away from was a curtain-remnant box in a department store) in coloured cotton to give more definition and decoration instead of just “sculpting” the form with monotone thread.The hand hasn’t had any skin applied yet due to my having no printless cotton, so you can see the vein. Hopefully it’ll show through when the hand is finished, like a real vein. I also have particular plans for the final embroidery of this piece.

 I really enjoy this form of sculpture. And look, I even started teaching my sister:Smart, right?