Man - burlesque and bombshell - Tuesday's centerfold

Today's burlesque centerfold is from Man magazine, May, 1964. I love her red, red, red - I don't know if you can see the detail, but the bodice has little drop pearls and the hips has a hint of black lace.

These magazines are filled with old illustrations, too...





Women are depicted in various forms - whether that's the dominant, submissive, coquettish and then there's the 'plain housewife and the secretary' type drivel. If nothing else, I love the illustration style and use of colour.

I have a day of packing and listing on the website in front of me...I have a lot of remnants from 20s to 40s and all sorts of fabric, right up to the kitsch 80s. Here is some vintage fabric eye candy for you (beware of those 80s electrics!)...

Man - burlesque and bombshell - Monday's centerfold

Thank goodness some of these Man magazines still had their centerfold - I love them! This girl is from September, 1959...

Man - burlesque and bombshell - Part 2

I am finding Man (the magazine) has some great pics and shows the 'other side' of 50s and 60s life not necessarily depicted in Home Beautiful or House and Garden. I even found a girl covering herself in tattoos in a 1963 edition - I'll post that this week. For now - some burlesque shots - and I'll feature a centerfold each day this week, too - they are truly fabulous!

Man - burlesque and bombshell!

So today we decided to indulge in the land of garage sales. We haven't done this since our second son was born - we just found it way too hard with a four-year-old and a new bub. But now that our youngest is three-years-old we thought we'd indulge ourselves for an hour or so today...

Yes, the boys bickered at each of the five we went to. Yes, the toddler cracked it LOUDLY at each one we went to. Yes, we got frustrated and gave up after an hour or so. But before that, we got some vintage things - including a whole box of....ummmm....ahem....vintage 50s and 60s men's magazines. Yes. I did. Yes - I did. I was the one that bought them, as I love old magazines. Especially the ones with bombshell and burlesque overtones - and these 'Man' magazines (that's the title of the mag - original, eh!) have it in droves. I'll photograph the centrefolds when I have great light - for the moment, these two will suffice...

However - can anyone tell me what this classified advertisement is for??

I want my lace to be beautiful

I am trying to live in the moment more - but also planning for future strategies. That is quite a difficult thing to do, as you're constantly thinking of the future while trying to remain grounded in the present. But I am here.

I want to make my life a masterpiece - something I am so proud of. It got me to thinking of the lace analogy - imagine if your life was reflected in lace...every move you made, every path that you took, was a knot or a twist on the hook...the start of a spiral, a border etc. I would love my lace to look spectacular if it reflected my life...

I am hoping Retro Age will be a beautiful part of my life-lace. My life is hectic at the moment as so much is changing here - and poor Justin has been battling hayfever and asthma - but we are getting through things one piece at a time. Little lace knots are the best, I feel...

Images from American Fabrics magazine, 1953.

To Me - Don't Forget!

Note to self and to others who think about such things - don't forget to make your life a masterpiece!

It's the Greer Garson marathon

In the last couple of weeks we've enjoyed a small Greer Garson movie marathon. Firstly, we watched Random Harvest (oh, the gate!), then we were moved by Goodbye, Mr Chips and then last night we watched the wonderful Mrs Miniver. I am thinking Pride and Prejudice has to be next!

My Nan and Pop introduced me to 'old movies' when I was a youngster and I have loved them since. It was a gift they gave me, I think - one which I want to pass down to my boys. Just because movies are black and white and don't have special effects doesn't mean they're not wonderful.

PS. I loved Greer Garson so much as a teen I named my ginger tom after her - Garson. His fur was the same colour as her hair :)

Back in time in a second....

This reminds me of the days of Nanna. Nanna tableclothes. Nanna aprons. Nanna summer dresses that billowed our behind her when she stalked out of the wash house to hang the washing up.

Sigh. Some vintage fabric designs just put you right back in the moment, don't they?

Where I get my inspiration from...

While I enjoy a good novel, I also enjoy motivational books. I have been reading a couple of good ones in the past couple of months and have really enjoyed some of the ideas. They help me be a better person - I find I am inspired by what I can be...it's exciting.

