Have a sweet weekend friends . . . hope you get a chance to chill!
Not sure if we will, but we will definitely try to make time to let loose and rest our brains for a brief moment.
Remember if you are in Hamilton, Ontario, to visit the SUPERCRAWL POP UP SHOP in Jackson Square where we are selling some of our original pieces made from vintage materials for the very first time! And on top of that, we are amongst 7 of the city’s best brands and designers.
Its been very exciting thus far, and we are set up until the 25th , so please, if you can … .CHECK IT OUT!
So, lately we’ve been obsessed with the decadence and glamour of the 1970s disco scene, especially in Europe! And when we found this video by avant-garde superstar Amanda Lear, we found it to be the perfect combination of vintage awesomeness and spooky elegance!!!
We didn’t know very much about this divinity (don’t worry…we will be working on giving her an honored place on our altar of Style Idols & Divinities), but we have been delving into this marvelous woman’s life like no one’s business!
Here is a woman who hobnobbed with The Beatles, David Bowie, Brian Jones, Bryan Ferry, Andy Warhol…had the model looks of Verushka and the voice of Marlene Dietrich. Not only that, she was a close confidante to THE Salvador Dali, and remained one of his closest friends and muses until his death. She even closed Jean Paul Gaultier’s 1980s pop music muses collection back in 2013!
What is so wonderful about Amanda is her mystery . . . sometimes things are best left to the imagination, and Lear keeps this enigmatic quality to this day (her birth date and nationality is still unclear, as well as other rumors circulating)!
This is what we respect most of this bad ass woman! Just be yourself, and everything else will fall into place.
Fresh off our VMP DRAG FASHION FLAUNT at this year’s Vintage Marketplace, we can’t stop thinking about how incredible drag queens are, especially those of the {PAST} who paved the way for the {PRESENT} culture and creativity and will continue to invoke its {FUTURE}.
We know everyone who is anyone keeps up with RuPaul’s Drag Race, and the past season’s ALL STARS edition featured a wickedly hilarious Snatch Game that had Brooklyn babe AJA take on one of Herstory’s most legendary queens – founder of the House of LaBeija, and star of the cult 1968 documentary “The Queen”, Crystal LaBeija!
And she took her on with gusto and glamour, and also delivered this beautiful spirit back into the forum of the mainstream…much in the way Jinx Monsoon brought us Little Edie of “Grey Gardens”, and Sasha Velour took on Marlene Dietrich; keeping these divinities alive for younger generations is absolutely key!
How sad it is when you hear a young man or woman denote they have no idea who these iconic legends are . . . stay educated, kids!
“The Queen” is a fabulous film directed by Frank Simon, and provides an up close and candid look at the behind of the scenes of the 1967 All-America Camp Beauty Contest in New York City. It is a wonderful portrait of a time gone by. . . New York City is rough and tough, and men from all around America shack up in tiny hotel rooms in anticipation of the pageant discussing the difficulties of being gay in America. They are all fabulous, and its wonderful to see their final transformations from the male versions of them you see in rehearsals. This transformation truly proves the power of style and image to invoke strength from within.
Illustrated herstory by Laurel Lynn-Leake
By far, the most fabulous moment has to be Crystal’s freak out when she is named fourth place storms out and then rips everyone a new one backstage. Absolutely ICONIC…you are going to have to see it to believe it! And if you are a fan of Drag Race, you will really appreciate what Aja brought to the table even more.
We stumbled upon a full version of the film on Youtube, so check it out below and enjoy!
+Look out for Andy Warhol’s cameo (he was a judge in the pageant)+
We love moments like this in pop culture where the {PAST} races into the {PRESENT} and ultimately shapes our {FUTURE}. . . rebel queens like Crystal LaBeija will live on far past those who chose not to be the truest, most incredible versions of themselves.
I don’t need you to tell me I’m beautiful! I KNOW I’M BEAUTIFUL!!!
And really, we should all fell this way! Screw the haters- you rock!
Listen to that spirit within you, and let it free…
It’s been a while since we’ve posted on here, so we thought we owed something to the gods of the internet! I can’t believe its been almost 7 years of us having this blog, and all the incredible things it has led us to, we couldn’t even have imagined on that fateful night we created it.
These incredible things, however, lead us to be very busy and it makes it hard to get time to create the content we know you love! So, here a little catch-up with everything we have been up to!
Spring always seems to be a busy time for us, and we have been up to some fun things. Currently we are creating a collection for one of our city’s biggest fashion events, Glamour in the Hammer. It is a wonderful event that helps support the incredible philanthropic efforts of the Good Shepherd and promoting the long history of giving they have done for those in need.
If you are in the area, tickets are still available, and are going fast! Ticket includes a fabulous fashion show featuring the city’s top designers, as well as drinks and eats from the city’s top restaurants. Definitely not to be missed. {click here for tickets}
This year, our collection +WUTHERING HEIGHTS+ hopes to bring a romantic edge to the grunge aesthetic inspired by the ghostly mood of the English moors, combining vintage fabrics and street chic style for many new one-of-a-kind pieces to add to the many creations we have made over the past {click here to see them}.
