Amsterdam Burlesque Awards in November!

And I can finally announce this! I'm so excited and honoured to be performing at the 3rd Amsterdam Burlesque Award this autumn! I had a great time two years ago when we performed there with Thee Dizzy Daisies, and to make things even better I will be to see a few dear friends again! <3 <3 <3
Aaaand I'll be bringing my "Algae" seaweed fandance to a festival abroad for the very first time, planning to pimp up the fans to celebrate! :-)

The Shadow Seamstress

Last autumn was also the time to try some new things! Lassi's cousin Nick, who happens to be a cinematographer, had been wanting to shoot in Lassi's building ever since he first visited it last year, and he actually ended up turning that idea into a short movie! The movie was to be shot in Finnish, so I was extremely relieved that the character I was cast to play was actually mute :-D

It was nevertheless extremely exciting to act in a movie (first time ever! :-) ), and we had a wonderful team to work with. Besides Nick and Lassi (who took care of producing and assisting Nick with a wide variety of tasks) most of the people involved were close friends, such as Saara Salmi and Marco Melander from Atelieri O. Haapala and people from Fintage RY. Stay tuned, since the movie is now finished and that means we'll hopefully be able to show it somewhere in the near future! :-)

as Venetia van Kraemers
picture by Marianne Niemelä

Fleamarket Finds, Vol.7

So while I'm stuck at the airport in Paris, I may as well write a couple of belated posts more!

Last time I posted about the open air market in the Basque Country, and this time I'll post about probably the very best open air market in Finland (at least that I have been to). It's in a small town far north, in an area of Finland where they mostly speak the kind of Swedish that was spoken in the area hundrends of years ago, when Finland was under the Swedish rule. 

The trip there is long, so it was really nice when this year we organized a little bit of a roadtrip with a couple of friends (one of which is originally fom the area, and his parents still have a lovely cottage by the cost), and had the last sauna + swim of the year by the sea. The weather was quite terrible, so I decided to wear some confortable and warm clothes. Unluckily enough, I came down with a cold nevertheless :-D

30's sunglasses, 1930's tie, shirt from fleamarket, breeches from
fleamarket (they are part of a Finnish army uniform), puttees from Varusteleka and NOS 1940's shoes

To be honest it's been such a long time since summer that I can't even exactly remember what I bought! But the three main things I remember are a gorgeous jugend bookshelf (that nowadays holds part of my vintage shoe collection), a jugend cushion cover and an old sewing box.

The first and the latter were two items I had really been searching for, specially the sewing bow. I now sew so very often (burlesque + tribal fusion bellydance + vintage) that I had been in urgent need of a sensible way to organize the basic sewing supplies for a long time. The box I found was not the prettiest, nor the in the very best of condition (specially since the wood got quite wet with the rain during the early hours of the market), but it was big (lots of space!) and I got it at a very good price (prices for sewing boxes are usually quite prohibiting). 

[picture to follow when I arrive home!]

The cushion was a simple piece with a jugend rose pattern, but the elder lady who was selling it was so happy I wanted to buy it that she even gave me a discount! Still searching for more of these, one can never have too many cushions! ;-)

[picture to follow when I arrive home!]

I already have a jugend bookshelf that I bought in the begining of the summer, but I had nowhere else to put shoes in my room so I was in dire need of a second one. Later on Lassi did a bit of research, and he found an almost identical one in an old Muurame catalogue, which was quite awesome because most of the vintage pieces of furniture in my room are also from Muurame (warning: if you google the name and come up with pictures of what they do today please do not be scared! they used to do absolutely gorgeous pieces in the 1910's-1920's decades)

[picture to follow when I arrive home!]

Fleamarket Finds, Vol.6 - Basque Country edition

Oh my, LONG time no write! In my favour I can say a LOT has been going on and keeping me busy, but that also means I have so much to update that I better start writing! 

So back we go to last summer's holydays. As some of you might know, I am originally from an area called The Basque Country, which is currently divided between Spain and France, and since my family still leaves there I try to visit a few times every year. 

This summer, for the first time (!), we managed to visit an open air fleamarket/fair in the French side of The Basque Country, after having heard they are exceptionally good. We did a bit of online searching, and finally decided to visit one in a small town by the coast called Ziburu, and it happened to be exceptional indeed! Our main concern was that we had to fly back, so what we could buy was limited by that, but we still managed to make some very good finds. 

