Pride and pre-theatre drinks

Another delayed post - I feel like I'm constantly in a timewarp! Aside from the 1940s clothes that is...

Last week was Pride week in Bristol, a week of arts and culture events celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered people in Bristol and culminating in a day long festival with parades and live music on Saturday. It's only the second time Bristol has had a Pride festival and the organisers were aiming to beat the 25,000 people taking part last year, not such a daunting prospect when you realise that Bristol has around 60,000 LGBT people living and working in the city, giving it one of the largest urban LGBT populations in the UK. Despite this, the 'gay scene' in Bristol isn't that obvious, unlike Brighton, London or Manchester, say, and it's nice to see the cultural contributions made by the LGBT community given some promotion.

So it was that I came to hear about a play with a 1940s theme on Tuesday - The Darkling Plain. It's based on the sort of slightly ridiculous humour of the era, sighting Noel Coward as a major inspiration. It follows the fortunes of 2 families as war (The War Against Terror, spelt out as an acronym) is declared and their young men go off to fight for their country.

I'm not normally one to go out on a school night, but this was absolutely worth it. The play was funny and silly in all the right places, but had enough weight to the gender and political issues to make it feel like a mature production and the love story between two of the boys fighting at the front was sympathetically developed and very touching.

Interestingly, the casting was done with a total disregard to gender, and do you know what? It absolutely worked. The twon men playing one of the mothers and her daughter were superb, they restrained themselves from being too camp and delivered their parts with depth and skill.

It all made me want to go to the theatre more often!

Sadly the promised '1940s takeover' of the theatre was limited to 2 swing dancers, some bunting and a woman doing victory rolls, but for Bristol it was about as vintage as it gets (maybe I should start a vintage pride week?) and added to the fun of the trip out for me.

I wore my red shoes and bag again (can you tell they're my new favourites?) and my Vivien of Holloway sarong style dress. I've had this for ages, but didn't like how massive it made my bust look. I realised that the sleeves were partly to blame and so I cut them off! I used the fabric to make bias facing for the sleeve holes and stitched them back together in about 10 minutes. I'm really pleased with the result and seem to have ended up with a very flattering dress (which the play's writer complimented me on! How cool do I feel?!). I left my hair down, this is at the end of day 2 of a set which is why it's looser curls than usual.

So, more fun during the week. Think I need some more evening wear...

I've spent the last few days preparing for Vintage a Goodwood - a fabulous event with music, art, fashion and shops (see how I left the shopping bit till last? That probably won't happen when I'm there) celebrating 5 decades of British culture. It covers the 1940s through to the 1980s and there are dedicated areas for each decade. I'm going to be mainly sticking to the 40s area, though I might be tempted away by Sandie Shaw, and possibly the roller disco! I'm wondering, actually, how a tea dress and victory rolls will go down in a 70s disco - it could be a surreal experience!

Seeing as this event will be filled with the cream of Britain's vintage fans, what I wear is going to be terribly important. The day times require casual and comfortable elegance and the nights stunning stylishness. I have most of my outfits planned, except for one evening dress.

Thursday - Horse racing in the evening - repro 50s dress and my cute 30s hat (yup, it's a massive mix of eras but it works)

Friday

Cream Vivien of Holloway trousers and green check tie blouse

Night - no idea

Saturday

My new 'Fleur' dress by Heyday

Night - Black vintage dress with lots of jewels

Sunday

40s M&S dress

Vivien of Holloway sarong dress

Dressing my husband has been harder. He has a great de-mob suit, a double breasted pinstripe which he can wear with a homburg and look the business in the evenings, and we've bough some grey hollywood pants for the day time, which he's planning to wear with just a shirt and braces, plus straw fedora for the daytime. Finding vintage mens clothes is really hard, I hadn't appreciated just how much more difficult it is than finding clothes for women. There are no repro companies out there to speak of, and those selling vintage have so few 40s and 50s items that you're very lucky if you can find anything to fit. Is it because women have always owned more clothes than men? That when men buy new clothes it's because their old ones are worn out and so they get thrown away or recycled into something else? I know my grandfather has shirts in his wardrobe that he bought in the 60s and is only just getting around to wearing, because he's had enough shirts to keep him going until now. You wouldn't catch many women doing that!

I'm off to John Lewis' haberdashery later to see if I can find some suitable fabric to turn this pattern into an evening dress. I'm thinking of using satin or another nicely draping fabric to give it a glamorous look. I'd like to use a jewel tone, maybe an emerald green, but sadly nice quality fabrics are in short supply, so I may have to take what I'm given!

My dress is nearly finished!



Despite cutting the wrong size out on the front pieces, I managed to
get the pieces to fit together and I think it's turned out fine

I just
need to do the button holes and sew on the buttons now! I'll post a
picture of me in it (if it fits!).



I'm also going to make a dirndl skirt
from cute strawberry pattern fabric I have. Hoping it'll turn out ok
because I'm not using a pattern!





My white 40s trousers from Vivien of Holloway arrived the other day,
they're snug but hopefully on my salad and exercise regime that should
be resolved pretty soon. I wore them to a car boot on Sunday with a
straw hat I picked up at a flea market a few months ago and they were fab. Will get a pic up asap.

I'm increasingly finding hats and headscarves are superb for dealing with
bad hair days, and are saving me hours in front of the mirror! My friend
Jamie (proprietor of the fabulous Gimme Shelter vintage shop in Bristol)
is picking me up some hair rats from the beauty wholesaler soon.
Looking forwards to my hair being long enough to do something with, I'm
just trying as hard as I can to grow it right now. Lots of long hair
thoughts! Resolved to use a Hollywood roll to solve my hair issues.
Curling it every morning is out of the question, so think that putting
it up in a roll, or plaits, is my best option. Just wish it would grow more quickly!


I've also found out why nothing's growing in one part of my garden... 8kg of cat!