Cute as a Garter Button

Frippery du jour over here at quaintrelle towers (ok duplex) is garter buttons! You probably know the things I mean... Little silk covered buttons printed or painted with sultry eyed flapper faces from  the 1920's.

New styles and new hosiery had lead to girls rolling their stockings and holding them tightly in place with either rubber like bands or adventurous garters. Above the knee if you wanted to play it safe or bellow the knee if you were feeling sexy and wanted to let your knees do the taking! Fashionable girls could display their modern and irreverent attitudes with these flirty faces peeking out from under
rising hemlines.

Created by the ribbon companies at the time, they seem to have been printed on long ribbons, then cut and shaped into various whimsical buttons. Some were left simply as printed faces, some adorned with further ribbons and frills, and others went further with cheeky sayings like "You'd be surprised" or my personal favorite, a police man proclaiming "Stop go no further!"

Not wholly found on garters, they could also be seen on other flirty items such as powder puffs, and mirrors, all the various ribbon covered items in a true coquette's  arsenal!

You can often find them for sale on places like easy or ebay, but as a girl who likes ribbons it seemed like a fun thing to make from scratch. 

Currently still just buttons here are a few of the faces to come off my work bench this week....

Their destinies will be another post later on, but for now, anyone else wanting to say it with buttons might want to check out the quick tutorial over on the Quaintrelle Life website and make some too! 

What do you think your knees might want to say?

Dream Deco Teacup

Ok, my teacup Embargo hasn't been going well. I had said "I just need one Paragon teacup" but now I've also got a 2nd one. But hear me out!...

Wedgwood Deco Bloom

When I first started collecting teacups I was just looking to pick up the cup and saucer from each design. Since then however I've been trying to pick up trios instead with the matching side plate as well as the saucer. Some times it's easy, sometimes not so much, either because a pattern is discontinued, or because it never had a matching plate to begin with. This was the road block for me when I was looking to add a super art deco cup to the fold.

See, I fell in love with the "Deco Bloom" cup from the Wedgwood Harlequin collection. Since the line launched they've
adding extra pieces like side places to the collection for some designs like my spiffy polka dot set, but sadly Deco Bloom wasn't one of them. I wrestled with the fact it was my perfect dream cup, but that it would never be a full place setting. Then something amazing happened! An identical cup showed up on Ebay, complete with side plate! Uncanny right? The crazy thing was the auction cup wasn't Wedgwood.

My Paragon Pink Hydrangea Trio

Wedgwood's Harlequin collection is based on old designs from their design archives brought back to life, but this old auction trio was by Paragon.

The Paragon china company ultimately became part of modern day Royal Doulton, It's old pattern books presumed lost. I wonder if some of those books or later ones found their way to the good people at Wedgwood?

No matter how it happened it was a dream come true when this vintage trio made it way into my hands!

I dug around looking for more info on the pattern,  just stamped with a number on mine the design sometimes pops up as "Pink Hydrangea". I've seen a few pieces show up on auction sites as part of big lots. The cup and plate shape was used with a few other designs from Paragon for any other deco china fans. My little set is also marked as being a replica of a service made for the queen, though I couldn't find any information on the pattern's royal provenance they way I could with my other Queen Mary set. Royal or not though it's amazingly pretty, amazingly deco and amazing that I was able to get this dream setting after all!

Faking the Frippery

It's possible that one of my favorite things to design and
collect in the world is costume jewelry. Growing up I used to scour my favorite antique shops for their sparkiest pieces. I'm a die hard magpie and costume jewelry could always transform an outfit and make me sparkle like a duchess! (but not like a princess because that's too much of a pain)

We rather take costume jewelry for granted these days, but the decade we can really thank for it for starting the fervor for fakery is the 1920's...

With styles changing fast after WWI, and a growing spectrum of women finally able to participate in fashion, the inherited gems of the aristocracy could no longer fill our thirst for baubles, and it was time for paste to make a come back.

Used by Coco Chanel as a means to complete a woman's costume and unify her vision, fake gems were a must have for the wealthy woman looking for a little frosting to co-ordinate her pristine new outfit for the night,  and for the average gal on the streets it also allowed women of more modest means to enjoy wearing "jewels" of a less modest design. Jewelry designers also got to let their imaginations run wild without the constraints of precious material costs creating all kinds of whimsical designs.