As well, as preparing for that, we are also embarking on a voyage to the 1980s with our costume design for Hamilton Theatre Inc.’s “The Wedding Singer” which has been chalk full of its own challenges, but insanely fun to sort through weird and wild 80s party fashions. The silhouettes and details of that time period are just over-the-top, and that of course, we absolutely love! Again if you are in the area, {click here} to get tickets for a wickedly funny show! Show runs May 11 – May 26.
Last but not least, we are fresh from our annual collaboration with The Vintage Marketplace, which is our city’s biggest vintage shopping event. Whilst we were berated by a historical ice storm, the event was still a success with hundreds of people making it out to shop from a myriad of local vintage vendors, with many new faces, which is always great to see our little community growing in that respect.
On top of our booth, which we were very proud of in the end, we also had the honor of producing some entertainment for the weekend. What we came up with, we never could’ve foreseen, but it all seemed to make so much sense, and was a wild way to shake up our usual fashion show segment.
Instead of a retrospective fashion show, we created the VMP DRAG FASHION FLAUNT ft. Queen Costia Sterling and Sapphyre Poison. If only you could be there to see how fantastic this show was (or maybe you were, if so, leave a comment), the Queens delivered vintage inspired numbers that ranged from Rosemary Clooney, Judy Garland, Marilyn Monroe, and even a number from the iconic musical CHICAGO.
The most magical moment had to be when the many children who had come to the show gathered to watch the Queens, and the wonderful smiles on their faces as they watched the magic. Definitely a show for the books.
So, as you can see, we have been swamped with projects, but promise to get back more in the swing of posting on here. We have so many fabulous stories on the back burner that are just waiting to see the light of day, so definitely stay tuned…
If you have been missing us, be sure to follow us on INSTAGRAM, TWITTER, and FACEBOOK to stay up to date, and see what we are up to!
Remember we also have dozens of unique, one-of-a-kind, time traveled vintage pieces in our {SHOP} which is always changing, so do check it out, and remember to use code XIXIXI for 25% OFF at the checkout.
Back in 1999 a quirky cool show came out called ZENON: Girl of the 21st Century and now that we are actually in the 21st century its cool to see they weren’t so far off!
We always say the past informs our future, so when speaking on this idea of retro-futurism its so fun to notice visions of the future from the past, and usually in this context we speak often of a retro-future from the 40s, 50s, even 60s . . .but now we are seeing retro-future ideas taken from the 90s.
Jeremy Scott really took it there 100% with this vibe in his Autumn-Winter 2018 collection from the pastel millenial metallic palette with strokes of neon… to some really quirky weird sci-fi silhouettes.
The wigs brought me back to another 90s sci-fi gem which may be a bit more obscure unless you lived in Canada than guaranteed you watched this show if you grew up in the 90s: SPACE CASES!!!
The show first aired back in 1996, and has since stuck in our minds as a really rad adventure series featuring some cool talent. I think the plot was best summed up by Bethany on IMDB:
One day at an academy, 7 people sneak aboard a mysterious spaceship. The people consist of 5 students, who are Harlan, the athletic leader from earth; Catalina, the Saturnian rainbow-head with a sonic scream; Bova, the negative sour-pus Uranian who can generate electricity; Rosie, the happy Mercurian who radiates heat; and Radu, the Andromedan with super strength and hearing; the other two people are Mrs. T.J. Davenport, the principal at the academy and Commander Seth Goddard, who is their teacher/commander. While on-board they meet an android named Thelma who informs them that they are on a spaceship that is half living and called the Christa. Just when they meet up they become aware that they are approaching a hole that if they get sucked into, they will be stuck in space for 7 years. They eventually do and along their journey they encounter many hardships and enemies that they work together to overcome. They also meet some new people like Suzee (Catalina’s imaginary friend from another dimension who gets pulled into this dimension during a warp, putting Catalina in her dimension; she can read minds and has gills), Elmira (Sponge daughter of Warlard Shank), Warlard Shank (the arch enemy of them), etc.
The wigs immediately gave me some serious Jewel Staite as Catalina vibes; although, hers is just that much more with the multi-colored rings representing her home planet Saturn. Am I wrong?
Oh, and sorry about the strange captions in the two photos there. They are entertaining, nonetheless. Since it is a more obscure show, it was hard to find some great images, but I think you get the vibe, and especially with a few of the looks from Jeremy Scott’s AW 2018 show sandwiched between- I think the inspirations are undeniable!
Boy, Canadian television in the 90s was wicked…and man, Jeremy Scott’s interns must have been binge watching some serious shit, because you can’t deny that the painted ladies of Jeremy Scott’s Moschino Autumn-Winter 2018 show really give me crazy Rosie comparisons!
Granted, Jeremy Scott’s inspiration for this collection was Jackie-O, Aliens, and Conspiracy Theories so its not that far off…
Some other designers you can’t deny took a very similar route were Prada:
And, Maison Margiela Couture Autmn-Winter 2018 which was a symphony of hologram! Our jaws were dropethed watching one look after another walk down the runway.
