Goodbye Damsel in Distress, Hello Princess Adventuress

The day after New Year’s day I did a boot sale with my sister. It was freeeezing. It was also a magical mystery tour into the mind of the boot sale attendee – how comes £1 for an angora beret is a steal in a charity shop, but something to be tutted at and bartered with at a boot sale? Oh, and it was a lesson in what not to buy my parents for Christmas.

Cinderella was a real bombshell...

Throughout the de-cluttering boot sale stock accumulation process we came across a few former treasures: diamonique encrusted watches which had stopped in their tracks; books we’d meant to read; and a Cinderella figurine, with her now mutilated Prince Charming, I’d bought as a souvenir from Euro Disney when I was 16.

Sis thought it made an intriguing image and snapped the pair on the window sill. Dad thought the prince’s headless, one legged and de-slipper-proffering-armed-ness was somehow symbolic.  It struck even me that I’d donned a not dissimilar Cinderella-blue gown at my wedding.

Cinderella nailed her fella…

Of course, instead of happily ever after it all turned out more like that scene from Labyrinth where Sarah, the whiny teen damsel in distress, declares David Goblin King Bowie has no power over her; and the whole magical mirrored spellbinding façade  cracks from side to side.

Unlike Jennifer Connelly I decided on the simple boob baring demo during the first dance instead.  This impromptu act – my husband’s wrist was apparently caught in my dress strap – proved beyond a doubt I was not the princess bride, but a stick-on chicken fillet sporting damsel.  I think I cried for 3 nights after that.  So what?  I hear you cry.

Damsel in a puffy dress

So, I’d been reading Caroline Myss‘ book Sacred Contracts; a book where “…Myss explains how you can identify your own spiritual energies, or archetypes, and use them to help you find out what you are here on earth to learn and whom you are meant to meet.” And one of the first archetypes I’d identified as playing a prominent part in the pantomime which is my life, was the damsel, aka the princess; or the shadow side to the princess proper.

It’s not so easy, identifying your archetypes, I found it a bit like Three Men in a Boat when the narrator diagnoses himself with every disease described in a medical dictionary – except Housemaid’s Knee. In a way this isn’t surprising: Myss asserts we have 12 prominent archetypes; these all have a light and shadow side.  We’ll see influences of others too – rather like an archetypal kaleidoscope I like to think. However the damsel in distress princess archetype screamed out at me; it was obvious: I am … I was… I have been the damsel in distress all my life.

Pink peril

It’s funny what a simple revelation can do.  Suddenly I could see lengthy tressed damsels stressing their way through my (hi)story. First, there was the Perils of Penelope Pitstop where the hapless heroine was dangled over alligator infested pools by the Hooded Claw; and Nosferatu climbing the stairway to terrorise that foolish girl who doesn’t hide under the duvet. Then, when I was 8 my first male teacher, Mr Lymer, said I reminded him of Princess Diana because of my aloofness.

Let Sleeping Beauties lie...

My parents bought me Sleeping Beauty, for my 16th Birthday – somewhat ironic considering my somnambulist-esque existence. Then there were all those Pre-Raphaelite fainting fairy maids I fancied myself as at art college – someone once asked me to pose as Ophelia. Geez.  Then there were all the guys who wanted to save little ol’ me, from the big bad world in my head.  I even asked Mr Glittery to tie me to a tree and play highway man – he wrote me a story instead. Typical.

"What, what," said the Lady of Shallot

At uni John William Waterhouse’s, wilting waif, the Lady of Shallot was one of my style inspirations.  And obviously the long blonde hair said ‘princess’ to more than a few peeps, but even when I tamed and tied it into knots I’d just become a silver screen Hitchcock Heroine (aka modern-day cinematic damsel). Eeek.

He was expecting a frosty reception...

I went to see Matthew Bourne‘s Blitz-based  ballet, Cinderella, just before Christmas. There’s a copy of The Constant Princess on my desk at work. And when my work mate, Funny Girl, told me she was going to buy me a book, she said, “I thought you’d like The Princess Bride or that one about the ugly sister.”  So I’m still surrounded by distressed princesses.  But I guess like the ugly sister who’s getting the chance to put the record straight, it’s about time to step out of the forest of shadows and into the light, bright side of this archetype stuff and tell a new tale.

