Wednesday 11 April 2012

All that rain dancing to no avail

Frock four is steeped in somebody elses nostagia but I'm slowly bestowing my own...
The Frock:
This fabulous frock was part of a vintage 60s/70s clothing bundle that I bagged on eBay last year. 
A really nice lady here in London had decided to let the go of the clobber that she'd been stashing away in her loft for decades.
She made me promise that I'd take good care of her old threads and I reassured her that they simply couldn't go to a more vintage loving home. 
The frock is labelled 'INTERLINKS - LONDON'.
It's made from a super comfy cotton which features two contrasting Indian block prints.
The Belts:
Although the dress is labelled 'small', the cut of it is very roomy.
As you can see from the pics I prefer to cinch it in with a belt.
The three belts featured here were all picked up from car boot sales.
-Kenyan leather belt with brass seahorse detail
-Shell & turqouise bead detail tie belt
-Rajasthani tribal mirror & coin detail belt
The Audience:
Besides a cheeky sand fox and a scattering of  birds, the only real "audience" we had was Abdul the local Wadi el Gemal park guard and his trusty dog.
Abdul was really nice and even invited us to come over to his shack for hibiscus tea & shisha but it was seven in the morning so we declined his very kind offer.
He said that he was very pleased to meet a Scottish person in real life and he told us that his favourite movie was 'Braveheart'.
We dropped by his shack a few days later but he wasn't in so we left a note & little bag of sweets.
I think it must get quite lonely for him out there in the desert.
******
I will leave you with a little teaser...
Frock number five & six are twins ;)
I wonder if you can guess which ones I'm talking about?!
Lot's of love,
Jennie
xXx


Tuesday 10 April 2012

She was the Egyptian camel traders favourite wife

Holiday frock number three is pure vintage gold...
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The Frock:
I came across this frock about a month ago at my usual Sunday morning stomping ground. 
The lush print immediately drew me in and I was thrilled to bits when I clocked that it was by 'Marion Foale and Sally Tuffin'.
If I was thumbing it from Istanbul to India then I'd want to be wearing this frock cause it is amazinly comfy to wear, not to mention tremendously Hippie chic but perhaps most importantly for a shoestring traveller the magnificent print would obscure any minor stainage picked up along the way.
The Shoot(s):
We shot this dress twice cause on the first attempt the wind began to howl (as you can probably make out from my messed up hair) and the spot that we'd picked was pretty exposed. I plonked a hat on but to no avail, a playful gust of wind blew it off my head within minutes.
The second shoot was more successful cause we made sure we were on site and ready to go as soon as the sun peeped over the horizon.
The Trimmings:
Also featured in these pics is my favourite suede waistcoat that I bought from my vintage dealer friend some years ago. The leather belt with a little brass seahorse on it is a handcrafted one from Kenya that I picked up from a local car boot sale. The hat was another car boot sale buy, it's made from paper.
The Camels:
There were wild camels out in the desert, we didn't see any during our photo sessions but we did see quite a few on our way to Luxor. There were also three camels belonging to the resort being traipsed up and down the beach several times a day poor things. 
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Frock four is yet another hippie chic number...hopefully I'll find the time to post again tomorrow :)
Lot's of love,
Jennie


Monday 9 April 2012

The Egyptian snake charmers daughter

Frock number two has travelled all the way from New Zealand...
The Frock:
I was sent this stunning vintage wrap dress by bona fide frock goddess Helga in July last year. 
I often start planning a holiday wardrobe long before I'm even planning a holiday and as soon as I clapped eyes on this beauty I knew it had to come with me on my next magical mystery tour and so it did ;)
It is labelled 'Oriental Crafts'.
This frock ticks all the boxes in my opinion with its comfy & chic cut, stunning brick red colour and amazing print.
The Trimmings:
Also featured in the pics are a pair of vintage 70s St Michael raffia wedge sandals that I bought from a local charity shop, a pleathora of jingly-jangly bangly things that I've picked up from a variety of markets & boot sales here in London.
The Hair:
 Two synthetic ponytails bought from PAK cosmetics, attached with the help of one thousand and one kirby grips...it certainly felt like that many anyway ;)
It has to be said that it was a bit of a pain in the proverbial to do this at five in the morning.
The Hindsight:
I could have saved myself a lot of bother if I had only brought a wig instead.
******
 Have a great week peeps, thank goodness it's only four days til Friday!
Lot's of love,
Jennie
xXx


