What I Wore: Rainbow Dress

I've been a pretty pastel loving girl all my life but over the last couple of months I've become increasingly drawn to bright primary colours particularly reds, oranges, yellows and greens. This dress, however, has been in my wardrobe for a few years. A 1970s tennis style frock, the husband calls this my rainbow dress, and I decided to give it a spin again this Australia Day. The shoes are from Zomp.

Even when the sky is overcast, I can still feel summery in a bright burst of colour.

A Model I Missed

It seems when I compiled my great models of the 1950s post I missed one. Tom Palumbo, the photographer subject of my last post (whom I just discovered passed away in 2008), was for a time married to the timelessly lovely Anne St Marie. Her look reminds me a little bit of Linda Evangelista's, her poise of Angelica Huston.
Palumbo's Flickr stream has a set devoted to his photographs of Anne and they are really breathtaking. Some of the images are so contemporary in their composition that they could belong to any decade.

I've tried to puzzle out a little bit more about Anne St Marie, but there's barely any information regarding her. She was Palumbo's muse and mother to his son, but apparently she had a love affair with fashion photographer turned movie director Jerry Schatzberg too. Schatzberg has said that Anne was also one of his favourite models - its not hard to see why - and that taped conversations he made with her, when she was undergoing a breakdown (there is some murmurings of issues with drugs and alcohol) were the inspiration behind his film Puzzle of a Downfall Child (1970) starring Faye Dunaway.

I've never seen the film but it sounds intriguing; a once famous model recalls her glittering career as her world begins to shatter. Apparently it is one of Faye's best performances. Inspiration, of course, by no means implies reality (I really enjoyed The Social Network, but I'm sure great liberties were taken with the truth, whatever that may be), so I'd love to hear more about this beautiful lady, if anyone knows.

Coco Repose goes online

Jessica at Coco Repose has taken her gorgeous collection of vintage treasures online, which means that even if you don't live in Sydney you can now take home one of her pieces (the physical store has now completely relocated to the Sydney Antiques Centre in Surry Hills).
She's uploading more stock all the time, so its worth checking back often. At the moment she's got some lovely frocks up, including this 40s lace gown, two 50s party dresses and a sundress and this 70s day dress, as well as some jewellery. Her range of hats, separates and more are still to come.

My friends Liana and Mark are getting married this weekend in Berry on the NSW South Coast. Rather than being anxiously excited as I was with my own, I'm enjoying the anticipation without reserve (I can enjoy the spoils of the planning without the actual planning!). I picked up a gorgeous frock from Coco Repose a couple of weeks ago which I'll be wearing tomorrow. Photos to follow soon!

Designer Profile: Prue Acton

I've decided to launch a new regular feature called Designer Profile which will look back at fashion designers past. This is to educate myself just as much as it is to inform my readers. And considering that Tuesday is Australia Day (or Invasion Day as I prefer to call it, although the powers that be seem to have moved away from "celebrating" the British invasion of Australia and its indigenous people over the last couple of decades, thank goodness), I thought I'd pick an Aussie designer.

Prue Acton was called Australia's Mary Quant and was the first Australian designer to show in New York in the mid 1960s. At 19 years-old Prue was studying to be an artist, but her frustration at the lack of clothing available in her native Melbourne for young women like her, led her in a different direction. With the financial backing of her parents she opened her own clothing business and within three years her designs - heavily influenced by the youth quake counter culture of the time - were widely available in stores.

Her early designs - like this black mini dress and baby blue play suit - were quintessentially 60s, hence the Australian Mary Quant tag. It does well to remember that in those days there were very few international fashion labels available in Australian cities.

As the 60s gave way to the 70s, Prue's empire began to extend even further. She started to add swimwear, lingerie and other accessories in her collections which were now being sold through retailers in the Northern Hemisphere. Her 70s designs embraced more of a hippie aesthetic and seemed to draw influence from her painterly background. These hand painted silk and crepe gowns from the mid 70s are delicately beautiful.

In the 1980s Prue returned to her first love of painting while she continued to run her fashion empire. Below are a couple of designs from that era which demonstrate an artist in full flight. They are also unashamedly Aussie in inspiration. The first dress looks like a gumtree and the second is called The Great Barrier Reef ensemble.

At the end of the decade Prue retired and in 1992 she donated a raft of her creations to Museum Victoria. Her designs are now highly collectible and I rue the day I had the opportunity to buy an Acton dress. It was a black midi dress with red and yellow trim and a fabulous keyhole design around the bust, and it fit me like a glove. Totally perfect for a backyard BBQ, but alas I walked away because it was a little out of my price range. And her designs are hardly a dime a dozen at your local thrift store.

This fabulously original dress just sold on Ebay.

And this cute little 1980s cocktail frock is available on NZ website Trade Me.