I love vintage jewelry, real and "fake" from the 1920's for it's unique designs. There were a lot of interesting mixes of sparkle and colorful geometry. They also loved their pearls, and long time blog followers know what a soft spot I have for pearls!

I've been craving some deco gems to ad to my wardrobe lately, and despite being seeing some amazing period precious stone pieces, I just don;t have a Christie's budget, I'm also concentrating a great deal on sharpening my skills in the jewelry area so it felt only natural to turn my hands at designing and making a little costume jewelry set for myself, ready for when I get that deco feeling!

I went with a bit of Nile green  and tried to capture the long lean lines of my favorite 20's jewelry pieces. Something with the hard geometric shapes, but in a softer pallet to go with my usual wardrobe of pastels. They've proved quite versatile together and separate, and something I'm going to get a lot of millage out of.

I love working in costume jewelry using a lot of techniques I was taught to work with in fine jewelry, and I always give a big "thanks" to the 1920's for setting the ball rolling!

Deco Month

I've been all psyched up for the return of Boardwalk Empire. Coupled with knuckling down to finess my 1920's dress making techniques, I'm all swept up with an art deco fever this month! I figured I cant be alone in all this so I'm dedicating this month's blog posts to the 1920's. Got some tutorials on the way, some recipes, clothes, and who knows what else. For right now though here's a 1925 photo of a girl with an infinitely more picturesque sewing space than mine.

High Society Dressing

One of the perks of my job is getting to work on interesting custom pieces I don't usually get to tackle. Recently one of my most stylish clients asked for something a little bit different, a re-production of a Grace Kelly movie dress she had fallen in love with.

In the movie High Society Grace Kelly wears an amazing sky blue and white stripe dress by Edith Head as her character Tracy Lords sweeps into magnificent room to dazzle the reporters from Spy Magazine. Big sleeve, big skirts, and big glamor!

At first glance it seemed a fairly simple construction, but a glimpse at the back, and a showcase at the V&A showed a more complex meeting of solid and sheer fabrics that Ms Head was famous for. On top of that tracking down a strip silk in just the right size stripe, and just the right shade of blue took some serious supplier sleuthing. Fortunately I contacted a silk supplier in NYC the week they happened to get in the perfect fabric!

The project took a lot of experimentation to get the right drapes and translucency, as well as more than 17 yards of pure silk!

A few changes here and there to fit the lady who would be wearing it, but certainly an enjoyable challenge, and one I was sad to see leave the studio! (The waist on the dress is actually much smaller than the display mannequin, hence the gap on the over skirt band)

A Paragon of Teatime Fancy

Assorted Paragon Teacups

I drink a lot of tea, tons of the stuff, decaf or I'd die amounts of it, and when I'm sitting down to a cup properly, I like to drink it in style! Starting with an ironic teacup buy back in high school (Old Country Roses from my days working in a fancy glass and china department) it's built into something a bit more opulent and a straight up obsession.

I've had to slow down acquisitions due to lack of space and fear the collection might get (ok has got) out of hand. I still have a "to get" list though for cups that fill a particular hole in my collection, and cups that are just plain "like woah!". One cup recently ticked from that list was "vintage Paragon teacup".

I love Paragon cups for a few reasons. First, there are so many unique designs, second  vintage flavor, and third and most importantly a lot of their cups were crazy over the top! Gold, gold, cool colors, flowers, more gold, and a lot of the time inside the cup designs. Which is a great opportunity for more gold more flowers and they look smashing shining up through a non milky tea, with of the band of the saucer showing around it like pool of amber awesome (Can you tell I love these things? You should probably just go and add "a vintage paragon teacup" to your list of stuff you need to have too).

So yeah, paragon cup was on my list, and yeah, I'd been hunting, but like I say limited teacup real estate remaining, and so many designs, it was hard to chose just one! Till I ran across this cheeky little thing....