Maybe?

The question is: what to wear?

Too Fat to Flap? – & Other Musings on 20s Style

“Vain trifles as they seem, clothes have, they say, more important offices than to merely keep us warm. They change our view of the world and the world’s view of us.”

— Virginia Woolf (Orlando)

Prohibition poster gals

The other Saturday night was Prohibition night: a night where peeps get together to relive the roaring twenties; sipping booze from china whilst doing the Charleston; and sizing up each other’s sartorial prowess – or some such ballyhoo. I don’t know, I used to love dressing up, I also used to love all things vintage … well, maybe not all things, but 1920s is definitely not my cup of cha.

Flip flapping away...

First I got in a minor mental flap over the dress: there is no way I’m shelling out hard earned cash for a dress I’m never gonna wear again AND which’ll make me look like a sausage bursting at the seams. The fat flapper – sounds like a sea lion – is not a look I relish sporting.  And so I fashioned me a dress from an old fringed scarf and a slip. It served as a distraction:  “No, it’s not me that’s all wobbly, it’s the dress.”

Jazz babies

Then I got to watching the House of Elliot, or at least the first two episodes someone has uploaded to Youtube, and got all disgruntled about sexism and well… clothes.  For one thing, the freedom the corset-less ‘flapper’ dress spelled for the feminine form was not as liberating for the curvy gal as it was for the gamine gal.

Don't look now, but ...

As much as I would love my wavy hair to be poker straight and my hips to be even straighter it’s as though curves have predestined me to feel like a fat, round peg in the jazzy juvenile hole of the twenties and thus not fit to flap.

Feelin' fruity

Not that I’m complaining, much. It’s just all this thinking about being boyish has made me more body conscious than usual. Although it’s not unusual to feel trapped in a woman’s body in a man’s world, it’s really only when you come to squeeze yourself into a style from an era your body wasn’t made for that you realise how lucky we are to live in a time where almost anything goes – in theory at least.

Flapping good ethi-cool style:

• Pachacuti – get up cloche & personal in hats with soul
• Annie’s – get the original dress & bead the best
• Ivana Basilotta – a lotta ethical silk dresses with a 20s twist for SS 2011

My Favourite Top – Has it Got Something to Hide?

Does my skeleton look big in this?

My favourite top is slash necked and bat-winged. Sounds like some vampire horror story of a garment I know, but I feel good when I wear it.  I love the sophisticatedness of the slash neck – not to be confused with a slashed neck, which is not at all sophisticated, or comfortable – and the relaxed yet elegant cut of the sleeves.  It is effortlessly stylish.  And yet, something has come between me and my top.  I’m beginning to suspect it may be hiding a skeleton in the closet.

I’ve no proof – just rumours.  But all the same it’s got me thinking, where had it been before we met on that clothes rack in Zara, the Knightsbridge branch, all those years ago?  Because, I don’t know if you know this, but cotton, which is mostly what my beloved top is made from, isn’t as soft and fluffy as we’re led to believe.  At least it doesn’t start out that way. 

I mean what would you think if you thought your top, could, in some small way, have contributed to an ecological catastrophe? The disappearance of a sea, no less. I couldn’t believe it.  I know, it’s hard to imagine an innocent, albeit subtly sexy, top could be mixed up in this sort of mess, but it seems the

Cotton - queen of the crops?

evidence is mounting against it.

So, ok, the story goes something like this: once upon a time the Aral Sea, which lies between Kazakhstan, in the north, and Uzbekistan, in the south, was the fourth largest lake in the world. For thousands of years, the local people made use of the Aral’s natural resources – for irrigating crops and fishing – until, under Soviet rule, Uzbekistan discovered the export potential of cotton. Ka-ching!  Jackpot! And so, began the slow draining of the Aral Sea, to irrigate what the present government affectionately term, ‘white gold’.  An apt nickname, considering it rakes in over $1 billion every year.

