Merry Christmas

It’s Christmas Eve tomorrow and as that is THE big day in Sweden as opposed to Christmas Day, I will take the opportunity to wish you Merry Christmas today. I do so with a flood of glamorous winter and Christmas photos from the 1940’s. They are all courtesy of Mothic Flights and Flutterings, an absolutely wonderful source of beautiful pictures!

I wish I was a rich girl #5

I’m still feeling very un-intellectual, so here comes an easy shopping post instead. There’s a life after Christmas too, after all and plenty of time for long and interesting posts. Up until this week the weather in Sweden has been very unwintery and there have been more need for umbrellas than warm coats. So here is a little umbrella post- I especially love the fanciful handles!

Upcoming attractions

After writing about the ideal body I had planned to tie that in with an intelligent post about the ideal body shape, comparing it with the decades before and after the 1940's, but today is the day after our cat Adolf had surgery and all the tension has gone out of me and left me feeling a bit worn out and not very creative at all. You may have seen that we had to take away our cat Frida last week and the same day we found out that Adolf had a cancer tumour on his hind leg. Luckily it could be removed, thought it was as large as his paw! He is currently very annoyed with us, having to wear a big collar to prevent him from licking his wound.

But I promise, there will be a long post about girdle's and whatnot's very soon!



(Picture source: http://flow.allpinup.ru/en/view/normal/2527)

The 200th follower giveaway!

Being a rather niched blog I have been very flattered by the attention it has been given since I started it. Now it has reached 200 followers on Blogger and I felt that’s worth a little celebration in the form of a giveaway. During the year I have tried and tested many vintage perfumes and not everyone has been ones that suits me. Instead of letting them collect dust I have decided to give them away. It's a very small giveaway when it comes to size, but vintage perfume samples can be rather pricey, so I hope it will be appreciated.

1st prize: Choose three samples from the following perfumes: My Sin, Shalimar, Joy, Scandal, Blue Carnation and Fracas. A sample of Shocking will also be included.

2nd prize: The three samples remaining plus a sample of Shocking.

3rd prize: A copy of The Little Book of Perfumes: The 100 classics by Luca Turin and Tania Sanchez.

I read blogs

I read Solanah at Vixen Vintage. She has an incredible style sense as well as a seemingly endless wardrobe. Reading her blog is truly inspirational, shock full of beautiful photographs as it is. There is also some tutorials- only today I got the tip on how fill a vintage with loose powder that you press.

A review on Sense and Sensibility's swing dress pattern

In the beginning of this year Casey at Elegant Musing hosted sew along for Sense & Sensibilities swing dress pattern. I joined, but when it was time to hem it I completely lost steam and only last week I finished it. Here is my review on the pattern

Sense and Sensibility says this about it:

Here is my 1940s “Swing” Dress Pattern, inspired by an original Hollywood design, circa 1942. The design comes from the WWII days of fabric rationing, which meant narrower skirts and more tailored lines.
• Sizes 8-26 all included in one envelope.
• Unique yoke with gathered shoulders and two sleeve options (short and “bracelet-length”).
• Gored skirt great for twirling! Put on your dancing shoes!
• Transition this pattern to evening wear by lengthening the skirt.
• Photo Instructions online (coming soon in PDF format).
• Click to download the Swing Dress Pattern yardage chart.
• Available for instant download as an ePattern in PDF format!
• I also have an online class available for this pattern.

The ideal body

I have talked about the ideal body when it comes to the ideal movie stars, but how about the ordinary woman? Well, slim is pretty much the ideal now and it was the ideal back then too. However, it didn’t mean exactly the same thing as it does today. The thin athletic body that we see on fashion spreads today is not the same as the slim, but still rather curvaceous ideal of the 1940’s.