Style icons

Kristina of Dahling It’s Vintagy made a post about style icons. It was a fun and interesting post to read and it got me thinking of the things that have influenced me. Quite interesting, to me at least, is that how many of the things that inspire and interest me today are things that got cemented in my childhood; the aesthetics of the first half of the 20th century and the 18the century and my love for fashion history, history and literature. It also turned into a very long post, so instead of trying to cover everything, I will just give you a few important highlights. In case you want to see more, then you can check out the Icon’s board at Pinterest.

This picture of Rita Hayworth from Salome was part of my mother’s collection of “filmisar”, small cards with pictures of various movie stars. I don’t have the card anymore and I’m sorry that I have never found the colour version of it as that was the one I had. I had no idea who Rita Hayworth was, but I found her so incredibly beautiful and to this day she is one of my favourite actresses ever.

Josephine Baker

I just re-read one of my childhood favourites, The Rainbow-children (1957). It’s a wonderful book and I think it’s rather odd that it isn’t a classic. The story is simple, the little hen Kot-Kot is black, when the other hens are white, and she has also lost an eye, which she hides with a piece of cloth. The other hens are very mean to her and don’t allow her inside the henhouse. Kot-Kot decides that she can’t be happy until she finds her missing eye and sets out in the world, asking everyone she meets to help her. Almost everyone is very kind to her, but not until she reach a wonderful castle and meets the rainbow-children, a group of siblings that comes from all over the world, does she realize that she doesn’t need to find her eye- if she accept who she is and that people loves her for that, she can be very happy anyway. She removes her cloth, stays at the castle and raises a brood of rainbow-coloured chickens.

Greta

There is one person that is the biggest reason I started this blog. That I started sewing. That I started to have an interest in clothes. That person is my maternal grandmother, Greta. I have no intention to reflect my personal life in this blog, but my grandmother is such an essential person when it comes to developing my interests that I feel she has to be here. She was also the kind of woman who Alla kvinnors bok was written for, middle class with enough wealth for some luxuries, but still seeing the importance of mending and re-use. She was not an altogether easy person, she could be annoying and exhausting, but she was also wonderful in so many ways and I loved her very much. Now, seven years since she passed away, I find that the less good things are of no importance anymore. Just all the great things remains.