The thing is cotton’s a kinda thirsty old plant: according to Water Footprint, it takes around 2700 litres of

water to produce the cotton for one lil’ ol’ shirt.  It doesn’t take a genius to work out if Uzbekistan is one of the largest cotton exporters in the world then a whole lotta water is guzzled in the process. The result? On his visit there a couple of weeks ago, the UN and Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, said:

“…[H]e could not see anything except a “cemetery of ships marooned in the sand.” As a result of the disaster, people are getting sick, the land is poisoned, and storms blow dust and salt as far as the North Pole.”

Cotton is quite greedy, for a plant

I guess it’s not my top’s fault, but it turns out, the desertification of the Aral Sea is just the tip of the iceberg, or something like that. Cos Uzbekistan’s President, Islam Karimov, poetically described by Sting, the

dictator’s daughter’s fave famous person, as, “…hermetically sealed in his own medieval, tyrannical mindset.”  has, according to the UN and Amnesty International, lived up to this description:

Sting in the tail?

“…boiling his enemies, slaughtering his poverty-stricken people when they protest, and conscripting armies of children for slave labour.”.  Sounds like a grimmerer and grimmerer Grimm’s fairytale.

Hmmm? What’s that? Child slave labour?  I mean if slaughtering and boiling doesn’t capture the public’s attention, then animal or child cruelty surely will – just look at those doe eyes!  Well, according to the Environmental Justice Foundation, due to underinvestment and a shortage of agricultural machinery, 90% of Uzbek cotton is harvested by hand; and a lot of it by wee nippers, who miss up to 3 months of school, to pick the prickly crop – ouch!  The EJF’s Pick Your Cotton Carefully campaign has already encouraged many high street retailers to

Come along, kiddie-winkies!

commit to sourcing cotton elsewhere.  However, last month, fashion hotspots Zara and H&M found themselves in the hot seat, accused of buying Uzbek, and essentially supporting slavery. 

And so it goes on. There are many more tales to tell, from pesticide poisoning to sweat shop labour, but that’s for another day.  I’m not sure this is the end of the road for me and my fave top, maybe we can patch things up.  It just seems to me that it’s part of our responsibility to consider where our clothes – or anything we consume – have come from.  We can learn about each other that way – broaden our horizons.  And it’s a reminder, that although we may feel like our purchasing power is all just a drop in the ocean, even oceans can be finite, apparently.

Mad March & Ethical Fashion Con-Fusion

I’m late, I’m late! Noooo, I’m not pregnant – just way overdue. Where did February go? I just don’t know! But here we are well into March. In Bunhill Cemetery the daffodils are a-shaking their shocking yellow heads; and the bluebells are a-tinkling which means one thing: spring! Ding dong the witch is dead get outta bed…

Spring has sprung and I’ve returned from my year of self-imposed exile to London tan’s Eastend to start a-new. So I began my new London life in style by attending the Fashion Fusion Expo, “a showcase for the very best in ethical and sustainable designers”. A short stroll daan the

I'm off to the sustain-a-ball

frog (that’s authentic cockney rhyming slang …) to the labyrinthine Truman Brewery, the FFE was a little hard to find. But once I found it boy I wished I hadn’t.

I’d been peachy keen to get my teeth into some sustainable style, not to mention “…get up close and personal with … industry experts…” as the website claimed. I mean I’ve just become a fully fledged Holistic Colour & Style Consultant, don’t you know, and I want to make some contacts: designers I can tell my future clients about, that sort of thing. But after costing an arm and a leg to get in – a tenner, Olympia prices! – there turned out to be all of ten stalls; a couple of which looked strangely similar, so they kinda cancelled each other out…

And I’d set my heart on listening to a talk given by Image Consultant, Hannah Jean, who was supposed to be on at 12 noon, Saturday. She has an interesting slant on image and self empowerment and runs a project for teenage girls called Diva-licious – this is the

Curiouser & Curiouser

sort of stuff I want to hear about, the sort of stuff I want to do. But the talks were rescheduled and no-one seemed to know what was happening when: curiouser and curiouser. And by the time Hannah Jean appeared she was even later than this blog, and not all I’d anticipated. So I cut my losses and left.

