We are a Part of History! (Sort of)

Was very pleased to see that the rare Thea Porter coat that the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston acquired from Shrimpton Couture is now photoed and displayed as part of their permanent archives. I have to tell you I still look at this coat and wonder how I ever gave it up. It is literally one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen and a true pieces of art. It is very heavy and all hand applied yarn over wool. It would have taken hours and hours and hours just to make the fabric - never mind constructing the coat itself!

I am honored to have had it in hand for even a short while and I have to be honest - a little thrilled that I had the opportunity to wear it about the studio for an hour or two. Yep I spent about two hours before it left wearing it over my super casual studio wear - just because I could. 

From the research I was able to do there were only three of these ever made - each slightly different from the other so each is a true one of a kind, couture creation. One appeared in Vogue the year it was made, I had one and the other is in a private collection. So to say that it was a special piece is in no way understated!

I hope you get a chance to see it in real life one day. I am thrilled that such an important and monumental piece is being taken care of and will be preserved for generations to come. It is important that some pieces end up with our museums so that people can see them in person and appreciate the genius of designers like Thea Porter. To know I helped make that a possibility is a bit of a thrill. This was the very first piece I had a museum purchase from me too. I have helped acquire pieces for many museum collections since, but your first you never forget as they say!

So please do pop by the MFA if you get a chance and marvel at my beautiful little find. Though I doubt they will let you wear it. You will have to just live vicariously through me for that! And boy did we love it!

Yes I Did Get to Try Those Verdura Baubles on

A week or so ago I was lucky enough to attend the private trunk show for Verdura in the historic Philip Johnson apartment. It was hosted by the glamorous society jeweler about town - Mr Myles Mindham - who owns the swanky Mindham Fine Jewelery shop in Yorkville. I went with Nathalie Atkinson, Style Editor at our own National Post. Going to a soiree with Nath is amazing - she literally knows everyone so I just plant myself in her wake and am towed about from one fabulous person to another! I also was lucky enough to have full access to a table FULL of Verdura jewels and was allowed to try one after another on to my hearts content. These are not costume pieces girls - just read the prices for these pieces below and drool! Honestly it was heaven!

Verdura is a fascinating company and I highly recommend you pop over to their site and read the history of the company and then spend a few hours going through their jewels. You will walk away with a raging NEED to own a piece especially if you love vintage as much as I do. This is a company steeped in history and their jewels have been paired with some of the most fascinating woman and extraordinary pieces of clothing that ever existed. The page I linked you to above is chock full of pictures and stories - really wonderfully done. Though I will warn you now that you may get a little obsessed with their pieces. Once you see the real thing it is tough to look at the endless costume versions out there!

Ward Landrigan, the chairman and owner of Verdura was flown in from New York and spoke about the history of Verdura and regaled us with his stories about flying all over the world to hand deliver diamonds to Elizabeth Taylor. To really get a scope on what Verdura is all about - please take a moment jump to Natalie's write-up in the Post here and take another moment to hop over and watch this video below where Ward tells the story of Elizabeth, a very large and important pearl and a dog and there is also an excellent interview that Ward did the next morning on BNN that you can see here.

An exceptional evening and a huge thank you to Nathalie and Myles for including me!

All photos from Nath's iPhone. I am wearing a vintage YSL velvet great coat from the 1970s. Pieces I tried and loved were: from the top left... The Chevalier Cuff - emerald, sapphire, pearl, diamond, white enamel and 18kt gold, with precision hinge. Price upon request (aka Way over $100,000!); An amazing all diamond version that is closest to the Double Crescent Bracelet, the version found on-line is combo of gold and diamonds and is $67,500 - I think the version I tried on was well over $200,000!; The Candy Ring - Just amazing and made of amethyst, turquoise and 18k yellow gold.  $10,250 and under that is The Three Stone Ring - peridot, blue topaz, and 18k yellow gold. $14,200; then there is the amazing Lilly Bracelet - Originally created for Marlene Dietrich and made of diamond, platinum and gold. $83,500; and last, in the center an amazing one of a kind ring that I kinda fell in love with. Don't even ask....

A Vintage Wolf Whistle Shout Out to Lone Wolf Magazine!

I am so excited to share that some Shrimpton Couture treasures were used in a gorgeous editorial for Lone Wolf Magazine! Do you recognize that amazing Moschino leather jacket on the gorgeous model above? (Already sold girls - sorry!) or the one of a kind Michele Lamy sunnies? And this little pink vintage bullet bra and girdle set was used too!  Quite a few pieces were pulled from the archive for this shoot - click here to see the full editorial - it is really amazing! Whoot Whoot for Lone Wolf!