You see, I don't get inspired by others very often. I don't know why. I find inspiration within myself and what I can do with my life. I am inspired by people who I feel were true masters of their time - Albert Tucker, Baroness Orczy, His Holiness the Dalai Lama, Sunday Reed and modern day pioneers such as this wonderful lady and this fabulous man. But I don't go looking for inspiration and I don't have any mentors. I think it comes from feeling so blessed in my own life that I don't feel the need to make it better. And I know I am capable to finding the right information to build our business even more in late 2010/2011.

I find sitting here surrounded by all of these wonderful fabrics inspiring - as I remember what we started with and the path that has lead us to where we are today. That journey and how magnificent is was greatly inspires me...and what is to come greatly excites me!

Glamourous, even in worsted tweed

Glamour. I love a little bit of glamour - vintage glamour is the glamour, too. None of this 2010 red carpet stuff. Give me 40s and 50s glamour, anyday. This tweed isn't glamourous, but don't you think the style of yesterday is glamour, anyway? She is perfect from top to toe.

This advertisement was taken from the American Fabrics magazine, 1953.

There is no wasted time...

We are up against the odds at the moment - a website undergoing enhancements and a new navigation system, fabrics that are only partially in their correct collection on the website, new stock arriving daily (you should see this place) - and intermittent internet, a new beast computer and new profesh camera. It has been a huge learning curve in the past couple of weeks - challenging is one way to put it, thrilling is another. What is life without testing yourself, we say? So we are plowing through all of the above, all the while wrapping orders for customers located far and wide.

But we're not perfect. Not by a long shot. As we were those parents who turned up to kindergarten orientation today on time, only to be told we were a day early. Yes, a day early. Of course, we couldn't explain this to the three-year-old, so the poor little man wailed his lungs out as we were leaving, wanting to 'pay kintertartan'. Bad parents!

The silhouette for the coming season (in 1953)

This piece was taken out of the 1953 American Fabrics magazine I am reading at the moment - volume 25. Don't you just love those line drawings for Balenciaga and Givenchy? It's amazing what a story you can tell in simple lines...

The romance of vintage lace

Sunday nights are always the same for us here...before we settle down for the evening, we always evaluate what we need to do on Monday...and usually that is a lot of wrapping and catching up on orders! Then we sit down with a quiet drink and catch up on a little bit of television - we don't watch television at all, but prefer to watch shows we like when we like a la TiVo. We've also been doing a bit of old movie watching of late - Random Harvest and Goodbye, Mr Chips have been recent loves. Next on the agenda is Mrs Miniver (yes - I love Greer Garson!) and Gone With the Wind. We both love old movies and are keen to introduce them to our boys - our eldest has already watched To Kill a Mockingbird and adored Scout's shenanigans and Boo Radley's soap people. There is so much more to visual entertainment than just letting kids watch something - it is quite exciting when you introduce them to something, don't you think?

These shots are from American Fabrics, volume 25 (1953) - sorry for missing some of the text...these are huge, thick books that don't take kindly to being laid out flat. I love the Liberty advertisement below - that photograph is pure romance!

And for those of you following the updating of our website listings, we are only around half way through migrating our fabrics into collections. We're doing a little every day and our designer is getting ready to finish updating our nav bar, but it will still take around another week for everything to be finished...

Stir Up Sunday 2010

Today is Stir Up Sunday - the traditional day to start your plum pudding for the Christmas season. So I took off yesterday and picked up all my ingredients for the 'plum pud' and popped some of the ingredients together today, including some of the brandy...it will all sit overnight and then I'll finish off the mix/steam it tomorrow...

Everyone had a turn stirring the mix and making a wish...we have a kitchen filled with the wonderful aroma of plum pudding mixture...now I can feel Christmas coming on!

New hair and waist, please - to go...

This is another advertisement from the American Fabrics 1953 magazine I featured in one of yesterday's posts. This ad caught my eye for two reasons - I would love to have her hair and her waist!

American Fabrics vintage fabrics and advertisements 1953

Now that I have a new camera I can truly start to display what I want to show you on this blog - I want this space to pay homage to vintage as much as possible! And what better place to start than with the divine American Fabrics magazines - these pics are from volume 25, 1953. Enjoy!