I did manage to have a chat with some some lovely ladies however, including: Frank & Faith, who were exhibiting an array of simple separates in sustainable fabrics, in lush colours, made in the UK; NV, an “…ethical accessories company … producing entirely handmade, high quality bags and accessories, designed in Britain and created in Calcutta…”; and the Ethical Fashion Forum, who told me, it would be worth attending their monthly socials for networking porpoises… (I went to see Alice in 3D the night before last, and I’m toadally off my head now).

Surely the Fashion Fusion Expo was meant to establish ethical and sustainable as viable alternatives to fast

Green (& ethical) with NV

fashion? Instead it showed that green is not the new black it claims to be, but a pale imitation. My climate change enthusiast (if you can be enthusiastic about such a thing) house-mate had tagged along and insisted the reason for the FFE failure was that there isn’t that much ethical or eco fashion around, full stop. I was like, er, yeah there is! I mean, if the sustainable style message is missing this gal, then there has to be something seriously wrong.

And if events like these are the face of the ethical fashion industry then there’s no wonder people are sticking to their fast fashion fix. Fast fashion comes in enticing, addictive ‘eat me’ ‘drink me’ consumable, disposable packaging; and Green is still perceived as a bitter pill to swallow. For ethical and eco high ideals to be embraced by the high street, and beyond, events like these need to stop being Fashion Con-Fusion – ho ho ho – and start catwalking the talk.  (A bit like me and the old colour & style consulting business!)

Pyjama Saga – The 3Es & Wardrobe Wonderland

Where's the gold rush?

I was thinking: I’ve strayed from the path.  Meandered from my catwalk on the wild side and marauded all over the shop.  And so, I’m back to talk about the 3 E’s of style – all things: eco-friendly, ethical and economical.

2009 was not good on the wardrobe front.  Well… I say that, but in one way, a severe lack of money way, it was.  My impecuniousness mess meant I wasn’t at liberty to go frittering my hard earned dosh willy nilly. 

Coco wore the trousers - in bed...

On the other hand lack of dough means lack of choice. It means you seriously consider shopping in Primark, against your better judgement.  It means charity shops, boot sales and swishes are your big 3 E destinations; which is fine except if you really need something, it’s kinda luck if you come across it second hand. 

In fact, actually finding what you’re looking for is one of my biggest bugbears (I never say that in real life).    I just don’t get how there are so many shops, with so many shelves, featuring so many products, in so many variations and yet finding bog standard men’s-style pyjamas – pjs without ‘sex kitten’ emblazoned across the chest in diamanté – is nigh on impossible.  I have to say my timing – pre Christmas and post Coco avant Chanel biopic fashion frenzy – may have had something to do with it.  But it’s not only pyjamas, I’d like a red scarf. Pink, purple or green, yes.  Red.  No. 

And I’m not alone.  My friend has been searching high and lo for a navy blue duffle coat with red lining a la Paddington Bear, for years.  Having found said item to be a myth she investigated the possibility of having

Can't find those bear necessities...

one tailor-made.  All fine and dandy, if you’re Jonathan Ross, cos she was quoted something like, £500 for the job!  Eeek!  Somewhere like Vogue would say this is an ‘investment’, which it kinda is, unless like some of us you don’t have a credit card; and seeing as I’ve spied things for a few hundred squids in their Cheap & Chic supplements, who knows what planet they bank on. 

So I was intrigued to read this on the future of fashion, 2010 – 2020, in the free Stylist magazine thrust in my face outside Fenchurch Street station: 

“The customer will design their own clothes and accessories online or at store computer terminals.  Within an hour, their unique creations will be ready and thanks to 3D body scanning, they’ll fit perfectly.” 

