Edgar Allan Poe Halloween Costume (the Last Halloween post of 2013)

Good morning!

I know, I know, you're like....enough with the Halloween costumes! We get it, we get it! But I have just one more I have to share, as I'm just bursting at the seams to tell you all about it now that the event is over. Behold, Edgar Allan Poe (plus bonus raven):

I know I kind of spoiled the surprise last week by mentioning that I really wanted to dress Matthew up as the dark bard of Baltimore, but I was sure my attempts would be thwarted by lack of raven (where is the murder of them I have hiding in a box in the attic? I couldn't tell you). I swallowed my pride and went to the Dollar Tree on Dickerson Road to grab a pair of the birds, affixing to the better of the two a word bubble to make sure everybody got that it was specifically EAP and not some random 1840's ghoul. The bird was attached to a piece of cardboard stand by two metal wires, which I dutifully attached to the shoulder of the jacket. I used a kohl pencil to darken in Matthew's eyebrows and give him a little mustache. The coat is a straight up tuxedo-jacket-with-tails that I forced him to buy at Southern Thrift off Charlotte a dog's age ago.

The shirt and tie was surprisingly the easiest, and maybe the most identifiable as mid 19th century, part of the costume-- by buttoning a regular white Oxford shirt all the way to the top, and then pulling the collar up to far higher than our modern millennials would wear the neck of their shirt, all I had to do then was take this cloth dress belt and tie it like the cravats of the time. I have to say, just looking up stuff like this "neckcloth" tying chart from I think about sixty years earlier than our goal makes me want to run out and study costume design. How great is it that you can recreate the ties of the colonial period right at home, with the proper knowledge and a piece of cloth?

Not too bad a likeness, huh? PS I LOVE HALLOWEEN DRESSUP. I wish I could do it at least five more times a year.

I told you Matthew had to work Thursday night, so when I got home and the house was dark, I switched on the light in the kitchen, set down my keys, and was surprised to find this completely adorable little Halloween vignette set up on the table, especially for me! Matthew had wrangled a lot of different skull-themed items from the house (we have more than I thought we did!), plus the books I told you about last week, as presentation of the new little skull (the silver guy in the middle-- his eyes light up different spooky colors!) and some candy and a card. Please note that while I love to be spoiled upon holidays possibly more than any adult woman should, the table tableau had caught me completely off guard! And what a nice surprise for a wind-howling, particularly creepy Halloween night to be home alone!

La carte, dans son intégralité:

How sweet! And a special message on our little markerboard we use to remind the other we're out of toothpaste or spinach leaves:

SO CUTE! A trio of little ghostie type people wishing me a Happy Halloween! I was so pleased I actually called my mom before I started dinner. "Youwon'tbelievewhatmatthewsetuponthetable!" I eeked. And that's not everything! We had a ball at Kate's party Saturday night, though I thought my envy of her THREE, count 'em, THREE full sized Halloween skeletons might actually kill me. Favorite couples costumes of the year-- Kate and Trey as Swayze and Chris Farley from the SNL Chippendale's skit; Kimmie and Jamie as SONIC AND TAILS NO JOKE OMG; and Ciciley and Bobby as Freddie Mercury and Brian May (you wouldn't think a girl could pull off La Mercury in his mustache period, but she's a stylist! Where there's a will, there's a way, and it worked!). I spent most of the night goading Audrey into doing her (spot on) WC Fields imitation for the 1,000,000th time (at my behest). GREAT. TIME.

                          

So! Halloween 2013 is dead ! Long live Halloween 2013! Did you have a good weekend? See any hilarious costumes or make any grand gestures in the holiday spirit for your loved ones? Let's talk!

I promise, PROMISE PROMISE, to stop talking about Halloween as of tomorrow. Get ready for more fall mayhem and much in the way of vintage weekend finds as soon as possible. See you back here Tuesday! Til then.

Photo Friday: Halloween Isn't Just for Kids Edition (1966-1976)

Good morning!