If you have a chance, watch the actual show so you can see how magically these fabrics react to light- its magnificent and really shows the art of textile design and the incredible things being engineered today.
Since we are on this topic, I wanted to throw in some pics of a few more Canadian 90s aliens from the cult show ARE YOU AFRAID OF THE DARK? – episode: “The Thirteenth Floor”!!!
Two kids get lured by stylish 90s aliens to a strange toy company that just happened to open on the 13th floor of their apartment complex where they usually play floor hockey…moral of the story is, if you think its weird a toy company opened overnight on the 13th floor of your apartment complex then just stay away!!! Especially when they’re dressed like that!
Never would I have imagined in 20 years I’d be talking about Are You Afraid of the Dark or Space Cases in the context of fashion and style…its actually kind of shocking how many designers landed on this vibe, but nevertheless its really interesting to have this kind of nostalgia prevalent in the scene, and no doubt we will be seeing more and more of this as time goes on.
The {past} repeats itself, even if that {past} is imitating the {future}!
Something about this vibe has always been in us, and we have been tending to lean towards this style many times – from metallic foil shirts, to PVC jackets, and definitely anything hologram! I guess, we like to be ahead of the curve, and it really goes to show the power in staying relevant with the past.
Here are a few pieces in our {SHOP} right now that epitomize the 90s Back to the Future vibe that is taking over!
1: one that is credited with usually malignant supernatural powers; especially: a woman practicing usually black witchcraft often with the aid of a devil or familiar : sorceress — compare warlock
The word witch derives from the Old English nouns wicca Old English pronunciation: [ˈwɪttʃɑ] (‘sorcerer, male witch’) and wicce Old English pronunciation: [ˈwɪttʃe] (‘sorceress, female witch’). Thanks Wikipedia!
The origins, really, are much more complicated and mysterious, of course. For many centuries this term was used a blanket term for outsiders in society; people who didn’t fit the mould of the status-quo. Outrageously, these free spirits were often burned at the stake!
HOW RUDE?!!!
Lord knows if these were different times, we’d be right on that stake with the best of them!
Eartha Kitt does a fabulous job of playing with the stereotype and society’s perceived notions in this song, and especially give it up to bosslady1971 for a wicked compilation of witches in popular culture to go along with what is sure to be one of the highlights of your playlist!
Do Enjoy!
I’d rather be burned as a Witch than never be burned at all!!!
There must have been a really urgent calling to help young men who suffered from social anxiety during the Post War period, because this is just one of dozens of educational films distributed to schools throughout America dealing with this.
This one is one of the best called “SHY GUY” and stars Dick York who played the first Darrin Stephens in the cult classic “Bewitched”!
Its quite entertaining, and on top of that, the classic vintage styles of these high school students are on fleek! Special shout out to the many wicked graphic sweaters that the “popular” kids are ALL rocking.
“Whats he got that makes people like him so much?”
attitude.
I think its best to be yourself, but this boy trades out his dapper suit and ties for the more relaxed cool kid vibe of some trousers and a graphic sweater, but sure enough it works, so what do I know?! So many cool jackets and bombers, and then there’s the classic hair!!!
They don’t make them like they used to! Enough hype, watch the video below courtesy of Old Time TV on Youtube!
BEST ADVICE FROM DAD: Just observe what people are doing then imitate them (well, essentially that’s what he says)….thanks Dad! Sociopath much?! As always, I say be yourself and the rest will follow.
“…you don’t know how to get people to like you and you end up holding a grudge against them…”
Life can be so hard for your average teen!
We have some pieces in the {SHOP} we thought reminded us of the “SHY GUY” vibe!
Visit our {SHOP} for more details on these and more time traveled vintage finds…
It has come to my attention that there may be people out there who have no idea about Sunset Boulevard – only one of the best films of all time by iconic director Billy Wilder. This disturbs me slightly, so here’s a glimmer of that inspiration in guise of one of our classic {MUSIC MINUTE}s.
Scored by legendary Hollywood composer Franz Waxman, the moody jazzy score provides the perfect sultry and mysterious backdrop for this strange tale. If I had a dime for every time I said “they don’t make them like they used to” . . . but this film is the epitome of that sentiment.
The film opens as a murder investigation, but delves into the twisted depths of an aging silent movie starlet who coerced a handsome screenwriter to be her live-in gigolo. When he decides its time to leave, things get very . . . dramatic.
Gloria Swanson who was an aging silent movie star herself brings such complexity, vulnerability, and diva strength – you are sure to be shook. On top of that, the film is a gorgeous display of midcentury Hollywood style and glamour; from the grandeur of the mansion (which was also used in Rebel Without a Cause) littered with gold leaf, exotic mouldings, tapestries, and furs to some seriously chic loungewear – there really is inspiration at every turn.
So watch these Main Titles, take in that awesome score, and get yourself a copy of Sunset Boulevard!Â
You wont regret it.
Just doing our duty of bring the {past} to the {present} to shape the {future}.
