Sunday, January 28, 2007

The King of Carnaby Street | Mod Man : Part II

A few more photos of my most recent guru and inspiration, Mr. John Stephen: The King of Carnaby Street. The first image shows him in his trademark Rolls Royce. Such style! The car is a dazzler, but the boy's pants on the right may be even better.




Sunday, January 21, 2007

A Pair of Scissors

The beginning steps of my scissor collection have been walked. These two antique beauties are a gift from Anna for Christmas and I absolutely love them!

Friday, January 19, 2007

A Pair of Thimbles

Two leather thimbles I made for the sake of protecting my pusher finger while making coats with the opera. The first one wore through quickly, so I needed to make another. The purple thread is the same thread used on Giovanni's skirted overcoat seen in Act II, the leather scraps were from Leporello's topcoat.

Monday, January 15, 2007

Don Giovanni's Room

Simultaneously sewing costumes for the Seattle Opera's production of Don Giovanni and reading James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room made me realize that the production's visual rendering of Giovanni nearly exactly matches the description Baldwin uses to paint a picture of the young men of 1950s French gay nightlife.

"It glittered in the dim light; the thin, black hair was violent with oil, combed forward, hanging in bangs; the eyelids gleamed with mascara, the mouth raged with lipstick. The face was white and thoroughly bloodless with some sort of foundation cream; it stank of powder and a gardenia-like perfume. The shirt, open coquettishly to the navel, revealed a hairless chest and a silver crucifix...A red sash was around the waist, the clinging pants were a surprising sombre grey. He wore buckles on his shoes." -James Baldwin, Giovanni's Room

The only difference I can find comes by way of the chest hair. Our gold Giovanni has his share; our silver, not so much.

Sunday, January 14, 2007

For P.S.D.


The most perfect christmas gift from Anna arrived in the form of a beautiful antique belt buckle: sterling silver, hand-made, and cast from the back side of a woman's hair brush. I adore it, and am left wondering what compelled the artist to cast that particular brush. Was it the brush of their mother? A last ditch attempt to find something pretty and complete an assignment for art school?

Whatever the reason, this is a gem.

Monday, January 01, 2007

An Honest Appraisal | The Boldest of Them All

The pragmatism in Marty's stylistic flair wins again. Anyone bold enough to ride his moto in a skirt deserves the utmost respect from us all. What I like most is that he was wearing a skirt long before I ever had him do it on the runway. Enjoy a first hand look at the heroism here.