Well, we had gale force winds here in Nashville last night, so I hope all the brave little trick or treaters who faced the wildly unpredictable weather here in the 615 were rewarded for the efforts with heaps and heaps of chocolates and sour candies! Me, I hid in the house with only tangential lighting on, watching American Horror Story: Coven, and eating chana saag out of the Appetite for Reduction cookbook (that book has been my JAM lately...hit after hit! Like a Huey record!). The lights dimmed at one, very creepy moment, and the winds howled past my window all night, but everything's ok on the first of November so far! I plan on hitting the estate sales today with my Pappy, as he has a teacher's holiday and I have Friday off. Not too shabby!!

While Halloween is technically over, calendar-wise, don't think She Was a Bird recognizes the passage of this date as a reason to stop posting about All Hallow's Eve...heck no! You'll get a recap of my weekend partying at Kate's annual bash, and this, today's post on Halloweens of the sixties' and seventies', and then MAYBE I will relent in my jack o lantern like spirit and go back to normal blogging. MAYBE.

Today, I found a million photos of kids' parents, with and without kids, dressed up for Halloween, circa year of our Lord 1966-1976. You know you want to look! Let's!

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While the boys have opted for licensed costumes, a pretty little ballerina (covered up in a button up sweater, it must have been cold that year!) stands with her brothers on the sidewalk, a proud mama just slightly behind them in the background. It only now occurs to me that, like everything in my grandparents' generation, even if you didn't don a costume, escorting tiny Halloweeners to and from your neighbor's houses in the pursuit of candy was more than enough reason to dress to the nines. Here, the mom is rocking a fire engine red pantsuit, and doesn't she look like a pip! I love how "together" this ensemble is. The little tinman has abandoned his stroller for a photo opportunity! Nothing not to love about this pic.

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Here's a mom channeling Tura Satana in Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! to accompay a tiny Huckleberry Hound on his trick or treat outings. These seem to be just opaque tights worn outside a girdle! But, if you got it, heck, flaunt it, she looks cute in her little black rabbit ears. The matching lollipops are an inspired touch, and they both look adorable.

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This mom gets my vote for best DIY costume-- where I've seen some moms spend an Andrew Lloyd Weber stage production worth of time, effort, and money on a child's Halloween costume, this one gets my "best in show" vote for being so PROFESSIONALLY home made and meticulously turned out. While it still is obviously crafted by hand, it's been done with such around the house materials that looking at this pitch-perfect Big Bird makes you feel sorry you didn't think creatively enough to do it yourself! With all Woolworth's paper products, probably totaling less than the cost of a ham sandwich, this kid looks like a million bucks! Hats off to you, Mom of Big Bird.

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Watch out, a bunch of teenage Flintstone neighbors dead ahead! I love the "my folks' living room" setting of this photo, complete with dust-ruffled, golden rod couch and barrel shaded lamp. Fun fact: the clubs in their hands are actually gourds from their parents' (the user's grandparents') backyard!! I love that the men are still wearing dirty trainers and socks WITH their prehistoric garb. Still, points for the hat and the tie, respectively. This was a double date for the parents of the person who posted the photo, and from the looks of it, a successful one!!

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Dang, sexy nun! If I had legs like that, maybe I'd be a sexy nun, too! The 1966 party spread behind her is making me wish I threw a party this year. Wood paneling, succession of ever taller votives-- this is the life I want!!

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I love how 90% of vintage photos of ones' grandparents or parents make one think that whatever life their parents were leading in 19xx, it was a way cuter, more fun version of the one we're leading now. Look at these apples suspended on strings in a cinder-block basement! These kids are having a whale of time, and doesn't it just make you want to drop everything and join them in the zeitgeist of this moment! I wonder if it's because we have too many photos of everything, from the important to the ultra mundane, that we don't get little slice of life photos like this as much as we used to. I'll have to make an effort to find out.

