W.E- A 1930's extravaganza, full of long dresses and red lipstick

I adore every era of fashion, but particularly the 1920s to the 1960's, so when I heard that there was a film to be made with more 1930's outfits in it then the V&A, I got my bright red lipstick out and ditched my mini skirts. The film is W.E. pronounced 'WE' which came out on the 20th January. I know I'm a bit late in blogging about it, but I was pretty pre-occupied by the Asos sale. Asos you will be the death of my bank account.
W.E is co-written and directed by Madonna and tells the tale of two love stories. And no sadly it doesn't contain any leotards or leather cone bras.
 The story is set in 1998 through the eyes of American Wally Winthrop (Abbie Cornish), no she wasn't named after 'Where's Wally?', her mother was a fan of Wallis Simpson.
While Wally's abusive marriage is collapsing, she becomes obsessed with ' the greatest love affair of the 20th century.' No I'm not talking about Den and Angie from Eastenders, it was the love story between Wallis Simpson and Edward VIII, who was first in line to the throne at the time.
Wally becomes entranced with the story and is transfixed by how a man can love a women so much to give up everything. She joins in the excitement of the auction of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor's possessions and becomes mesmerised by the exquisite and personal artifacts on sale and takes several visits to the auction. Wally walks through rooms of furniture including the George III mahogany library table, at which Edward signed his abdication.

At the auction she meets the very handsome Russian security guard Evgeni played by Oscar Isaac. Whilst Wally is walking around the auction touching their possessions scenes cut to Wallis and Edward's relationship, which through a series of letters between them Wally finds out that there relationship wasn't so rosy. The film is called W.E. because that is how Wallis and Edward signed their letters from each other.
When Edward VIII played by the hunky James D'Arcy has to take up the throne when his father dies, he has to decide between ruling the country and doing what is expected of him, or the women he loves. Wallis was seen as a wrong partner for him due to her already two failed marriages and people thought she was driven by the power and money.
He decided to abdicate the throne, so his brother Albert (George VI) became King. This meant he could marry Wallis and they became the Duke and Duchess of York.
The beautiful actress Andrea Riseborough portrayed Wallis in 1936 with over 80 costume changes on set, lucky lucky girl. Couture designers including Balenciaga and Christian Dior and milliner Stephen Jones had the job of recreating Wallis's outfits, with many of her dresses in museum archives to drool over.

Edward VIII gifted Wallis with lavish jewellery including cross bracelets that he gave her on different occasions to celebrate their love, including one to wear for their wedding day. He had jewellery especially designed by himself full of diamonds and sparkle commissioned to give to his love, I hope you're listening Mr. Boyfriend.

Edward and Wallis got married in Paris on the 3rd June 1937 and lived their lives together in Paris, until Edward's death on the 28th May 1972. For her wedding day Wallis wore a simple dress by Mainbocher. They had a very simple and quite wedding, Kim Kardashian's it was not.

In real life Wallis was a huge fan of French designer Madeleine Vionnet, who was famous for inventing the bias cut making slinky figure hugging silk dresses. Madeleine Vionnet opened her own fashion house in 1912. Madeleine devised the bias cut in the 1920s using a miniature model, she also made the halter and cowl neck popular. Using her techniques Madeleine made some beautiful gowns in silks, crepes and chiffon's, creating a lot of flare and fluidity in the gowns. You can safely say that bustiers were no more, women could actually eat and breathe when they went out now.

Wallis was also a fan of Italian designer Elsa Schiaparelli who had a love of rich fabrics and fantasy clothes, her designs were the Lady Gaga of the 30's including a shoe hat and a skeleton dress. No telephones or a coat of frogs were to be seen here though.

Elsa got inspiration from cubist and surrealist artists, including Salvador Dali and Marcel Duchamp. Elsa began her career with knitwear and is known for her famous navy sweater with a contrast cream neckline and cream bow knitted into the design, its great even though it does remind me of a sailor's uniform.