It had all the design elements I wanted from my Paragon cup, bold use of gold, hand painted flowers, in cup designs, cobalt blue (another thing on my "to get" list)  and to top it off it was being sold as a trio! (I found more cool cup and saucer combos than trios, and the fact they didn't often name their patterns makes tracking down a matching side plate tricky) I was already sold on it when I read on to find this pattern is actually a re-production of a design they made for Queen Mary back in 1913. ROYAL TEACUP!  (Royal teacups are a special love of mine and covered by the "like woah!" clause)

According to the Paragon International Collectors Club the Queen Mary Pattern (# 8902) was first designed for a service presented to Queen Mary on a visit to the Paragon (then Star) factory in 1913.  The pattern was then re-issued in the late 20's to the public, with is where mine comes from (the stamp on my set date it to between 1930-1933) 
Turns out I got a pretty good deal on my little set, and that this is one of the few paragon patterns out there that came in a ton of different pieces and is relativly easy to hunt for (Paragon replica queen mary X). For me I don't need extra pieces, just the trio, but for anyone looking to collect a matching set (and who has deep pockets) it's perfectly possible with a little patience to collect a full vintage tea, or even table service fit for a queen!

You might also be used to seeing cups like these pop up on Pinterest, Tumblr etc all the time, now you know they're Paragon china (seems to be nearly always Paragon or Royal Albert in those things). If you're a vintage lover, tea lover, or just plain fan of fancy things I heartily recommend adding one to your wish list, you just have to find the cup that suits you best!

Don't Fear the Flapper (dress)

Queen of curves Marilyn Monroe as Clara Bow

 I decided to face a bit of a vintage fashion fear and obsession head on these past few weeks. That love/fear for me has been the 1920's. I love that period for style and decorative arts. One of my all time favorite designers is Jeanne Lanvin, and even as a period of history, it's fascinating!

As a fashion though it be daunting to wear. It's so counter my usual way of thinking. These were women throwing off the corset and the tyranny of the tiny waist. hemlines rollercoastered, and it really was the decade that set the pace for modern clothing. But me, I'm not all that into modern clothing. I love my corsets because for us they are a choice not a mandate, and my waist is one of the few things about my body I actually feel comfortable with. I know how to handle it and use it to my advantage when dressing. To wear the 20's I'd have to be willing to let my waist go (become invisible not actually physically go), and that scared the heck out of me, but still I recently set said on a voyage of flapper self discovery!

20's dames weren't all ultra skinny, and not necessarily ultra tall, something I always felt a person would need to be to pull the look off. Keeping that in mind I decided to pull my first 1920's dress into my closet and challenge myself to try wearing this decade to see how it felt.

My 1st dress is this one. A dropped waist (scary!) Nile green Charmeuse straight style dress with lace and ribbon roses for accents. When worn I was kind of shocked at first to see a straight figured person looking back at me, but found that the waist kind of reveals itself in movement, and all the motion in the dress has a surprisingly playful feel as a garment in action. The freedom of movement was the nicest part of wearing the 1920's. Though I did still pull on my long girdle to keep my line as smooth as possible it was very freeing to poddle about in.

I'm a pretty full figured gal, and really very short (just 5'0") but the style was more forgiving than I had anticipated, and I'm now largely over my fear of the roaring 20's as a look!

I'm loving my first 20's style flapper dress.  I don't think I'll be hanging up my waist cinchers and petticoats for good (I learned to love my 1920's lips but can't give up on my 1950's hips!), but I do think I'll be bringing more 1920's outfits and looks into rotation from time to time. I hope this helps a few more of you feel confident to give this look we love a try too!

Goldilocks

I have kinda crazy tastes, and sometimes that leads me to style awesome, and sometimes to style horror. A little obsession that's eating away at me right now that could fall either way is the 1920's bullion wig. I just can't decide if they are crazy cool or crazy bad.

I mean I remember wearing a tinsel wig in the 80's and that was decidedly crazy bad, but for special photoshoots, shows, events etc, the bullion flapper wig unusual super hit hit or terrible terrible miss?

Not sure what I'm taking about? It's these glittery beauties/beasts....

From Timeless Vixen Vintage

From Antique Dress

V&A Museum

 Sometimes referred to as wigs sometimes as cloches these unusual and distinctly 1920's headdresses are somewhere in the middle. The great Sydney Flapper on Livejournal was able to shed some light after landing both a bullion wig and article on the article from the seller! The 1922 newspaper clipping did indeed talk of them in terms of wigs so I guess wigs thy were? Made kind of like a hat with real metallic threads for hair they could actually be made from silver or gold!

