Spotlight: Kitsch vintage purses

For your drooling/viewing pleasure, some gorgeous vintage purses from the 30s through 60s that scream 'Spring is finally here!!!'

From Vintage In Style:





Show it off like the peacock you are!















Art deco, French, hand-beaded.

















Sophisticated grey--one of the best new neutrals--in a cool 50s design.
















A rad 60s daisy!





















Authentic art deco.










From Posh Girl:







Equally beautiful on your side-table.

















20s hand-beaded. A knockout.
















Bamboo!










From Vintage Vixen:












It's lucite. Isn't it stunning?

















Pink satin. Lined in rich gold satin.











Plastic with flower embroidery. This one comes with a matching change purse!

Focus on: Galliano's Diorific Spring 07 Collection

You wander into a dimly lit Parisian antique shop. In a dusty back hallway, a rich red runner leads you to a dark, high-ceilinged room lined with bookcases. The shelves are filled with ancient leather-bound volumes and folios neatly tied with age-worn ribbons. A few gorgeous overstuffed chairs and pouffes are scattered around the chandeliered chamber.

You run your fingers along the buttery spines, breathing in the scents held by old paper: vanilla, cinnamon, smoke, roses. As you scan the shelves, one tall folio catches your eye. Its delicate jade-green cover is bound in deep cerise grosgrain...your hand moves forward of its own volition. Gently, you pull it from the shelf and gasp. You've found an original collection of Christian Dior sketches--designed for his first show in 1947.

Quietly, reverently, you move to one of the beautiful chairs, tucking your legs neatly under yourself as you explore your treasure.

"I have designed flower women"
This image bloomed in my mind as I explored Galliano's spring 2007 Dior collection on style.com. I feel he has captured the amazing tinkerbell muse that drove that first Dior collection so long ago, but has set her free to spawn something entirely original. Here is newage as art.

Dior is known to have described his New Look collection as a garden of "flower women." What Galliano has done is lift some of Dior's original designs from the sketch page, fully realizing them as life-sized, walking, breathing artworks. Nothing has been lost in the translation--but so much has been added. Moreover, some of this stuff is actually wearable (!). Here are the loveliest of the lady-blooms, in all their geisha-blossom glory. Enjoy! (Click on thumbnails to enlarge.)

The accidental fashion innovator...

Turns out this vintage stylaholic is a fashion innovator. Mmmm-hmmm.

I started this blog one year ago--March 2006. It was in those first heady days of vintage blogging that I coined the term "newage" to refer to new looks that cop a heavily vintage feel.

This month, W magazine released a feature on retrofuturistic (MY TERM...hear that, W magazine?) hairstyles entitled...Newage.

Of course...they didn't ask for permission to use the term. That's not very chic of them, is it? And I'm not making any money from it. Hmmmm...regrettable. And, er, perhaps they aren't totally aware of my existence. Or... maybe they are. Maybe one of their interns was scanning style blogs and she saw the term and dropped it in an editorial meeting...and...voila: fait plagie.

Or.

Maybe they spontaneously created the same term.

Either way, same wavelength and all that. To David Sims of W magazine: congrats a very beautiful collection of photography.

Vintage Hermes: Ooo La La....

I haven't updated ye olde style blog in a while--it's dizzying work, downloading and uploading all those images. Some of us have day jobs, you know.

Still, it's funny how I can find time to write about Hermes scarves when faced with the necessity of writing about government human resources practices...

Silky. Coloury. Hermesy.
I'm not big on the status names. I am not a person who would buy an item of clothing, an accessory, or a car just to show off the label. I drive a Toyota Echo, people. Clearly I'm not status-driven.

But sometimes the name does come with a product that is exceptional. Such is the case with Hermes scarves. They are a Pavlovian drool-trigger for me. I can easily spend hours scanning the interweb just to gaze at them. A view of a full Hermes square is gorgeous, but the real magic happens when they're knotted. Sigh...

Here's the main problem with Hermes scarves: you're looking at $345 USD, minimum. Vintage often goes for much more. Someday, though, oh yes...I will own one.

And don't even get me started on vintage Hermes Birkins. I saw one on eBay for $50,000 USD--mind you it was crocodile, with pave diamond encrusted hardware. But $50,000 USD? I could buy a status car with that.

Here's some eye-candy nonetheless. I came upon these images from a defunct retailer in the U.K. Unfortunately, I have no info on how old they are, but I'm sure some are worth a nice sum:





This one is my fave. Isn't the subtle dove-gray-blue colour gorgeous with the...sort of...golden sienna?












Bunnies are funny!




















Wouldn't you love to have a boudoir chambre with the 'feeling' of this scarf? Wouldn't you love to have a boudoir chambre? Wouldn't you love it if I'd stop making up Frenchish-sounding terms?















My, but bold raspberry and chartreuse tones are hard to resist. Especially when paired with grass green and a little oraaahnge. Tres jolie.
















As an admitted francophile, the Hermes scarves with French themes make me downright ebulliante.