I came home with three pairs of vintage shoes and two vintage purses, and Lassi bought a set of copper pots. The purses were 1910's-1920's, of which one was crotchetted in silver with cut steel beads and the other one in dark brown with (mostly rusted, but still ok looking) cut steel beads. The brown purse specially caught my attention, since I had never seen any like it. It is built as a long tube with a hole in the middle and two rings on each end, and meant to hang from the belt. The rings can be moved passed the hole in order to access the areas in which items (probably small items such as coins etc) are stored, and replaced so that nothing comes out while that purse is worn. I love it! So ingenious. 

Upper picture: full hoard
Lower picture: 1910's-1920's purses

Of the three pairs of vintage shoes one was specially rare and beautiful, but only one of the pairs fit me and unfortunately enough it wasn't the rarepIr. The first one was a gorgeous pair of white and green leather 1930's shoes with cutout details, which (according to the seller) seem to have belonged to a French lady who was the first French woman to fly in an airplane. The other two pairs were both 1940's brown suede shoes, one of them with a really cute front drape detail (this is the pair that fits me) and the other one with cutout details (which has since found a new loving home). 

Looking forward to visiting the Basque fleamarkets again next summer!

Up: 1930's shoes
Middle and down: 1940's shoes

June events belated post

And back to catching up with belated posts! I think this post is probably the one that I've been dreading to write, since even though it involves a lot of good memories it also involves one of the worst days of my life (and I guess I'm fortunate it also meant money problems). 

Last June our teacher Laura Luna hosted the second Tribal Summer Camp, and my tribal sister Tiitta and me got to help her with organizing it. I was utterly excited because we'd get to study with two of my very favourite dancers, the Eslovakian duo Rustiqua, and see a lot of dear friends again. It also started in the end of one of the most stressful periods of my life, after a month of international burlesque festivals, new acts, moving to a new apartment and tons of work. So I guess I wasn't exactly at my best. Long story short, I had a small accident with a car that isn't mine, and the insurance was crappy to such a point that I'll have to end up paying for such an amount that even thinking about it makes me cry :-(

Which also means that applying for international festivals may be over for me for a little while :-(((

Anyway, the event itself was a blast! And the Rustiqua girls are such a powerhouse of positive energy that they even managed to cheer me up a bit now and then. The Tribal Summer Camp also included the third volume of the Underground Cabaret, where we performed our teacher Laura Luna's choreography "Smoky Taboo", and a hafla where Tiitta and me performed the duo version of Laura's "Booty Swing" choreo, which is always so much fun! We also got to enjoy the crazy delicious vegan sweet buffet that our Kaira Tribe sister Julia made, I think I haven't been that stuffed in a long time! 

Planning and organizing for next year's events has already started, so go ahead and join the facebook  groups for the Tribal Summer Camp and the Underground Cabaret if you don't want to miss out! I can't reveal anything yet, besides that fact that we'll have some real kick ass teachers visiting ;-)

Above: backstage with Kaira Tribe, picture 
by Samuli Airaksinen
Below: Tiitta and me enjoying the sweets!

And since in my state I really sucked at taking pictures, here goes another one from the event's official photographer:

Dancing with Kaira Triba, picture by Samuli Airaksinen

The end of June was reserved for vintage. It's a shame this event usually coincides with the Helsinki Pride, but the lesser bad is that one gets to decide in between two awesome events :-)

The Suvi Vintage fair is one of the two main events organized by Fintage, and usually takes place in the last weekend of June. The event has so far been a big success, with lots of visitors that come to check out all the different things it offers: a vintage market, lectures, music, free dance lessons, cabinet portraits, a vintage fashion show, etc. Unluckily enough for me my economic situation made it so that I had to stay away from the vendors, since I wasn't really in the situation in which I could spend a lot of extra money and I rather not fall in love with any piece of clothing. It was indeed a bit sad, since this is one of the best events of the year and I had really been looking forward to it. Oh well...

