Fashion and Dolls

Théâtre de la Mode doll

As you know from a recent post I'm something of a doll fan. I'm not a serious floor to ceiling doll collector, but they are something which has been a particular soft spot of mine lately. I love them as a girl who used to play with dolls, but I also love them as a fashion designer!

Dolls have played a huge roll in fashion for centuries. During the 18th century french merchants de mode used to send out little poupees dressed in their latest creations to entice potential patrons with exquisitely made miniature replicas of their designs. In the 1940's dolls like Virginia Lachasse  from London and those created for the Théâtre de la Mode from Paris showcased the talents and workmanship of couturiers in the mid 20th century.

I've had a lot of fun recently playing out designing in miniature for Monster High dolls, after customizing a Slow Moe for Ghoulia (that letter jacket!) I turned my hands to designing a Sweet 1600 outfit for my favorite Zombie girl, and a Loch Less monster doll as a way to let lose with some UK monster and fashion pride!

Sweet 1600 Ghoulia

Lochturna Ness

As a designer working on a small scale is a great way to try out new things with little expense, and a fun alternative outlet to showcase work in a different way.

Dolls can also be a fun way of finding new styles to try for yourself! For the vintage fashion lover vintage and retro Barbie fashions can be a fun source of inspiration for your full scale fashion! As can some of the amazing Gene dolls out there.


 Make Your Own Doll!

I've had a tutorial on my site for a few years with tips on making your own ball jointed dolls, and this past weekend before jetting off to England to stay with my family over the holidays, I also added a tutorial for customizing fashion dolls! You can use the tips for customizing the freak fab Monster High dolls, but the same techniques can also be used to create your own unique Barbie dolls or which ever fashion doll speaks to you most! When it's all about expressing your style, it's always fun to find a doll that reflects it the best!

 There are some tips on how to wipe, re-root and paint your doll, ready for your miniature fashion adventures! Give it a shot and let your inner designer run wild!

The new tutorial plus extra photos of my 2 newest Monster High customs can be found on the Dolly Daydream site here!

Quick Pin Up Fix!

This time of year is about as hectic as it get's for me, working in the wonderful world of handmade retail over the holiday season means I pretty much eat, drink tea, work, and sleep from Thanksgiving through Xmas. On top of that we've had a lot of travel the past few months making a busy time even crazier!

A girl can get tired of looking at her worn out face in the mirror at times like these, and that's when you need a nice fast easy glamour fix that won't eat into your work time! For me that fix is the good old faux bumper bang. It takes seconds, looks pin up fab, and requires very little prep!

To get the look all you need is:

• 3 bobby pins
• A splash of water
• Hair spray
• 1 min extra time before bed!

The Styling:

1. The night before separate out a small section in the front you want to curl into your bangs.
2. Dampen the section with a bit of water
3. Put the section in 3 (maybe more if you're blessed with thick hair) standing pin curls.
4. A fast way to do these is to roll your hair around a smooth tube (I use a Besame lip gloss) slip the "tube" out and pin with a bobby pin so it sits as if it had a roller in it.
5. Wake up!
6. Take out the bobby pins
7. Gently brush the curls over your hand and roll up under itself
8. Arrange the bangs to suit your face
9. Spray with liberal amounts of hair spray

Leave the rest of your hair down, throw it in a ponytail, do whatever! The whole thing including setting your hair the evening before takes less than 5 minutes, but you'll look like you had time dress up even if you didn't!

It's also a pretty fun way to play with bangs without having to make the commitment of cutting them in.

Usually it comes out much fuller, but the day you set up to take photos is always the day things fall a little flat.

Sale on Style

Holiday shopping season is here, so I have a swell sale going on over at my shop for any fans of vintage or just plain fancy style! I've picked out a selection of the items in our store which make the best gifts, and put them on sale for the season. Hopefully this will help you find gifts for the fancy peeps on your gift giving list, or to help you spice up your big holiday outfit this year!!

All the items in the sale make great gifts, and come nicely presented in our gold gift or velvet jewelry boxes for easy wrapping and added impact on opening! So you can pick up a deal and some extra va voom at the same time! Come stop by the sale section to find the items for you!

Slow Moe Zombie Star

Phew! I've barely been at home for that past couple of months, and working like a crazy person in between. I did take off last weekend though and dedicated it to to reconnecting with a fun old hobby... DOLLS!

After hanging out with some great friends in New York I a few weeks back I came away with a new crippling addiction to Monster High (which is helping me get over a bad Poupee Girl habit). The doll I most fell in love with is good old Ghoulia, the retro headband, the cat-eye glasses, the comic books, whats not to love right? Well everyone knows that in the doll world a boyfriend doll is a like a Louis Vuitton purse, it's the accessory all the superstars have right? Like Barbie and Ken, he's always kinda been the accessory that let everyone know Barbie was higher up the food chain than Skipper. So since Ghoulia is a doll superstar in my heart and I've never been one to leave well enough alone, it was time to turn my tools towards customizing her a Slow Moe character boyfriend doll!

 

As luck would have it everything I needed arrived in time for the weekend and after a few hours of demolishing a poor Jackson doll I was able to re-paint, re-root (the hair), re dress and even flock the guy into a zombie chess star beau! It was a blast sewing tiny clothes again and painting on doll heads.

Dolly Daydream Back in Action!
The whole thing really reignited my love of playing with dolls and even gave me the first update in a long time to my much loved Dolly Daydream site. I've got plans to finish off the rest of the ball joint doll tutorials over there, and for adding some fashion doll customizing tutorials too, so so anyone with any interest in dolls, that's the space to watch!

Giveaway Winner

Ladies and gentlemen! We are thrilled to announce the winner of the 250 followers giveaway for box a smashing retro accessories! and (drum roll please) the winner is!!!.....

TAMMIE! 

If you can email me your address to viv(at)vivcore(dot)com I'll get your gift set sent right out!
Thanks so much to every one who participated, and thanks for all the input! It's been a great help and I'll be taking all your comments on board for all kinds of future Quaintrelle Life posts!

DIY Teacup

New craft tutorial added to the Quaintrelle Life website! Small project to decorate your own teacup at home!

Using a little Photoshop know how it's easy to make your own custom teacup!

This is one I made a few years back when I was writing the tutorial the first time around for the now defunct Shojo Beat magazine (RIP Shojo Beat, we all loved you)

Click here to see yourself how simple it is!

Vintage Halloween

Though time might be tight, Halloween is coming fast, and one thing that means is, it's costume time!

While the rest of the world pulls out their costume poodle skirts and party store flapper dresses for a vintage inspired Halloween. Where might someone who loves vintage fashion in everyday life go for retro flavor come masquerade time? How about the Halloween and masquerade costumes of the past!? Here are a few of my favorite vintage costumes I've run into this year, hopefully they'll be able to offer you some inspiration when pulling together a retro Halloween costume of your own!
(my favorite retro costumes are the one based on household objects like the tube of toothpaste bellow, or the updated period costumes)

Costumes from a 1920's costume catalog available here on Etsy

 Costumes from a Weldons catalog from the 1930's. See the rest of the catalog on Carbonated's Flickr stream

Some vintage costume sewing patterns from the sew wiki costume section....

I actually ran into a photo from the 1940's with a couple of gals in costumes pretty similar to the one above!
For further inspiration, Amazon has this rather great looking book, full of nothing but costume illustrations from the 1920's-1950's. I would imagine with that under your belt you'll never be caught without a costume idea again! (after all, there's New years, and Mardi Gras to get vintage costuming for as well ;P)

Masquerade: Costume Inspirations 1920s-1950s