Far from the Madding Crowd

As I mentioned in the previous post hubby and I did three early morning photo shoots out in the Egyptian desert and here follows the first out of ten frocks that we shot, hope you enjoy :)
The Frock:
 This is a fabulous African hooded Dashiki kaftan labelled 'Twentieth Century Costumes' which on googling I found out is a company specialising in supplying period costumes for films, television and theatre. 
I bought this frock from a car boot sale here in London before we went on holiday and decided that it would be the perfect thing to bring especially as this was my very first visit to the African continent.
The Location:
We stayed at the The Gorgonia Beach Resort which is set in the stunning surroundings of the Wadi el Gemal National Park south of Marsa Alam on the Red Sea coast of Egypt.
You really get the best of both worlds here with an impressive desert landscape creating a stunning backdrop and the wonders of underwater world just a few footsteps away from your hotel room.
The Shoot:
We shot this frock twice as you can probably figure out from the two different hairstyles I'm sporting. 
Hubby and I would get up whilst the vast majority of the resort residents were still sweetly slumbering in their beds and traipse out into the desert with our gear and set up a little shoot camp at a spot that we liked.
Then we would wait for the dawn to break and once the sun hit the horizon we'd start our desert photo sesh. The sunlight got too harsh after about an hour or so and the wind picked up as the air started to heat, so you had to work fast to get everything done.
The highlight of the shoot:
Spotting a sand fox spying on us from behind a dune.
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There you go the first of ten frocks ;)
Much more to come but first I have to get down to some serious holiday snap sorting. 
I'm exceedingly trigger-happy when it comes to shooting with my beloved camera and I took over two thousand photos over the two weeks we were there and that is not including the three early morning photo sessions...so I've got my work cut out to put it mildly!
Back to work tomorrow, right now it feels like I've been away for ages cause of all the amazing stuff I've seen & done but I bet it won't feel like that once I return to the ol' grind!
After enjoying the serenity of the deep blue sea and the quietness of the desert, it's quite hard to return to the madding crowds of the big shitty.
Lot's of love,
Jennie
xXx



Back in Blighty!

This years magical mystery tour took us to Egypt.
Loads of snorkelling & scuba diving in the Red Sea, desert walks and early morning photo sessions in the Wadi el Gemal national park, a visit to Luxor and a boat ride on The Nile.
The holiday highlights for me was swimming with a humongous Napoleon fish & seeing dolphins at the Sataya reef and also getting to swim with turtles and a massive eagle ray at the resort reef.
It's been a fortnight jampacked with excitement, adventure and really wild things ;)
Hubby and I traipsed out into the desert in the early morning hours on three occassions to watch the sunrise and to take some photos of the ten fabulous frocks that I had brought with me, more of that to be featured on the blog very soon.
Happy Easter to you all :)
Lot's of love,
Jennie
xXx


Saturday 17 March 2012

Green is a colour, the perception of which is evoked by light having a spectrum dominated by energy with a wavelength of roughly 520–570 nanometers.

In honour of Saint Patrick's Day I've decided to do a a post on one of my favourite colours i.e. Green!
I scoured the offerings of my fave blog goddesses and found gorgeous green outfits galore, feast your eyes on this fabulous lot...

Here's some fabulously green frockage from my own wardrobe...
...and two new garments to hit my vast amassment of vintage clobber :)
A kitschtastic Kermit green vintage 70s jumpsuit labelled 'JOSHUA TREE - California' & a sweet seafoam green 'Dollyrockers' frock...
Hope you are all having a cracking weekend!
 Beannacht Lá Fhéile Pádraig!
Lot's of love,
Jennie
xXx



Sunday 4 March 2012

Bringing you boot sale bounty, whatever the weather!

It's been a long day for me as I was up with the lark to go hunting for treasure.
When I looked out the window this morning I have to admit that I was rather doubtful as to wheather or not it would be worth my while but thankfully I was pleasantly surprised.
The seller numbers always dwindle dramatically when the weather is crap but sometimes it's nice to have a more manageable number of stalls to peruse.
In the summertime when the fair-weather booters are all out in force this particular boot sale can be quite daunting and you are usually totally shaggard from rummaging after only going round half of it.
 The car boot sale season is still in its winter lull but come next month it should start getting much busier.
One of the sellers decided she'd had enough and left a whole heap of damp shoes behind.
Thankfully it wasn't pouring down but it did drizzle ceaselessly. 
Everything was a bit damp but that doesn't bother me cause I mostly buy clothes & fabrics that are washed when I get home anyway.
The HARDCORE car booters...they'll rummage to the bitter end, whatever the weather!
So what did I come away with?
Well, well...some pretty neat stuff actually!
A couple of decorative brass dishes, an awesome vintage 70s kermit green jumpsuit, a vintage Delroy Fabrics catalogue, a vintage 60s psychedelic print mini dress, a pair of vintage 70s flared jeans, vintage 80s leather boots, an African print shirt & some African print fabric.
I'm very happy with my scores, especially the funky-ass jumpsuit ;)
Two more things to share before I sign off for this time, namely another outfit...
DVF floral silk blouse, Vintage 70s dress labelled 'St Honore', Crushed velvet booties, DIYed necklace & Indian earrings
I got this lovely Diane von Furstenberg silk blouse from last weeks car boot sale and the quirky cut dress I bought from my vintage dealer friend.
Last but by no means least, look what I got through the post yesterday...
My "diving license" certification card, yay!
All I need now is a holiday to somewhere warm that has reefs & fish in abundance ;)
Have a great start to the new week peeps.
Lot's of love,
Jennie
xXx