The cabinet portraits were provided by Atelieri O. Haapala, which as many of you know are my dear friends and have taken most of my favourite pictures. And I loooove the one they took of me and Lassi! Btw, my outfit for Saturday was inspired by the turn-of-the-century gypsy pictures I've been falling in love with lately. It included  a 1910-20's nightgown, over which I wore an indian folk skirt and a sash, a pendant made out of an authentic medieval brooch and espadrilles (a.k.a. alpargatas), which used to be very fashionable back in the days but also part of the Basque folk costume, so I always have a few pairs around :-)

Left: Suvi Vintage Saturday with Olivia Rouge, Lassi 
and Tiina, picture by Ulrika
Right: me and my handsome man! ;-)
picture by Atelieri O. Haapala

On Sunday we had our now classic Fintage vintage fashion show. The theme for this year was holydays and sportwear, and I got to model my dear 1930's woolen yellow swimming suit, and a lovely 1910's sailor style walking dress. The dress was a crazy find from ebay, and the vintage thai parasol and 1930's sunglasses are fleamarket finds. 

Suvi Vintage Sunday in a nutshell :-)

Moving!

And fourth belated post, plus a sneak peak!

Some of you might remember my last post was about the Boylesque Festival Vienna. The reality check after it was twice as hard though, since as soon as I set foot in Finland I had to start packing and move into my current apartment. Moving is always tiresome and rather annoying, but I luckily had the invaluable help of Lassi during the whole weekend, and that of our dear friends Jari and Jac who were kind enough to also lend a hand on Sunday. Besides, the apartment I was moving to was so insanely gorgeous, and in such a breathtaking area of Helsinki that I couldn't be happier about it! I was also going to become the flatmate of the crotchet pattern designer Molla Mills, who also happens to be my dear friend.

Outside of the building, and my new William
Morris mug bought in London last May

The building is from the 1920's, and it's definitely the most gorgeous one I've ever lived in. My room is spacious, and I've decorated it with a mixture of Finnish jugendstil furniture/objects (many of them found by Lassi), with a slight orientalist touch. I have also finally been able to hang some of the gorgeous antique prints and Atelieri O. Haapala's pictures I've been saving for years on the walls! 

The feeling is indeed indescriptible. The peace, the space, the kitchen always clean, and the feeling of HOME which I got as soon as I stepped on it (which I actually never felt in the previous apartment, but that's a whole different story). Bliss <3

Sneak peak of my room at the moment, changes/aditions still to come :-)

1930's yellow woolen swimming suit

So today's post combines two great obsessions of mine! One of them being "older" vintage swimming gear (1900-1939) and the other the colour yellow. 

As was expected, also with swimmingwear I'm mostly a fan of the creations of the first part of the century, and I've been trying to get myself at least one swimming suit of each of my favourite eras. Of course it's a rather difficult mission for many reasons (the main one of them being how old they are), but last summer in Rauma I was lucky enough to find the first one of them! Which happened to be a 1930's woolen swimming suit in the absolutely perfect shade of yellow. 

Swimming gear saw a boom in the late victorian and edwardian eras, since many doctors started to recommend sea water as healthy, and European monarquies made many coastal destinations extremely popular (such as for example Biarritz, in my native Basque Country). The main problem in this era though was that women wore corsets 24/7, plus were covered from neck to toes, so the edwardian swimming gear can much more appropiately be described as "swimming dresses" rather than "swimming suits". They looked like nothing that may come to our minds if we think about a swimming suit! 

These swimming dresses usually consisted of loose bloomers and a dress on top of them, and it wasn't rare at all that the ladies would be wearing the corset underneath plus stockings etc. I'm not quite sure swimming was even practically possible in these outfits, but they were mostly used for having walks on the beach with the water up to the knees. A few extremely daring ladies tried to promote a skin-tight swimming suit (closer to what men used), which had half-sleeves and was long to almost the knees, but they were considered extremely indecent and some even got arrested. 

These kind are extremely difficult to find, few have survived due to their age and that also makes it so that the prices go really high at bids. I did actually find one last summer at Fintage's event Suvi Vintage, but unluckily enough it was way too small for me (believe me, I tried really hard to fit in! :-D) and it found a new loving home with my dear friend Marianne. 

edwardian era swimwear

The 1920's brought a real revolution to women's clothing, with the straightening of the figure, the ditching of the corset and the shortening of the hems, and the change could definitely also be noticed in the swimming clothing. Women started to wear something very similar to what men wore in edwardian times, which was a combination of a pair of tight "trousers" and a dress on top reassembling a long tank-top. Unlike in the edwardian era, this garments were now skin tight, which meant women could finally enjoy a beach outfit that was reasonably practical. 