I can't help but wonder though, with their style all puffed up once again (times seems to have been hard on most examples and flattened them out considerably) could they be strikingly cool and glitteringly deco and glam? I know I love them as art objects but are they equally lovable as fashion objects?

I've got a mad desire to make one, but hesitant about spending the $$$ on something that could be doomed to be a sparkle disaster from the get go, though undoubtedly the making journey would be an interesting one!

How do you guys feel about the bullion wig!? Bring it back or let go?

Michelle Harper

Sunday Best: Jubilee

This weeks Sunday style post is full of jubilee flavor! Sad that I'm not able to really get in to the festivities like my friends and family back in England. But I'll be drinking tea whilst I work and keep things as fun and British as I can!

Outfit Rundown:

Trousers: Still not got these up on the site, future Vivcore swing pants.
Blouse: Sweetie Blouse
Pearls: My Society pearls in navy blue
Brooch: Vintage Birks silver locket
Belt: Up coming "Pretty You" accessory
Shoes: (can't seem em) but Jeffry Campbell sandals
Hair Clip: Pretty you bow.
Hair: Wet set in pin curls, then pinned under in a kind of faux bob style. I've been using heat sets a lot lately and forgot how much I adore a good wet set, it lasts forever!

Sunday Best: Summer Belle

Yesterday was my birthday, and what a birthday! We went out to an incredible restaurant which had the most lavish food, but a relaxed and modern environment. I went with my usual dolled up look for a sunny evening and had a wonderful time! 
Outfit Rundown:

Dress: Watercolor Whisper from Vivcore
Pearls: My lovely set of lilac freshwater pearls
Belt: Up coming "Pretty You" accessory
Shoes: Kandee
Bag: Vintage Lucite
Hair: My big bouffant hair piece with a vintage feather design pearl brooch

Old Timey

For Xmas last year I got a beautiful vintage 50s watch as a gift. white gold with tiny diamonds and a super girly bow design it's the perfect watch for a girl like me! Still in the box with the manufacturers booklet and not a single scratch on it, looks like it had never been worn. From the engraving on the back it was given as a gift in 1952 to Hazel L Blow, before it was given again nearly 60 years later to me!

The delicate original workings lasted a short while, but then gave up as a 60 year old watch can often do. A little bit of TLC though and she's up and running once again! After resorting this watch and a few others I thought my little bit of experience might be helpful to other time travelers
 out there interested in adding an authentic vintage watch to their retro wardrobe...

 Vintage Watches
 Buying a vintage watch is kind of like buying a vintage car, once you find a model that's right, you may need to take some time and money to get the mechanics purring again. Here are a few things to consider when taking the plunge on a classic watch.

Replacing the Band
It seems ladies back then had tiny wrists, I have tiny wrists for a modern girl and still have trouble with the sizes of vintage watches. There are still vintage watch straps out there, and old designs made recently. Brands like Speidel and Hadley Roma do a wide range of vintage style watch bands and are fairly easy to find.

Things to look for on a watch band are the right type of connector for your watch, a good style to compliment the watch, and a good color match. Look for bands that are gold/white gold filled. These have a heavy plate on them, and will be a better match if you happen to have a gold/white gold watch.

Suitable replacement bands tend to run around $8-30 on average

Replacement Watchbands 1963

Getting It Ticking
Time can be cruel the the workings of a watch. More expensive watches will often have been checked over or serviced by a professional and be working in a manner you can trust (ask for a guarantee on the movement if you're spending a lot on a watch). Cheaper watches will usually be sold not working, or currently working with no service or guarantees (which means that they may be running right now despite age, but could stop at any moment or go on for a many more years to come, it can be a bit of a gamble)

It is of course possible to get a stopped watch to run again! Many good jewelry and watch repair shops can bring your old watch back to life. I've had a few vintage and antique watches fixed over the years the the rates seem to be around $80 (small repair) to $200 (complete new insides), so that is something to maybe think about when budgeting your purchase.