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Last but not least--- THE BEST. PHOTO. OF THEM ALL. Look at pretty leopard-print leotard girl and her "mummy's-the-word" companion! AAAAAH, in their awesome vintage living room complete with space age  tv, vinyl ottoman, and encyclopedia set! I WANT THIS TO BE MY LIFE. The sunglasses are killin' it worse than y'all have ever killed it. TOP MARKS, somebody-else's-parents!!

Did your parents ever dress up for Halloween? Remember any memorable times they took your trick or treating? What Halloween traditions do you hope to pass on to your kids? Let's talk!

That's all for today, but I will see you right back here on Monday for more tips and quips. Keep a good thought for me in the costume department on Saturday, I hope it all works out! See you next week. :)

Classic Hollywood Halloween Costumes Suggestions

Good morning!

Well, the witching hour is upon us. Have you got your jack o lanterns all lit up, on display? Candy ready for your trick or treaters? I am so pumped for the big day to be here! Today I was looking for Old Hollywood costumes on Google images and thought it might be fun to make some styleboards for costumes I either haven't seen enough of or haven't seen any of. If you're looking for a classic Hollywood costume and are out of last minute ideas, profitez from my little haphazard daydreams of "costumes I haven't worn yet".

Roll film!

1) Bette Davis as Baby Jane Hudson in Whatever Happened to Baby Jane?

Wig, shoes, baby doll, dress

This is really something I've been kicking around doing for ye-e-e-e-ars, but I've never gotten around to it! Mainly, I think you would need a wig to drive home the point (did you know the one Davis wears in the film is actually one that co-star Joan Crawford wore in a silent movie, waaaay back at the beginning of her career? Total coincidence!), and I have yet to commit to one for the part. I'm pretty sure 90% of people would just think you were going as a baby doll, but maybe you could carry a copy of the dvd or your own "Baby Jane doll" around with you to help jog people's memories. For this part, Bette Davis famously made herself look every year, month, day, and hour of her fifty four years, and then some, accentuating those enormous eyes with dark kohl, and painting her face an almost geisha white. Heavy black eyelashes and a beauty mark would round out the makeup. Don't forget to practice your best rendition of "I've Written a Letter to Daddy", with or without accompaniment, and your delivery of the line "But-cha aaaaahhhh, Blanche, y'aaaaahre in that chaaair!" It takes a lot for me to favor a non-Joan Crawford character in a Joan Crawford movie, but Bette Davis is just extraordinary in this scene-chomping role. 

2) Rita Hayworth as Gilda in...well, Gilda

shoes, dress, gloves, necklace 

If you were thinking something glamorous and sophisticated, but didn't want to go for the more obvious Holly Golightly costume, why not try Rita Hayworth as Gilda in her famous glove-strip-tease scene from the 1946 noir, co-starring Glenn Ford? While a long, strapless satin gown would be prettier, all I could dang find on the internet was pageant dress after pageant dress, and this strap-ful satin hourglass dress-- yet I know your local Goodwill is bound to have something suitably at least 1980's-does-1940's for your bombshell needs. The opera length black satin gloves are crucial, as Rita makes their removal in the musical number "Put the Blame on Mame" somehow more scandalous and suggestive than a full burlesque fan dance in pasties. Another important part is Rita's hair-- you need a serious forties' style wave to get your Rita across in earnest, and auburn red hair wouldn't hurt, either! This pincurl tutorial looks amazing...you can draw inspiration from one of the most famous head-flips in all of movie history. "Me? Decent?" She kills me! Every time!

3) Marlene Dietrich as Lola Lola in The Blue Angel

collar, shoes, camisole, tap pants, stockings , top hat, skirt 

Deadset on a "sexy" costume, in spite of perilously plummeting late October temperatures? How about Lola Lola from von Sternberg's The Blue Angel? Dietrich drew her costume inspiration from cabaret singers and drag queens she knew from her bohemian social life in Weimar Berlin in the late twenties', the top hat and some of the sequined shifts actually on loan from the real deal people. Even though she would slim down to a wisp of herself for her American film debut in Morocco the next year (you could cut glass on those cheekbones!), she's smoldering in her breakthrough role as the temptress who ruins repressed schoolteacher Emil Jannings one sexily turned ankle at a time. This is similar to a Sally Bowles, Cabaret costume, but more frilly and embellished with sequins and frippery than the sleek Liza Minnelli wardrobe for that film. Like the previous two suggestions, this costume, too, comes with a musical selection! "Falling in Love Again" is Lola Lola's signature song, and Dietrich's deep-voiced, belted, sultry delivery on this made it a recognizable personal anthem in her later personal appearances and concerts for the next thirty-five years (here she is singing it in 1963 in the Netherlands!).