Modern Millies are happy Millies

Sounds like a return to good old fashioned tailoring, with a Thoroughly Modern Milly of a twist to me.  Imagine clothes which actually fit! Wild, eh? Although I do have some reservations about the turnaround time of an ‘hour’!  Who is gonna be making these clothes – elves?  Or maybe by 2020 the economy will be so far up Sh*t Creek employing nimble-fingered infants will be the norm as parents who went mental with the IVF and got a litter of little ‘uns are forced to send ’em out to work for a pittance.   Cos my next thought is… cost.  There must be a catch 22 ‘ere somewhere…

But before I go meandering any further down Pondering Alley I just want to end this ‘ere entry by saying: it’s pretty darned obvious our consuming passions aren’t being satisfied by the fast fashion industry.  Or at least, if some of us are dead set on chameleon couture, then it needs to be properly disposable, ie, biodegradable, otherwise it’s just more slag for the heap.  And for those of us with a more long term wardrobe plan then it means you should be able to find the perfect LBD in one hit, instead of twenty clangers.

Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered – Hitchcock & Halloween Style…

Keats said autumn is a time of ‘mists and mellow fruitfulness’, but it seems to me it’s more masquerades and fruity madness.  From Halloween to Christmas it’s the done thing to don a disguise, over do it and carve faces into your cucurbita pepo.  With the long dark evenings providing ample time for reflection and getting some Hitchcock action I got to thinking about the masks we wear day to day. 

Vertigo:  Kim Novak plays a woman (Judy), playing another woman (Madeleine), who falls in love with the guy (James (Scottie) Stewart) she’s stringing along.  Unfortunately he’s developed an infatuation with the faux Madeleine, portrayed by Judy as an elegantly disturbed, icy blonde with a penchant for staring wistfully into whirlpools; and twisting her hair into knots tighter than the tangled web of lies Judy has conspired to create with the genuine Madeleine’s wife-murdering husband.  Pant pant. Phew. Anyone feeling dizzy yet?

Anyway… the real Judy is actually a brash brunette with a line in big brassy earrings and even bigger eyebrows; and however relieved we might feel that scatty Scottie has taken it upon himself to give his girl a Gok over, when Judy-as-Madeleine-part-deux steps out of the bathroom, bathed in a ghostly green glow, it’s obvious this weird menage a trois is a menage gone mad… 

Scatty Scottie is driving both himself and Judy crazy by insisting Judy agree to be Mad-eleine (again).  And more to the point, what the hell is Judy thinking, if she is ‘thinking’ at all?! Even if Kim-Judy-Madeleine-Novak hadn’t unwittingly given the game away and pushed James (Scottie) Stewart even further to the brink of insanity, by waving that necklace around, you just know that either Madeleine-Judy will be forever reminded that her real brash brunette self is not good enough for James (Scottie) Stewart, or eventually he won’t believe in the make-believe-Madeleine any more.

Vertigo is always a film conoisseur’s fave, and I wonder partly whether it’s because we’ve probably all played one or other of the characters ourselves in real life.  We are often bewitched, bothered and bewildered by beloveds who are Frankenstein-phantasms we’ve fashioned from fairy tales.  Or, perhaps worse still, we try to squeeze our proverbial foot into the glass slipper of a guy’s imagination, and are destined to forever feel like the ugly sister. Compromising some je-ne-sais-quois-ish intangible part of us we thought we could live without can only ever end badly because two’s company but bringing along your masked alter ego for comfort ends up being a bit of a crowd.

Just a thought…

Is a Tweet on the Web 2.0 Worth a Wardrobe of Words?

Too many words.  That’s what some geezer said about someone’s website at the Web 2.0 course, led by Chris from EcoTube, I attended the other week.  And I thought, hmmm, if that’s too many words he’d gawk if he saw me wee blog.  Which is

Can't see the words for the tweets?

probably … no, definitely why it takes me so long to write these posts. 

There is a prima donna ‘writer’ inside of me saying, “Too many words!? There are just as many words, my dear fellow, as required. Neither more nor less.” But I am not entirely convinced of this fact – meandering is and has been a preoccupation of mine you see.