Or lastly you can check out this smashing wool jacket at Aussie online shop Ma Bel Ailie Vintage. Or maybe not, as I quite fancy it. Lovely with a pair of jeans for winter.

You can read more about Prue Acton here.

Photo credits: 1st image c/- In Vogue: 50 Years of Australian Style (HarperCollins), Dieter Muller, September 1975; Images 2 - 9 C/- Museum Victoria.

Vintage Men

A Life Magazine photo-gallery of the sexiest men of the 50's, 60's and 70's has inspired me to post on my third obsession after frocks and books; beautiful men (yes, yes ... at times I can be deeply shallow). Lucky for me, I have now found my own beautiful man - hopefully for keeps -but that doesn't stop me casting admiring glances at other gorgeous guys (although not in his company, of course). My number one celebrity crush in the past and now and on and on forever is the drop dead beautiful Paul Newman. Paul had blue eyes that could melt your soul, a kind and giving nature, was pretty tops in the acting department and knew how to make a mean tomato sauce. It is no mistake that I've posted two pictures of Paul sans shirt.

Paul Newman deservedly makes an appearance on the Life Magazine list, as does the eternal dreamboat Elvis.

And the near perfect Montgomery Clift. How hot is this photo??

Check out the list and see what you think, but to me there were a couple of omissions that I just had to post about here. One is 1950's romantic lead Rock Hudson. Lucky Elizabeth Taylor got to be the love interest in a James Dean/Rock Hudson triangle in the rather long, but definitely worth it flick Giant. Rock was also equally fabulous opposite Doris Day in romantic comedy mode, and as the brooding sex god type in Douglas Sirk's masterpieces Magnificent Obsession and All That Heaven Allows. Seriously ladies, who wouldn't love to wake up next to this face?

And something a little bit more out of left field for those of you who know him mainly from his role in the Austin Powers series, is a young Robert Wagner. Robert was positively scrumptious back in his day and he caught my eye as a young GI in the wonderful film A Song in My Heart. His eyes seem both innocent and cheeky at the same time.

Robert was married to the equally genetically blessed Natalie Wood twice and they were on their second marriage when Natalie sadly drowned in a freak accident. Poor guy.

The young Robert actually reminds me of photographs of my late Opa, who was known for being a bit of a fox in his youth. I sometimes think I may have inherited my partiality for beautiful boys from my Oma. Can I possibly blame her for all the trouble I've got into over the years?

And for anyone who hasn't seen Susan Hayward playing singer Jane Froman in the biopic With a Song in My Heart, I highly recommend it. Susan's performance is phenomenal and the story is a really intriguing one, with plenty of drama, great songs and some pretty frocks to boot.

My Own Piece of Vintage Hawaii

Has arrived! Bizarrely enough my Malia dress was quicker to arrive from Florida than some DVD's and books I'm waiting on from Melbourne. Go figure.

The print on the dress is too cute for words and it fits like a glove. The weather forecast for Sunday is an unseasonably warm 28 degrees, so it may get a public outing sooner than expected.

I promised a shout-out to the fabulous vintage vendor I purchased the dress from on E-bay. Denise from Magnificent Vintage has been operating for over thirty years and sells an impressive range of designer and non-designer vintage items in a variety of price ranges, with a particularly great selection of 60's and 70's frocks.

One of the best things about vintage is that because current high fashion is so cyclical -largely interpreting trends from the past - eagle eyed shoppers can dress on trend by buying directly from the past for a fraction of the cost of new designer duds, and at far better quality than the chain store rip-offs too.

In the midst of some truly disturbing 80's retreads, one trend that I'm loving at the moment is prints, from floral to pop-art and all manner of eye-catching loveliness in between. Oscar de la Renta, Stella McCartney, Balenciaga and design house of the moment, Balmain, have all been sending prints down the catwalk of late. Here are a few of the fabulous florals you can pick up at the Magnificent Vintage E-bay store right now.

A wool-blend floral mini-dress with pockets equals so hot right now.

I had to show the back-view of this gorgeous halter-neck which is very reminiscent of Oscar de la Renta's 2009 collection. It would look equally delectable on Joan Hollway of Mad Men or Scarlett Johannson.

The perfect spring party frock which is rocking a very now one-shouldered look.

A Pucci-esque strapless mini, this dress also has an adjustable sash in the back and some stretch, so it will hug your curves in all the right places.

I really like the print on this 70's dress which methinks could work for day or night.

These vintage purses are also super cute and definitely spring worthy.

And okay, okay, I admit that Hawaiiana isn't exactly on trend, but I just had to include this pink and green sarong dress because I love it. I could feel just like Rita Hayworth or Dorothy Lamour.

And the Aussie dollar is at 85c US ... very, very dangerous.