Elsa regularly designed different variations of the little black dress and would accessorise with funky hats made to appear as mutton chops and ice cream cones.  Elsa used bright colours including shocking pink, hyacinth blue and turquoise, which women who were not a fan of all the slinkyness of Vionnet favoured. Elsa was also famous for the wide shouldered masculine suit that was made popular throughout Hollywood by Marlene Dietrich. Suits were adorned with shoulder pads way before Crystal Carrington got a look in, which were favoured during the war. Elsa collaborated with Dali and made some exquisite dresses including the skeleton dress, a tear dress and a lobster dress, along with a shoe hat. Gaga eat your heart out.

On the catwalk and in the high street elements of 30's clothes are appearing, including knee-length hems, prim collared tops and frocks and high waists. No shoe hats or skeleton dresses just yet though. Ralph Lauren, Jason Wu and Paul Smith. They've all obviously been sitting with the Kleenex watching Gone with the Wind, with a big tub of Popcorn and a bag of Maltesers.

Antique looking jewellery is also popular, with New Look and Asos having some great pieces. The high street is full of mid-length pencil skirts, which you can wear with a wavy up do to re-invent the Wallis look. There are also a lot of knee length dresses with prints that have high waists that will accentuate your curves.

New Look £12.99

New Look £34.99

New Look £34.99

New Look £6.99

New Look £3.99

 Asos £20

Asos £7

If you feel like having a go at making some 30's style clothing, you can find some great patterns on eBay and you can buy some fab Vogue vintage patterns here at Sew Direct.

The Half Moon Manicure was a popular nail trend in the 1930's which I have blogged about here. I've experimented this trend a few times now with more nail colours.
The 1930's were full of new fashionable creations from the bias cut to the zip. The female figure became more svelte with high fitted waists and mid-length skirts. Clothes were neat and feminine by day and gorgeously slinky and glamorous by night. Wallis Simpson was a great style icon of the 1930s, and is still used as inspiration for designers today. I love the 1930's from the fashion and hairstyles to the furniture and foods. I may not have a Prince to abdicate the thrown for me, but I do have my very own love affair with the 1930's, which I think I'll settle for. Well for now anyway.

Second Hand Rose
XxxX

4th and 5th December: The annual Christmas chore and a 90 year old smell

Yesterday the Second Hand Rose felt very wilted so she wasn't able to do a blog. I apologise to the whole nation and the world, who I'm sure were in pieces that they didn't have my satirical writing to read. The four calling birds didn't call me to the blog and while we are on the subject of the 12 days of Christmas, my true love please don't give me a partridge in a pear tree. A pair of shoes would be so much better and I don't think I could get away with selling it on eBay.

So I will combine the 4th and the 5th into one post. I did think about trying to doctor the date so I could do the 4th of December, but I couldn't find the big red button that said 'Fake the date'. So just to warn all the 5 people that are reading this, and they include my mum and dad, this is probably going to be a bit of a looong post.

4th December- The Christmas Card chore


Now it is the time for the annual ritual, sending Christmas cards to people you hardly ever see and only hear from once a year. It is the time to get newsletters from people and that are forced to read about how fabulous their trekking holiday in Kenya was and all the amazing things they have been up to. Mummy Second Hand Rose has started doing her Christmas cards, so que Daddy Second Hand Rose monaing about sending Christmas cards to people we never see, even though he has never actually written a Christmas card to people on the list all the time they have been married, they've just celebrated their 31st year.

In my later advent posts I'm going to talk more about Christmas cards and the histry of them, but here is a few of the Christmas cards sent over the last 100 years.

5th December: Chanel no5 perfume celebrates its 90th year

For the 5th I thought I would tell you all about the world's famous perfume, Chanel No.5. I know its not directly Christmas related, but it has its 90 years anniversary this Christmas. It was realeased in Christmas 1921 to a selected 100 customers. It was properly released in mid 1922 and since then the French government reports that the perfume is sold every thirty seconds and makes $100 million a year. Coco made the perfume because there was only two types of perfumes around at the time. There was a pure single flower essence for the 'respectable' lady and the perfumes with heavy jasmine or animal musk  were associated with 'sexually provocative' women, e.g. Lady's of the night. You know the easy girls you see in the club that bump and grind on the danceflor infront of people? Well that would be the perfume that they would wear. Coco wanted to create another style of perfume that would epitomize the boyish and modern flapper women. Basically she wanted to make a perfume that a broad range of women could wear and that would make them feel sexy yet still demure.