Which is why I let my friend, R, talk me into Twittering.  You can only say whatever it is you have to say in 140

Tweet Attack?

characters or less.  So one is forced to get to the bleedin’ point!  My Twitter adventure, thus far, has comprised of an announcement of my intention to embark on said Twitter adventure, and R pointing out, a week later, that my Twitter adventuring seemed somewhat lack lustre.  Probably because I had tweeted – twitted? twat? twot? – once in that week.  At this point I did consider writing something whip cracking, witty and Wildean about procrastination…[it takes one to know one, you see] only, ironically, I haven’t got round to it. 

Not to mention I have yet to completely purge myself of the suspicion that Twitter is narcissism par excellence – unlike blogging of course, ahem.  Only I read an article by India Knight,  in Easy Living Magazine, who says:

“I love Twitter.  People assume it’s a vast repository of excruciating Pooteresque banalities … But it all depends on who you ‘follow’  … Above all, I’ve been delighted by strangers’ wit, articulacy, intelligence and good humour.  If you’re a writer, sitting at home in front of your computer all day, Twitter is like a huge cocktail party going on all around you … it’s a cynacism-killer for an ultra-cynical age, and utterly marvellous.” 

Being clever and concise is not as easy as it looks when it comes to getting your point across, which is the problem I have every time I go networking.  I have tried and tried to put my Adventuress Undressed manifesto into ten words or less, but I simply stumble over them as I ramble round the houses scrabbling for words in the rubble which was my strap line.

 So I was more than a little intrigued to meet Sheena Matheiken of  The Uniform Project at the Futerra Swish I

attended during Greengaged at the Design Council.  If you take a gander at their website, you’ll see that the concept – wearing the same dress for a year for charity and as an exercise in sustainability – is explained by way of a pictogram equation.  And it says more than a whole menagerie of words ever could. 

Which also brings me to the word ‘swish’, a term coined by Futerra, a communications agency with an eco and ethical edge, to describe the concept of clothes swapping in a controlled environment.  This was my third clothes swapping experience and pretty successful it was too.  I swashed a deceptively simple black

One Dress 365 Looks

pinafore style dress, with pockets, which I have worn countless times since.  Inspired by this new-found

simplicity and The Uniform Project, I have begun to seriously consider the benefits to be had in wearing a uniform of sorts. 

I mean, if you had a dress made to measure, which flattered your figure, you could pretty much guarantee you’d always look good.  I asked Sheena whether she’d return to her former wardrobe habits after the year was up, but she said she found it hard to think past the project right now.  Fair enough when you consider she is having to think outside the wardrobe every day and come up with a new look using the same dress and a clutch of accessories.  But it is this creative aspect which Sheena says has been particularly satisfying, and which I reckon, is an underrated element of the style equation.  Because, when it comes down to it often less is more when it comes to wardrobes, as well as words.

Magpie Genes & Charms of Hummingbirds – Making Jewellery out of Memories

I’ve had a magpie gene since I was a twinkle in my daddy’s eye (errrgh). One of my oldest memories is spreading the contents of my Nanny’s button bag across the carpet like a treasure trove. And my estate to date comprises: a tatty silver tinsel Christmas tree; a pair of clip on crystal cluster earrings donated by Les Dawson look-a-like Grandma Last; a tiny rose pendant dad bought me from Miss Selfridge because I told him I liked it but my then boyfriend didn’t; and a few avian-themed pieces, partly a nod to Hitchcock’s The Birds, partly a symbol of freedom, partly cos I just like ’em.

Memories are made of many things, but jewellery acts as a kind of tangible portal, a shimmering path, to nostalgia-ville. Making jewellery, or having it made for you – as in the case of my now defunct engagement ring – also imbues a piece with memories and meaning. A few weeks ago I went to Treasure, part of Coutts jewellery week, and met a cluster (?) of jewellers using vintage pieces in their work. One in particular, Rosie Weisencrantz, focussed on this idea, creating what the company terms ‘memorial’ jewellery, made from pieces left by deceased loved ones, “As each precious life is personal to the one who lived it, every necklace tells it’s own unique story.”.

