Here are two large-scale embroideries that I’ve been working on lately. They are a mixture of 1910/1920s original embroidery patterns (that I got from Angeliska for my 27th birthday) and 1930s film stars. Helen Kane is used as the base to make the Sob Sister’s face.
Sob Sister
10 inches x 10 inches
hand embroidery on vintage pillow ticking, pastel
Tea’s Too Hot
8 inches x 10 inches
hand embroidery on vintage pillow ticking
My flapper afro is slowly coming back…
This is how I fluff it up… by running my hands in small circles until it puffs up.
Flapper/Afro Inspirations:
Allene Ray
Probably one of my most favorite photos, ever.
A very coquette photo of Alla Nazimova
Madge Bellamy
From some ukulele sheet music I have, called “Brown Eyes, Why Are You Blue?”
Joyce Compton in 1925
If I wait too long in the morning to take my daily outfit photo, the Texas sun is too bright and makes me squint! Even though we’re only a bit over halfway through January, today already feels and smells like spring!
Oh, how I love friends who give the most thoughtful gifts. This dress is from the incredible Angel as birthday present this past August. I must document every single time I wear it! It’s like a ghost – I fear it will not last very long! There is the most incredible colour of yellowy/cream that only comes about through decades and decades of aging: sheets of music, aging chiffon, handwritten notes. I never want to soak/wash this dress because I don’t want to lose this color!
Here is another time I wore this dress, last September.
The earrings belonged to my Great Grandmother who came to NYC from Poland before the Depression. I remember looking through my mother’s jewelry box when I was young and finding these earrings. My mother used the earrings to tell me about my Great Grandmother and how she never learned to read because her school house burned when she was in the 1st grade and it was never rebuilt; how she left Poland at age 20 and never saw her parents again; how she opened up her own grocery store during the Depression and ran a boarding house and made pies every night, how she could do complicated math in her head.
The locket was a gift from my mother, but she did not include a photo! Last night, I was looking through piles of old photographs that I’ve gotten from estate sales and I noticed a photo of two women standing in front of an old house. Now, if you’ve ever tried to put a photo in a locket, you’ll remember that it’s quite difficult to find a photo that is small enough to put in the frame! Photos I’m sure will be small enough turn out to be gigantic and comic peeking out from the gold frame. This photo, however, was taken far enough away to where I can frame the two women and still have some space around them.
The woman on the left: dark patterned dress, dark stockings, white heels, shorter, hair parted in middle, holding a bag or stole or case in her left hand.
The woman on the right: short cropped bob with waves, light dress, white strappy shoes, she’s a bit overweight, she’s taller than the woman on the left.
The other side of the locket is a piece of a printed handkerchief. I like fabrics or teeth or hair in lockets.
My vintage partner in crime, Miss Tetsie, and I are readily preparing for our Grackle Sister debut at this year’s SXSW. Part of our song and dance act involves a tap dance number, so last night as we were doing our hair I pulled up some videos on the Black Bottom Stomp for us to try out.
Une Petite Histoire: The Black Bottom is a dance that originated in New Orleans in the 1900s. The rhythm is based on the iconic Charleston dance, although it’s more sexual in nature. You bump your bottoms together, people! (See above diagram) I read several places that The Black Bottom was more popular than the Charleston, but in our modern minds, the aforementioned Charleston is just more iconic of the flapper era.
Jelly Roll Morton wrote, “Black Bottom Stomp” and recorded it in 1926.
The Black Bottom is pretty simple to do – and it has a good learning curve. If you’re not into polished choreography dance, you can incorporate the stamps and little come-hither motions with the arms to give a flavor to your dancing.
Perry Bradford and his Georgia Strutters, “The Original Black Bottom Dance” from 1926
I love youtube videos of old men nerding out over their record collections. This collector does a really good job of introducing the record and giving some history. He has a beautiful phonograph too!
How to do the Black Bottom:
Hop down front, Doodle* back,
Mooch* to your left then Mooch to the right
Put your hands on your hips, Mess Around,
Break a Leg* until you’re near the ground
Now that’s the Old Black Bottom Dance
*Doodle = Slide
*Mooch = Shuffle forward with both feet. Hips go first, then feet
*Break a leg = Hobbling Step
This video has some great still images in the beginning of Joan Crawford doing the Black Bottom. You can also hear strains of the “Way down yonder on the Swanee River” dotted throughout. The popularity of the Black Bottom in society is shown by photos of nurses and teachers doing the Black Bottom too!
If you’re interested in the Black Bottom, you must watch this video in its entirety! It features a young Ruby Keeler and a dancing cow. It shows some of the origins of the dance along with a slow motion diagram of the dance. I think also that Baby Rose Marie dances, but I’m not sure if it is her.
Annette Hanshaw – Don’t Take that Black Bottom Away
“Snake Hips” dance from 1929, with Sharon Lynn
This song and dance is amazing, and features the lyrics “Do the wiggle waggle woo.” It’s not a strait-forward version of the dance but certainly shows influence of the Black Bottom and Charleston. Watch those costumes! OH! I’m such a sucker for glitzy chorus lines that are nothing but leg after leg marching on the screen.
When we get better at our routine I promise that I’ll share my version of The Black Bottom!
yours till Cats Kill Mountains,
Amelia
If you don’t already know her, I’m very pleased to acquaint you with one of my favorite singers!