The perfume was developed by Russaian-French chemist and perfumer Ernest Beaux, incorporating the ideas that Coco had come up with. She spent a long time thinking about the perfume and what smells she wanted to come across. Ernest took a long time on creating this perfume in the late summer and autumn of 1920. I'm not going to give you a chemistry lesson so don't worry, but if you want to find out more about what is in the perfume and how it was created, check out this website Chemistry for the boffins. The website is not actually called that by the way, that's just me trying to be funny. Anyway, he prepared 10 bottles for Coco to look at and inspect. She fell in love with no.5 and said 'Number five. Yes, that is what I was waiting for, a perfume like nothing else, a perfume for a woman with the scent of a woman.' Well you would hardly want it to smell like men's sweaty socks would you?

1921 Advert

Now before you all think A. She was lazy and decided to go shopping or B. She has an obsession with the number five, there is a reason why it is called No.5. When she was twelve she went into the care of the nuns and spent six not so happy and disciplined years there. No rolling up her skirt or skiving mass for her then. The convent she lived in was Aubazine had been founded by Cistercians, a Catholic order who placed great emphasis on numerology. For them the number five signifed the embodiment of a thing, its spirit, its mystic meaning. Yeah I don't really understand that either. The paths, which led Chanel to the cathedral for daily prayer, were laid out in circular patterns repeating the number five. I just think they have a bit of an OCD. Coco loved the abbey gardens, and the surrounding hillsides. The hillsides were full of the flower cistus, a five-petal rose. The Cistercians got their name from this flower too. Coco said to Ernest "I present my dress collections on the fifth of May, the fifth month of the year and so we will let this sample number five keep the name it has already, it will bring good luck.' Yep, definitely a bit of an OCD, someone call the Priory. I can hardly talk though, I'm just a little bit obsessed with the number four and I can't bare the microwave beeps not being divisible by four,I regularly leg it to the microwave so it is divisible. Yeh, maybe I should call the Priory.


The design of the bottle has changed over the years, the bottle is not that different from the original though. Coco wanted her bottle to be different from the lavish bottles that were around at the time and she wanted it to be "pure transparency, an invisible bottle." Maybe she should borrow Harry Potter's cloak. The original had small, delicate, rounded shoulders and was only sold to select clients in Channel boutiques, the lucky gits. In 1924 when the perfume was to be shipped the glass was too thin so the bottle was modified with square corners. The bottle shape has stayed the same since 1924  but the stopper has gone through a few modifications, originally being a small glass plug. When the bottle shape was changed in 1924 the signature octagonal stopper came in. In the 1950s the stopper became bigger and thicker. In the 1970s the stopper became even more prominent, but in 1986 it was downsized so it didn't look too big for the bottle. The bottle has become so famous and iconic, the great Andy Warhol did a pop art silk screen in the mid-1980s and called it Ads:Chanel.


Chanel had to fight over the years for the right for the money due to her partners the Wherthemier brothers, especially Pierre being in her own words 'the bandit who screwed me'. They agreed to provide full financing for production, marketing and distribution on the perfume for 10% of the stock. This is like an early form of Dragon's Den. Coco was unhappy with the deal and worked for twenty years to gain full control. After a long and stressful battle they came to a mutual agreement. In May 1942 Coco received nine million dollars in today's money from war profits and in the future she recieved 2% of all the sales worldwide. Her earnings would have been huge, she would make an estimate $25 million a year. Wow, that is a lot of shoes.

So if you want to get your hands on some of this iconic perfume you can get it here at Boots-Chanel no5. Its also here at Amazon, and at House of Fraser. Yes ladies it is just a tad expensive, but it is on a whole different level to other perfumes. It epitomises pure glamour, not the fake glamour you see celebrities trying to recreate. This perfume represents real style, glamour, class and the amazing woman that is Coco Chanel. This is a timeless classic that is still extremely popular even after 90 years. Coco Chanel said 'A woman who doesn't wear perfume has no future.' Yeah I guess I better start saving then.


Second Hand Rose
XxxX