So having found myself washed up on the sandy shores of Southend-on-sea-the-place-to-be once more, seemingly destined to re-live this chapter of my life repeatedly, until I discover that certain something… I’ve finally come to understand you just have to go-with-the-flow. So I am learning to lurve my home by indulging in another fave pastime, beach combing. When I was a wee nipper smacks of jellyfish used to silently terrorise beach combers with their alluring crystalline cabochon bodies; and way before that Amy-Johnson-queen-of-the-air lost her way, or ran out of fuel or something, somewhere round here, disappearing plane ‘n’ all beneath the waves, waiting to be discovered by one of those men with a clickity-click-metal-detector. I’ve been less adventurous collecting sea glass – bits of broken bottles smoothed, shaped and frosted by the sea – which I aim to turn into re-used, wearable, treasure-able jewels.

Scanning the stony, sandy shore for shards of glass glinting in the sun is a peaceful preoccupation. Tortoiseshell butterflies camouflaged amongst the stones take flight, disturbed by my inquisitive fingers. Birds strut, squawk and glide silently against the slightly eerie watery-Whistler-esque-scapes flecked with diamond light. But this is just the beginning of the process – how to join the sea glass pieces once I’ve drilled them? It’s a work in progress.

 Last weekend I attended a course at Cockpit Arts in Holborn, “a social enterprise and the UK’s only creative-business incubator for designer-makers”, on making silver jewellery. It was the tutor’s first time tutoring, just as it was my time silversmithing, which was …interesting.

We sawed sheet silver with blades, hardly wider than a string on a bow, which snapped with the slightest sign of inappropriate pressure – “This is really a magical… mystical process,” the tutor said to me when I told him I had  gotten through 6 of my 12 blades in a morning. “You have to be calm. Meditate. The metal knows if you are angry and it fights against you.”

Madeleines, memories & moustaches

But patience has to be partnered with brute strength I reckon. I sustained a groin injury from trying to push metal through a press and nearly seared my eyebrows off with the blow torch. But I soldered on (sorry – couldn’t resist)… quietly focussed on creating ‘something’ – despite the fact my outer-circle-frame-thingy pinged off and set me back a tad, meaning I ended up with a pendant instead of the planned ring.

However, going with the flow worked like a charm. As luck would have it I’d wanted to make a pendant in the first place, seeing as I’m collating a hummingbird (?) of charms in order to create a necklace for my sister, in celebration of the birth of her first child. Did you know a group of bedazzling hummingbirds is a ‘charm’? I wonder what the collective noun for memories is…a Madeleine, perhaps?

Make Your Own Memories:
Designer Courses – Expert tinkering tips
Flux Studios – Vicky Forrester’s courses aim to be affordable
Jewelry Lessons – DIY demos

Sock Tactics

Part 3:
Socks & Tights

If you were to cast your mind back… oooh, say, to February, then you may remember reading Part 2 of a series of 3 blog posts on Foundations and have been eagerly anticipating the third… Yes, I knew it! Well, here it is at long last. Having paid too much attention to balancing cherries atop a partially baked pastry shell I find myself here, 3 months later, writing the last in this series – oooh, it sounds so fancy! – lying in a pool of jam amongst pie debris, all too familiar with what happens when your foundations are flimsy.

If I’d heeded the warnings emanating from my wardrobe, I may have realised that the Norah

Sock of doom

Batty-esque wrinkling of my over the knee socks was a harbinger of foundation doom. I mean, if the the actual look of flagging footwear isn’t bad enough, it’s the feel of it sliding slowly down your leg – a kind of creeping sensation I imagine they are referring to in vintage horror films when they say, ‘Oooh, that ghastly face at the window really gave me the creeps’.

Speaking of which, hosiery meets eco-horror in this spoof film, The Sockfather – Part 1 …

As this film demonstrates the humble sock can be environmentally devastating. But like most things, it’s not the socks that ruin the environment its the feet that wear them – leaving their carbon footprints all over Mother Nature’s clean floor, tut. However the sock, like the brief, is now available in a range of eco-friendly materials, notably lenpur and bamboo, which are breathable and deodorising – phew.