These dresses were usually made of knitted wool (which is the main reason why wearable ones are difficult to find, most have been more or less nibbled in by moths), and even though extremely more revealing than their counterpads from the edwardian period the length (or their shortness) was regulated by law! Which meant they couldn't be any shorter than a certain distance from the knees, and as you can see below it was a law that was indeed enforced!

1920's swimwear

In the 1930's women's swimming suits finally started to look like what we nowadays consider a swimming suit. Most of the leg was finally showing, and they had an open back. They were mostly still made out of knitted wool, which means many of the surviving pieces have moth damage, and they were often worn with my other great swimwear-related obsession: the beach pajamas. Beach pajamas were overalls made of lightweight fabric and with very wide legs, and usually displayed the craziest and most fun art deco designs you can imagine. I have seen them listed in ebay now and then, but unluckily enough they usually go for pretty high prices, so I might have to end up making a repro pair for myself someday! 

1930's swimwear

As I said, I've been searching for all these three kinds of swimming outfits like crazy for a while now, so I was absolutely ecstatic when I came accross this authentic 1930's swimming suit! And if that weren't enough, it was absolutely in mint condition and knitted out of wool in my absolutely favourite shade of yellow (my favourite colour is in fact grey, but yellow has been my new obsession for a couple of years now).

One good thing about the knitted material is that it stretches, so to my delight I found out the swimming suit was a perfect fit. I was a bit afraid of moth bites, but against all odds it didn't seem to have any bites either! It even made me overcome my scepticism about actually going swimming in a woolen swimming suit, since not only did it not get saggy when wet, but the material seemed to get much less soaked than other materials used nowadays. 

my 1930's woolen swimming suit

And finally a picture of me wearing this beauty a couple of weeks ago, at this year's Helsinki Burlesque Festival! As you may know, the theme this year was Tropical Hurricane, so Sandy and Gigi decided we should go in swimming wear on Friday! Which was a great idea, because it was the perfect excuse to wear this beauty in winter ;-)

Thee Dizzy Daisies by the amazing Atelieri O. Haapala, HBF2014

Gibson Girl outfit

So here goes one of the edwardian outfits I wore to Vapriikki Vintage a couple of weeks ago! I really enjoyed wearing this, since most of the items are original edwardian pieces and they are all full of lovely details.

The full outfit consisted of: a gorgeous white muslin shirt, a black woolen skirt, brass pendant, brown boots and cotton socks. 

picture by Lassi

The muslin shirt is one of the last original edwardian pieces I've bought, and it's already one of my favourites! Just look at that collar, it goes almost half-way up the neck, and then folds down gracefully in two lapels. The whole shirt has some delicate and simple decoration, and the muslin is an absolutely lovely material to wear, so light and soft! I got this delicious piece from the Swedish shop Tidens Melody (from which I also got a few other pieces you may be seeing in the near future! ;-) ).

The skirt is an Etsy find, and it's in absolutely perfect condition (I guess this piece is late 1910's). Made in black wool, it has some gorgeous art deco details on the waist. I've had this skirt for over a year now, but the waist was a bit too big so I haven't been able to wear it comfortably until I decided to make it smaller (no fabric cut in the process!). 

The pendant is also an Etsy find, and even though it's not an original piece it has been hand crafted by a very talented Polish jewelsmith after an original piece. The pendant came without any chains attached to it, so I used my imagination when it came to deciding how to "finish" the piece in order to be able to wear it. 

a better look at the shirt's and skirt's details
pictures by Lassi

The boots are one of my treasures. They were originally edwardian ice-skating boots, but when Lassi found them in Ebay someone had already removed the blades, so after the cobbler placed new half-soles on them they got a new life as winter boots. And let me tell you, they are the best andmost comfortable pair of winter boots I've ever had! They hug the ankle like a glove, and even though you can't really wear very thick socks with them my feet have never felt cold in them. The colour is also quite rare (most surviving boots from this period tend to be black), since it's a gorgeous and rich shade of reddish brown (foxy!).

