Think Piiiiink this October

So, once again, October is here. It is the month of Halloween, falling leaves and, lest we forget, Breast Cancer Awareness.

Bizarre as it is, breast cancer does just what the song in the Audrey Hepburn classic film 'Funny Face' from 1957 tells us to do, we 'Think Pink'.

And so, in honour of that, this month I am going to donate £5 to the Breast Cancer Partnership for every pink thing I sell through ASOS Marketplace.

A couple of the things you could choose to get hold and make me make a donation at the same time look like this:



Pink quilted jacket, peach maxi cocktail dress, high waisted 80's polk-a-dot-trousers, hot pink shorts.

More will be added as the month continues and donations, fingers crossed, stack up and up and up...

If you're not in the pink mood- it happens to us all sometimes- then please do just go over and make a donation on the Breast Cancer Partnership site.

I recommend them because I know them very well thanks to my day job, and because I find the protect, pioneer and support women against breast cancer a unique one. We all need to know what we can do to prevent breast cancer... and do it. While helping women and families who are afflicted by the disease.

Thanks for thinking pink and, I hope, for your generosity. If you also sell on ASOS, Etsy, Ebay or any other site, please do think about making your own donation, of any amount and for as many or few things as you can. Would love it if the vintage and handmade community got behind this!

The colour of memory

A few months ago, I married.


Only a month later, my new mother-in-law died. Needless to say, what was an immeasurably happy time became a drudgingly sad one.

Kerstin was many things to many people. Mother, model, friend, shopkeeper... She knew where in Stockholm to find the finest cakes, source the most proper furniture and get the best haircut and styling. Some of these things she told me about, some I have learnt while visiting her city to attend to the various bits of admin that surround a family member's death.


One thing I was surprised to learn from her posthumously, was the absolute right red lipstick for me. This is a close to impossible task for many women, and is something I know she would have been immensely pleased I achieved thanks to her, and the make up she left behind.



The colour is Ravish Me Red, from Revlon. I put it on and it makes not just my lips look better, but my eyes and hair too. It makes them softly kissable and has reasonable staying power.



The best thing is, wearing it I remember Kerstin. I remember the glamorous woman she was. A woman who knew about lipsticks. A woman who moved from the Swedish countryside, to Stockholm, to LA, to London... And back again. Who brought up two devilishly smart children after her husband died only a couple of years after the second was born. Who welcomed me lovingly into her family. And who had bucket loads of style. I wish I had known her as the vintage style party girl she once was. I think we'd have been friends. Friends who shared lipstick.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Herstory- the bra

Tomorrow is Coppa Feel Day. So let's BOOB HIJACK!!

To inspire your mission, I'm sharing some trivia with you about the one thing that cops a feel every day. Your bra, and a couple of the wondrous women we have to thank for it.

So, bra facts:

The word comes from brassiere, 'upper arm' in old French.




The garment itself has been around in various guises, gauzes and girdles for eons. But 'brassiere' appeared in American Vogue in 1907. And so naturally became the name of choice.




The bra as we know it is based on it girl Mary Phelps Jacobs' invention in 1913. Commercial success was originally far from her mind. She just wanted to go to a party in a plunging sheer dress. Her corset was cumbersome and poked through, so she sewed silk handkerchiefs together with pink ribbon. Ingenious. And history, or herstory, was made.

She patented her design and set up business as Caresse Crosby (Coppa Feel Crosby?). But soon sold to Warner Brothers Corsetry for $1500. They went on to make over £15,000,000 from the design over the next 30 years.

Rarely mentioned are her other passions, as a peace activist, and success as a publisher of some literary greats' early work. Think Hemingway, Pound, Eliot & Joyce.






Equally inspirational, in 1928, Ida Rosenthal pioneered the cup sizing we use now. She epitomised the American Dream- a Russian immigrant using hard work and inventiveness to rise to the top with her business, Maidenform.

Like Mary, her interest in underwear stemmed from a love of dresses and wanting them to look their best. She was surprised when her bras sold better than the dresses they were supposed to promote.

But she embraced the trend and was the first to sell nursing bras and adjustable backs... All under a racy slogan: 'I dreamed... in a Maidenform Bra'. I think Peggy would have been proud.

And now it's your turn. Check your own breasts, maybe check some others, and make sure everyone knows how and why to coppa feel.