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.5 - Restaurantapäivät

And more catching up! Restaurantapäivät is one of the nicest open air summer markets nearby our area in Finland. It happens in a town called Kangasala, which is really close to Tampere, and during a weekend in July plus an extra day in August. We usually prefer the weekend in July, since there are usually more sellers. Most of the sellers mostly have old and rusty car parts, but thorough hunting usually yields very good results! And when I say thorough hunting I really mean it, I have often walk around the market many times in the same day and keep on finding new things every time. As last year, this year we also rented a spot for our vintage association Fintage RY. We offer vintage clothing and accessories at extremely good prices, and are available to answer questions about Fintage and vintage in general. 

Fintage's table at Restaurantapäivät

As you might remember from my last post I wasn't really in the position of spending a lot of money, but at the same time I had just recently moved and there was a bunch of things I really needed for my new apartment. Luckily enough (and with the invaluable help of Lassi) I managed to find most of them at really good prices! You can see most of my "loot" in the picture below, only the black 1930's spring coat is missing from it but I hope I'll be able to show it in future posts :-)

Loot: 

- Jugendstil wooden bookshelf (my prettiest shoes are displayed in it at the moment! :-) )

- 1920's slip

- 2 x copper pots which I use at flower pots

- 1950's plaster and wood frame (it currently holds a gorgeous picture of Lada Redstar by Atelieri o. Haapala)

- jugenstil curtain rod and rings

- two more sets of jugenstil curtain rings

- jugenstil brass mortar

- to-die-for jugenstil blanket <3

Restaurantapäivät finds

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 :-)

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 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...

Vapriikki Vintage 2014 approaching!

So to keep a little bit of balance, today's post will be about my third great passion: vintage. I'm in love with vintage for many reasons, which can probably be explained more in depth at some future post, but basically let's just say things were made BETTER in the past. Better quality materials were used, people really put some thought into the actual design of the pieces, and things were made to last.

Whereas there are nice things to be found about all decades, I'm specially crazy about the 1910's, 1920's and 1930's, and the reason is probably that those are the periods in which Art Noveau and Art Deco reached their heights aesthetically, at least in my humble opinion. It's indeed difficult to explain what it is about those two that is so appealing to the eye, but they just have that special something that I love :-)

That's is why I'm looking forward to this year's Vapriikki Vintage happening even more than usual! Every year has a theme, and this year's is Art Noveau and Jugend. This event is a delight for any vintage lover! It's organized by Fintage and the Vapriikki museum in Tampere, and takes place in the museum itself. The event is full of fun things to do, which can be enjoyed for the price of the regular ticket to the museum (entrace to the vintage market is free). The program includes, among others, the studio of the super talented photographers Atelieri O. Haapala, guided visits to sections of the museum, lectures, workshops, dance, music, and a vintage clothing fashion show (where you'll be able to find yours trully showing two of her favourite vintage pieces, but more on that later!). If this made you even a little bit curious, go ahead and have a look at the program! You can find it both at Fintage's website and the event's facebook page.