PS if you want to order a copy of this amazing little magazine for yourself click here

Vintage Eye Candy - Giorgio Sant'angelo

Just arrived - A Superb Pierre Cardin Dress c1968

I am very pleased to post this amazing linen shift dress with padded stitched detailing from the Pierre Cardin 1968 collection. It is really one of the best Cardin pieces I have seen in a very long time! The color is extraordinary and it is in museum quality condition. Click here to see all the pictures, get the details and see the other Cardin pieces in the shop at the moment.

I find Cardin to be especially fascinating. He really is a designer that I think is both adored and overlooked. He is held in absolute esteem for pieces like this and if you think 1960s you think Cardin, but he really was so much more. Did you know for example that he worked at both Paquin and Schiaparelli at the start of his career in fashion? Or that he was an apprentice to Christian Dior and was employed at the house the year Dior unveiled the "new Look"? He started his own house in  the early 1950s - long before what we think of as "Cardin" - you can see hints of what he will do later but his pieces where very structured and "fifties". In the sixties he really became bold and avant garde - using metals and hammering plates of silver as accessories and incorporating them into his designs. He was one of the designers that was fascinated with synthetic materials and incorporated them into his designs often. The early polyesters and rayon's we sometimes think of as inferior now-a-days where cutting edge fabrics in their day and he was experimenting and using them in ways no one else was. By 1954 he opened the first of his boutiques and by 1959 was presenting a ready to wear collection. This in an age when couturiers did not do this. By the late seventies he was producing high end furniture line to match his aesthetic. Pieces fetch thousands and thousands now - trust me I know from my full on mod furniture obsession that almost equals my obsession to vintage clothing. 

He is just the most amazing designer and his talents transcend woman's clothing. His impact on our modern concept of the "mod" look cannot be overlooked and yet I think that as more time passes and we are constantly bombarded with the newest latest and an entire generation no longer has seen or knows the connection between the new and the original, that his impact is being overlooked. I cannot tell you how many time I have seen a design strut down a runway and seen hints and bits of an earlier Cardin design. Accessories, lighting, furniture, jewels, even car interiors - the man did it all and his aesthetic still runs through the design of all those things today!

I took the time to download the official history from the Pierre Cardin website. It is absolutely amazing what he has accomplished. Take an hour one day, google Cardin and really get an idea of the scope of what he has contributed to our world. His impact on design that now make up and have become part of our every day lives cannot be underestimated! 

Huge, huge, HUGE fan! He is on my "if you can go to dinner with anyone dead or alive" list...though I am sure I would exhaust the poor man in mere moments with my unabashed adoration! He is 89 and still active so a girl can only hope and send off a prayer to the vintage gods.....

Hey Man Repeller - Those look familiar......

Leandra Medine, girl behind the blog, The Man Repeller, recently posted this snapshot of herself. It caught my eye immediately because of her sunglasses. Those are by Linda Farrow but are they not eerily similar to the vintage ones I have in the shop right now designed by Michele Lamy, Rick Owens wife and muse?

The Farrows are from the spring 2011 collaboration that the brand did with Jeremy Scott. The Lamy's palm tree version is from the 1980s (maybe late 70s) .....some friendly inspiration perhaps? Though I would bet a couple of dollars that if I dug a little further I would find an even earlier version of this frame. 

Ahhhhh fashion - you have to love it and perhaps giggle at it occasionally, no?

Wearing Vintage - Eleonora Carisi of Jou Jou Villeroy

Take a chic little ensemble of fabulous separates and add a vintage bomber for instant street cred cool a la Eleonora style! Love the contrast of the bomber with a skirt! She has such amazing style!

photo: jou jou villeroy + see more of Eleonora on my blog in a vintage glam look here, and shop for your own vintage jacket here

Hermes is Here!

Hermes is here! I was lucky enough to have a huge Hermes collector contact me to help her edit her collection. After hours of sorting and making go, keep and maybe piles I have over 30 scarves and accessories to offer to you! Some are quite rare, limited editions and all are in absolutely pristine condition! The large majority have never been worn at all! Pop over to Shrimpton Couture now to see and shop the collection! This special collection will also debut on 1st Dibs today!

Vintage at the Met - Coco Rocha

With hair in a SHOCKING pink hue, in homage to Elsa Schiaparelli, Coco Rocha stepped onto the red carpet wearing vintage Givenchy that was originally owned by Elizabeth Taylor that Rocha bought at the infamous Christie's auction of Taylor's possession that took place in December 2011. The ensemble is numbered couture from the 1980s and Coco scooped it up at a final hammer price of just over $3,000. The trousers and jacket are "embroidered with arabesques in silver and gold"

“I’ve always been a huge admirer of Elizabeth Taylor,” says Rocha, 23. ,”For me, it was her wardrobe that was really impressive. Here was a celebrity who, in the time before stylists and professionals picking your wardrobe, always looked amazing.”