And last but not least, the cotton Atlas socks I had bought the previous day at the Vintage Market in action!

right: you can even see a couple of "cuts" from their
previous life as skating boots!

Edwardian inspired repro hat

This is a small project I made to complement the turn-of-the-century walking suit I was wearing at Fintage's fashion show in Vapriikki last Sunday. The suit's jacket has rather wide mutton sleeves, so it needed a wide-ish brim hat to go with it. As many of you probably know, findind an edwardian hat is rather difficult, so I decided to try to customize a repro one out of some other hat. 

inspiration

I have noticed I have difficulties finding hats that fit (even modern ones), so my best hope was to find one made of felt, which can if needed be made larger to fit me. Lassi found this 1950's vintage zorro-style felt hat from a thrift store called Fida, and it instantly felt like a good candidate. The poor hat was never top quality to begin with, and the felt was a bit broken in some places, so it actually felt like a good idea to recycle it. 

I also used some scrap fabric pieces from the local fabric store Eurokangas, one cotton velvet and two different kinds of silk satin in different shades of brown. I must say I'm absolutely in love with the darker shade of brown satin! The weaving is crazy tight (it's actually entirely made of just emerald green and beige threads, but you would never believe it until you actually cut the fabric), and the texture is absolutely delightful. On top of that, I also got to use one of the vintage milliner feathers Lassi found in our latest fleamarket trip to Urjala. 

the hat still had the shop's original tag from the 1950's!

The first thing the hat needed was of course to be made a bit bigger, which is usually rather easy if you have the right tools. Unluckily enough I don't, but my dear friend Tiitta Räsänen works at the Opera House in Helsinki and got it stretched for me <3

The next thing that needed to be done was shaping the hat into a bit more of an edwardian shape. My main concern was making the hat wider, because the original hat was longer than wider, and I wanted it to have a rounder brim. Again, I lacked the right tools for it, but I decided to try to use some water and an iron, and this is what I came up with. In the begining I was planning to hide the folded edges of the brim at the front/back of the hat, but after having a look at it I decided I actually quite liked them and decided to keep them. 

hat after shaping with the iron

As I already mentioned the hat wasn't in a prime condition, so I decided to add some wire to the brim's edge to make it sturdier. I didn't have milliner's wire at home, but I did have some wire leftovers from some other crafts I've worked on in the past, so I decided to use that. The felt being rather frail though, I opted to secure the wire to the brim by using some leftover satin ribbon I had at home. It started to feel like a new hat even before I was done with securing the wire!

gotta love using crafting leftovers! <3

So far I had basically just molded the hat into the right shape, and made it sturdy enough for wearing. The next step was to actually start making it look pretty! I started by adding the cotton velvet fabric on top, and trying to make it nicely wrinkly in order to hide the uneven surface I got from shaping the hat with an iron, it quite worked! And then added the nice dark brown silk satin underneath, trying to also wrinkle it nicely to fit the period's style. 

ready for decoration!

At this point all I had left what the "fun" part, a.k.a. decorating! I did some research looking at hat catalogues and ads from that period, and came up with the conclusion that it was all about: feathers, big ribbons and flowers. In the begining I was planning to use a combination of all three of them, but unluckily enough I didn't manage to find appropiate flowers in Helsinki (the colour you need is never in season! :-D ), so I decided to stick to the big bow and feathers. For the bow I used mostly the beige silk satin (which is in truth less pink than it looks like on the pictures), whith small details in the dark brown silk satin. I had mixed feelings about whether I should iron the silk before doing this or not, and in the end I decided not to, since edwardian hats I've seen always look a bit shabby and wrinkly. Still not sure about it though, I might still iron it at some point. 

hat with finished ribbon

The last missing details were adding a brown cotton trim to the edge of the brim and adding the feathers, for which I used one of the vintage black feathers that had a nice curvy shape, and one big fluffy brown ostrich feather I had left from the feathers I ordered for my upcoming burlesque act (more on that some other time!). The outcome was a nice discreet hat (for edwardian standards, I didn't want to go too over-the-top with this one) that seemed to fit the outfit it was meant for quite nicely. I will add a picture of the full outfit as soon as Atelieri O. Haapala publish the pictures they took during the event, but until then here you go a few pictures of the outcome:

thanks to Lassi for the pictures!