Annette Hanshaw (1901- 1985) needs little more than a piano accompaniment, ukulele strum and cymbal punctuation to offset her dreamy, buttery voice. Her songs are filled with breathy pauses and hums as she pleads “Love me Tonight” or flippantly suggests, “What do I Care?” Through her extensive recordings, manages to effortlessly combines flapper ingenue with sweetheart pop songs. One quick glance through her catalogue and you’ll surely recognize standards like “Ain’t She Sweet?” and “Button Up Your Overcoat.” She’s instantly likeable and her songs will stick with you throughout the day!
I like to listen to Annette Hanshaw while I’m cooking a lengthy breakfast of baking powder biscuits, tofu scramble and strong Brazilian coffee. Her rhythms deliciously accompany any activity that involves wearing an apron, rolling dough, and singing to oneself in the kitchen. In fact, she even has a song called “Cooking Breakfast for the One I Love!” And, a girl after my own heart, she likes dogs, perfume and cooking, but dislikes diets, mathematics and bugs. Isn’t it silly that magazines today aren’t any better when profiling celebrities?
And who’s got plenty of that thing they call “it”?
And who can pet and love like Babe Ruth can hit?
Who?
Who takes the sheikin’ prize?
Who plays like Lindbergh flies?
Who-oo? You-oo, that’s who!
“Who-Oo? You-Oo, That’s Who” is one of my favorite songs because it references slang and celebrities of the age in lines like “Who loves like Lindburg flies?” and sheikin’ prize (what ever that may be!!). Her version of “Button Up Your Overcoat” mentions keeping away from bootleg hooch and Peroxide blondes!
Possibly my favorite part of her songs is that she always finishes the recording with a demure, “That’s all!”
Tiptoe through the Tulips
We Just Couldn’t Say Goodbye – Footage of her singing
The lovely Betty Amann – notice her very waxy eyelashes and downward sloping eyebrows!
When I was younger and not quite living as a full blown Vintage Vivant (that is, dressing in vintage styles every day) I used holidays such as my Birthday, New Year’s Eve and Halloween to dress in full vintage and emulate different glamor stars. Around this time of year, I would start mining different vintage fashion sites in search of 1920s flapper makeup tutorials. My favorite part of reading about vintage makeup is exploring the different tools and products that were used to achieve such theatrical looks. Unassuming items like kohl, petroleum jelly and rouge can send a face from a Plain Dora to Jazz Baby in a matter of deftly placed strokes of a brush. It’s all a matter of knowing where to paint!
Tutorials, Videos:
The book shown above, Vintage Face: Period Looks from the 20s-50s, is fantastic – it’s a contemporary book but I believe it’s out of print. I find it very helpful that the materials/methods from the 1920s are juxtaposed with the current methods. Beseme Cosmetics, purveyors of vintage makeup, has some excellent video tutorials on how to apply blush, and cake mascara. Kevyn Aucoin’s Making Faces book also show flapper, gamine and Edith Piaf looks to emulate.
This video is from the Helena Rubenstein site and it’s quite amazing!
Makeup:
My favorite vintage product is cake mascara! I remember playing with my grandmother’s cake mascaras and eyeliners when I was a kid and using them to paint whiskers on my face like a kitten. It’s half wax, half pigment. You must dip the brush in water in order to activate the mascara. Paula Dorf Cosmetics and Lola Cosmetics both produce a cake mascara that I’ve tried. However, they are seldom sold in stores so your best bet is to find them online. Applying mascara with a little toothbrush seems daunting at first but it’s quite fun and more of a natural tint than real volume.
The Problem:
No matter how closely I follow a tutorial I feel as if my look is lacking something. Here I am last Halloween as a silent film star. Literally, I was a silent film star, I didn’t speak a word! I watched about 9 silent movies through the course of October and photographed all of the title cards in the films. I printed out the title cards and carried them around all night. I would shuffle them up and then answer people randomly with the cards. It was like Mad Libs starlette! I put these two photographs up for you to see the difference in the look from color to black and white. In the color photo, observe how my eyes are heavily made up but how they look more plain in the black and white photo. I was discouraged with this result because it seemed like the more I made myself up the less it transferred to “Starlette” in the black and white version.
The Break Through:
Left: Here I am in my room before the last “Party Like it’s 1929″ party. I had just gotten my new iMac with built in camera the week before, and as I was doing my makeup I had a revelation: why not turn on photobooth and do my makeup in the sepia setting? I tried it, and the results were amazing. I felt that because I stripped down the colors I was really able to focus on the shadows and highlights.
Right: Here is Angel and me at the big event – aren’t we sweet?
Your’s till Niagara Falls,
Amelia
Here are some shots of Angel and me at Party Like it’s 1929. This is a fantastic period party thrown by the wonderful Datri Bean. We danced through the night and sipped apricot liquor. I made my necklace out of a chandilier from work! It made such music as I moved. It is double-sided so the strands hang down the back just as they do the front.
My headband is from the ever-so-fantastic Louise Black (of Project Runway season 6!) I have been buying headbands from her for years and I love the accent they give each outfit. This one is a delicate green ribbon with glass pieces and a deco brooch. So lovely!
I finally got my makeup right tonight when I turned on the “sepia” setting of Photobooth and just did my makeup in the computer camera as if I was in a sepia picture! I think I am always too timid to really darken my eyes but having the sepia setting let me know where to put the dark shadows and highlights. Guilherme looked very handsome dressed up in a vest and proper suspenders. He shaved his moustache into a Clark Gable shape and I think it fits him very well.