On Coco's blog she tells of the wine stain that the dress had on it “If you look carefully, you can see the suit has this very faint red wine stain on it. After I had it cleaned I took it to show the editors at Vogue and we could still see the stain. We all agreed that since it was Liz Taylor’s wine stain, it’s OK to wear as is,” 

I sort of love that story and appreciate that she still wore it despite a little flaw. I try to only bring pieces to Shrimpton Couture that are as near perfect as can be but the reality is that sometimes really amazing pieces sometimes have a small sign of past merriment's. Usually those pieces end up staying with me and I wear them despite their flaws and try to wear them with complete with complete abandon and love - my own little homage. Because that is after all, how they usually ended up with their little flaws in the first place. 

The outfit as presented at the Christie's auction

 Coco at the Schiaparelli & Prada exhibit at the Met Gala

Photos:Vogue, Christie's and Coco's own

Hats are Forever Chic

I may be wrong, but I think that Garance (of the infamous Garance Dore blog) might just be turning into a vintage girl. I see more and more pops of vintage creeping into her blog and falling on her radar. Like this stunning photo posted this morning of Joana Nolasco Freitas in her chic little vintage Dior chapeau. I myself am going through a bit of a hat thing these days. There seems to be something right about the polished feel they give an outfit and their little nod to retro refinement. 

Like red lipstick, hats are not something you can just do right out of the gate for most of us. Unless of course you are one of those women - that inevitable one girl we all know that can suddenly change her style on a whim and look like she has dressed that way forever. For the rest of us, hats are a deliberate forging into a brave new area of styling. Adding a hat into your everyday wardrobe, is for most girls, a new and dedicated pursuit in finding the right look so you don't feel like a complete twat every time you try it. It is one thing to see girls like Anna romping about and managing to looking fabulous with giant cherries on her head, but try to do that at home and you will almost be guaranteed to feel.... well like an idiot with giant cherries on her head.

If you do try to wear a hat after never having done so before, you will probably find yourself putting it on, taking it off, changing your outfit several times and at the end - giving up. It is because you are changing the very core of how you dress - the focus is now up, up, up and that is not how we dress these days. At some point though, wearing a hat becomes effortless. I have only been been told this mind you, I am not quite at effortless hat wearing yet myself, so take this all with a grain of salt please! But when I have managed to do it successfully I found that the only way to get there is to get up your courage, get dressed and ignore that irratating voice saying "is it OK?" "do I look silly?" "can I do this?" 

Just grab that hat, bam it onto your head, slick on your lipstick and walk out the door with barely a glance at a mirror. Just do it, as Nike says.

photo: garance dore

Wearing Vintage - Liz in Todd Oldham

I love these shots that the beautiful Liz Cherkasova, the girl behind the blog Late Afternoon, took of herself wearing this fantastic vintage Todd Oldham suit. Full on head to toe florals are such a statement this season and it is nice to be reminded that once again, this newest, latest, freshest trend is really just a redo of the past! Looking fabulous Liz!

Red Lipstick, Ava Gardner and my pursuit

I am slowly trying to adjust and get use to wearing red lipstick. It is a big jump outside the box for me. I am one of those bronzer and gloss kind of girls and have been for my whole life. My entire make-up philosophy has been based on those overly tanned beach goddess girls of the seventies. But I love the look of a red lip and in the past few months have been diligently trying to learn how to wear it properly and adjusting to having this bright slash of color on my lips (and not all over my face which is what happened the first few times till I learned the concept of apply, then blot, apply, then blot). 

It's an entirely different way of thinking and I find it trickles down to other elements. Suddenly bare nails feel odd, they need to be red too. The waist needs to be defined, the shoulders need a tad of structure. There are lots and lots of tutorials and inspirations to be found out there - Keiko Lynn's step by step make-up tutorials are amongst my personal faves - but I can't help but come back to this photo of Ava Gardner. This to me is the perfect red lip regardless if it was a red lip from 70 odd years ago or not. The full brows, the fresh, bare face, the polished feel, the perfect skin. Ava is perfection here and this just might be my new make-up pursuit. 

What about you? Do you do red? How long does it take till it feels effortless?

photo floating about the net and in my files forever - not sure of original origin

Wearing Vintage - Sarah Jessica Parker in Vintage Oscar De La Renta