Vapriikki Vintage finds: day 2

Second day at Vapriikki Vintage! Unfortunately enough (or fortunately enough for my wallet) I didn't have much time to look around the vintage market this day. Both Fintage's fashion show and the Helsinki Traditional Jazz Dance group's performance and lesson were happening on this day, which meant I spent part of the morning rehearsing and doing both my and Malin Grahn's hair and makeup, and part of the afternoon getting ready for the fashion show. Nevertheless, I did find a couple of gorgeous pieces of textile by Tampella!

above: damask weaving
bellow: Tampella damask tablecloth
pictures from www.tampere.fi

Oy Tampella Ab was a factory that made of Tampere one of the most important industrial cities in Finland, and operated from 1856 until 1991. Although it produced a huge amount of different products (mostly industrial machinery), I'm going to write a bit about one of their most famous textiles: the damask. 

The damask is a textile of a single colour, with reversible patterns that are created by weaving threads in different directions. 

Tampella started to produce damask textiles in the 1890 decade, and designers created the different models, which were tipycally produced during a few decades. Famous designers such as Siri Brunou, Louis Sparre and Aili Rancken created some of these pieces. 

my gorgeous finds! <3

The first piece I spotted on the first day already, but since I didn't have cash with me in that moment the lovely seller said she would keep it for me. I fell in love with it as soon as I saw it, how could I not! It was designed in the year 1907 and the motif is indeed as jugend and arts & crafts as it gets! This piece was meant as a guest towel, and the gorgeous jugend motif covers both ends. I actually even noticed, while googling for this article, that a piece just like this one is actually kept in the Tampere Museum :-)

designer: Aili Rancken
model: Fantasia
number: 253
produced: 1907-1974

The second piece cought my eye on Sunday morning when I went to pay for and pick up the previous piece, partly due to its gorgeous shade of blue. This also makes me think that this tablecloth was probably produced in the 1950 decade, since until then white damasks were the most common, but the motif started to be produced already in the year 1930 and its peacocks are a clear reminiscent of the edwardian orientalism. 

model: Riikinkukko (peacock)
number: 633
produced: 1930-1953?

Vapriikki Vintage finds: day 1

First day at my favourite winter vintage event! And as always, plenty of things to drool at :-)

I'm trying to be a good girl this year and not buy too much, but I found some things that have been on my "wishlist" for a while now, so those were a must! Plus we are usually also taking care of Fintage's table at the vintage market during the event, and on Sunday organizing a fashion show with Fintage's members and vintage clothes, so luckily I didn't get to spend too much time shopping. 

One of the things I'm going nutts about lately is vintage men's clothing! I think it looks extremely elegant and sharp, but finding a good fit for someone as tall and curvy as me is really difficult! I did find a bunch of small items though: a 1910's white tie (which I had been missing for for my "The Chap" burlesque act, thank you Lassi for finding it!), a detachable front and absolutely GORGEOUS detachable collar (both around 1930's) and a couple of ties (probably late 1920's).

soooo in love with the collar! <3

The next thing I bought had been in my "wishlist" forever! I present you my "new" edwardian granny boots, black with the upper part in black suede! I have actually had a bit of an uncommon luck with these kind of boots, since the ones I've been finding so far have been white and brown, which are usually much harder to find. The black ones have thus been missing from my collection, but not anymore!

absolutely gorgeous label in the inside,
made in Rauma (Finland)!

And when I thought that I was already done for the day, I still got a couple of nice items! The tap pants (1920's underwear) I got from another member of Fintage and happened to be a perfect fit! And the cotton stocking from Atlas were something I've been needing for a while, and will be wearing for today's fashion show with my edwardian outfit. These socks have been produced in the same way since the 1930's, but the model actually works pretty nicely as edwardian underwear as well. 

tap pants and atlas stockings (with matching
thread for fixing included)

I did have a couple of nice outfits this day, but the always amazing Atelieri O. Haapala from Helsinki were taking cabinet pictures in Vapriikki this day, so I'll wait to show you until I get the nicer pictures!

Day 2 next...