Crystals
I always look for a nice clear crystal (glass on the watch face), it is possible to have them replaced, but obviously with older watches that can be a little tricky, there are services out there that specialize in vintage watch crystals, but at the moment I don't have any experience with the costs or difficulties of replacing an old style crystal.

I really love old watches, especially the tiny all metal bracelet ones, they are such a pretty feminine way to keep track of time!

Brooch Bouffant

If you collect vintage jewelry, you probably have more than a few vintage brooches constantly on hand> Now sure, the obvious place to put them is on a nice  frock, jacket or cardigan, but why not get a little more exciting and use them to decorate your vintage hairstyle too! A popular early 60's look, just perch it front of your bouffant or up do to add a little extra glitter a la Betty Draper in Rome.

The sparkle of a tiara and keeping retro without having to go all out princess!

You can just pin the brooch to the ponytail elastic, or you can follow this basic tutorial and turn your brooch into a hair ornament in it's own right!

(If you lack brooches there are some in the Vivcore shop)

It's Fabric I'm in Love

From the V&A

A while back I was fortunate to catch the V&A's Golden Age of Couture exhibit and spent longer than most staring into a glass case of fabric swatches saying over and over in my head, "If only I could lay my hands on those....". Back in the 1940's Zika Ascher founded a London fabric company that really changed the face of textiles as we know them today, Ascher fabrics. They were the first to work with fine artists of the time like Picasso, Henry Moore, and Cecil Beaton to create stunning fabrics and scarves. Their fabrics were used by couture houses such as Dior, Schiaparelli, Givenchy, Lanvin, Yves Saint Laurent, and Mary Quant. The cherry on the top is that not only were these fabrics designed by the best and used by the best, they were even worn by some of the most exciting clients as well. Such as the then, Princess Elizabeth.

In short as an English girl with a fine arts degree, a clothing company and a passion for vintage fashion and art, it was love at first sight.

Mid Century Mode Collection

Back in October of last year, part serendipity, part research lead to my standing in a fantastically vintage archive room, sighing over thousands of fabric designs from the 40's up, and coming away with a stock room full of bolts of Ascher cottons, all sporting vibrant mid-century designs, just waiting for Spring. Although a late debut, the dresses from this vintage dream are finally rolling out in Vivcore's Mid Century Mode collection. It's been a real pleasure working with fabrics of such a perfect pedigree, and a thrill to be able to add an extra dimension of authenticity to our vintage inspired designs, by using fabrics designed by the best in the decades we all love the best!

Although the first dress from this line came out a while ago, this week is a the big launch of the Mid Century Mode Collection with 4 bold new dresses added to the store. It's all about authentic vintage flavor, and a real pleasure to add this extra slice of elegance from the motherland.

The collection, like a flower, is just showing it's first pretty buds and sure to grow. Keep watching to see how it matures! Supplies of each fabric are limited, so each design will only be available as you see it today for as long as the fabric is available. Check out the dresses here!

Azalea Cake

I'm going to start this post with saying that every mid century loving host/ess needs to pick up the Cooks County anthologies! Evey issue they have a featured cake in the back, always seasonal, always bright, and nearly always an old mid-century favorite. An that is where this years husbands birthday cake came from!

Back in the 50's/60's "flower" cakes became increasingly popular. They had fun names like daffodil cake and were decorated and colored to match. This week I put together an azalea cake. On the surface, maybe an overly pink choice for a fella's birthday, but it had all the components (fruit, non sickening frosting) we love in our house, and I wasn't quite creative enough to think of another azalea color that would also taste good and not look off putting.

The recipe was a fair amount of work, and took close to 2 hours due to only having the 2 cake tins (needs 3) but so worth the effort! It's basically a white layer cake made with red food coloring in the center layer, frosted and filled with 7 minute icing and layered with fresh strawberries, raspberries and nuts. I obviously used the Cooks Country recipe, (minus the kirsch) but you can use your favorites if you don't have that one. Next time I make it the one change I'll make is as well as the chopped up the fruit mixed with the filling frosting, I'll layer extra thin cut strawberries along each layer of cake as well to give the cake a more fruity, fresh, tart flavor. That said, next party you throw, the pink azalea cake would make a swell retro center piece!

(My other favorite mid century dessert is of course the stained glass cake, I make a ton of these every Summer!)