Obviously comfortable, well-fitting, hosiery should never be underestimated, but I also have certain style prerequisites: I like a long sock, in either a black or ‘natural’ shade, all the better to hide that flash of fuzzy, white,

A good sock is hard to find

 bruised flesh when your trouser hems ride up as you sit down. However finding eco or ethical hose which reaches my standards has proved perplexing. Boots has a pretty good range of basic green black socks and tights, but for the longer length I desire I’ve had to trawl the net, and at last I’ve found G=9.8 which are made from the aforementioned lenpur – tree cellulose no less.

All well and good except eco-friendly tan tights / stockings / pop socks – yes, the most unsexy footwear known to woman after orthopaedic sandals, but a necessary wardrobe evil, I find – is still proving as elusive as the Scarlet Pimpernel. So until I discover such an item I am going on with the regular ones and endeavouring to find ways to re-use them. Having rejected the bank robber’s mask as too cliched, I was really at a loss as to how else to re-use my hole-y hose. But then I came across this little gem: why not turn your tights into a necklace? It just goes to show that off the right feet and in the right hands anything can be transformed into treasure…

Re-use those hose…

Mean Reds & the Seven Chakras – The Rainbow Resolution

Hey! It's Meeee!!

Red is not only the new black economically speaking, but for me, wardrobe-wise too.  The thing is, sliding Back to Black, both on a mental and material – although rarely on a financial – level, seems too easy. And after years suffering from, the emotionally numbing Beige Zombosis I’ve taken to operating on Code Amber.  Anxiety has become my emotional set point  interspersed by not infrequent forays into full blown Mean Reds.  As Holly Golightly said in the film Breakfast at Tiffany’s:

You know those days when you get the mean reds?

 The mean reds. You mean like the blues?

No. The blues are because you’re getting fat, and maybe it’s been raining too long. You’re just sad, that’s all. The mean reds are horrible. Suddenly you’re afraid, and you don’t know what you’re afraid of. Do you ever get that feeling?

I have to say, yes Holly I do! I got Beige because I was too yellow to face my fears.  As a result I’ve been off kilter, out of whack, off key, off colour for as long as I care to remember.  The world looks pretty jaded through this particular looking glass, thus I’m keen to try on some of them fabled rose-tinted spectacles and get me a different perspective on things. So I’ve decided to try balancing my Chakras.

What the bejesus are chakras I hear you cry!  Well, like dwarves they come in sevens – for starters anyhow.  Each represents an energy centre in the body, which receives, transforms and distributes that energy. Sanskrit for ‘wheel’, chakras are believed to rotate in a spiral vibration with graduating degrees of frequency.  They are also identified by certain key characteristics –  notably a clear and vibrant colour.

So this week I’ve been working on the root chakra, or Muladhara. Located at the base of the spine, this is supposed to be our bedrock, energy speaking. Physically Muladhara governs sexuality and sensuality, mentally it governs stability, and spiritually it governs a sense of security.  It is thought to vibrate at the densest frequency and is represented by the colour red. 

To get your root chakra ship-shape you can get physical – getting down and dirty in the garden is good, apparently – get some sleep, or paint the town red … no, not so much going out, as wearing and consuming anything ruddy or rosy. You can even imagine opening the Muladhara to improve the energy flow and visualise it being flooded with a ruby hue.

Always trust your vibes...

Not only have I become a scarlet woman, but I’ve also been making good use of the red iPod Shuffle Mr Glittery got me for Christmas.  He had it engraved with the phrase ‘Always trust your vibes’, which seems kinda ironic, but hey ho, I’m finally doin’ that, I guess.  And I’m not sure if it’s the chakra balancing or what, but I am feeling calmer.  I met a friend for lunch yesterday who noted my red ensemble on arrival and on departure said she reckoned I seemed the happiest she’d seen me in ages.

So something’s working.  Is this prose too purple by the way?

Shape up your chakras:
Chakra Energy – Ancient philosophy, now a hot new trend
Journey Through the Chakras – A guided meditation
Aveda – Balancing body mists

Colour Fix:
Chakra Jewellery – Get your rocks on…
Inner Light Art – Prints to ponder
Serpent Mandalas – Pretty as a picture these are…

Part 2: Svadisthana – The Sacral Chakra