4) Lauren Bacall as Vivian in The Big Sleep

Last but not least, possibly the easiest costume out of the bunch-- if you can find a decent houndstooth suit and a black beret, you've got a perfectly serviceable Lauren Bacall costume from her role in the second of four movies she and Bogart would make together. The former Betty Joan Perske had become the fourth and final Mrs. Bogart by the time this movie was released, and boy, do they crackle together on screen. With her poise and elegant looks, it's hard to believe Bacall was twenty one during production on the film...author's note, I neither looked that poised nor that elegant at the age of twenty one (or at twenty-eight, for that matter!). This checked suit shows up so beautifully on screen, too-- perfect for black and white photography. This cracks me up about the movie, from the Wikipedia page: 

The Big Sleep is known for its convoluted plot. During filming, allegedly neither the director nor the screenwriters knew whether chauffeur Owen Taylor was murdered or had killed himself. They sent a cable to Chandler, who told a friend in a later letter: "They sent me a wire ... asking me, and dammit I didn't know either".

That's movie magic though! What does it matter when all you're really concerned about is whether or not the two principals will get together in the end after the murder is more or less solved! Bogart's ruse as a "book collector" in one of the scenes is one of the highlights of the movie. Iconic costume in only two major pieces...what could be easier?

What do you think? Which of these would you like to try for yourself on Halloween this year or next? Have you ever dressed as an old time celebrity? I was Bette Davis as Margot Channing in All About Eve one year, with a big, Margo-esque dress and my hair curled, but I still had to point to my VHS copy of the movie all night so people would get it. It was college! What did I expect? What are your plans this year? Let's chat!

That's all for today, but I'll be back tomorrow for Photo Friday. Have a FRIGHTFUL Halloween night tonight, and I'll see you then! :)

Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories (2013)

Good morning!

Just in time for Halloween, Yamishibai: Japanese Ghost Stories is one of my best internet discoveries of late! Like well-crafted horror, a vintage aesthetic, and/or Japanese culture? You are in luck, my friend.

The day after the wedding but the day before the honeymoon, we were both in a daze and spent most of that Sunday curled up in the green room watching these Asian horror snippets that, in spite of looking like a friendly little animated series, are completely terrifying. Each episode is available to watch for free on the anime site Crunchyroll, and don't think I haven't done exactly that. 

The title of the series is a play on the word "kamishibai". A storytelling technique that originated in 12th century Japan, kamishibai enjoyed a resurgence in the first half of the twentieth century. The performance art utilizes paper scrolls to illustrate morality stories, and was popular in twenties' through the fifties' in the format you see above-- the storyteller would arrive on a bicycle outfitted with a wooden "theater" to display a series of still pictures. Yamishibai uses the framework of that as the introduction to each episode-- as a portly Hitchcock or a bushy eyebrowed Serling would introduce each of their spooky tales, so does the kamishibai storyteller (did they wear creepy masks like this? Or is that some to-make-it-scarier touch?) introduce each little snippet of horror.

I can't not look!

A lot of what appeals in this and other terror imports from Japan is the economy with which each story is told. I'm reminded immediately of Hontoni Kowai Hanashi (Scary True Stories, which I posted about last year)...I spent like two days straight watching six minute segment after six minute segment of that show on Youtube, because the thrills and chills just kept coming! With less than 10 minutes to get your scare across, you don't have time to set up jerry-rigged character motivations and interlace multiple flimsy plotlines-- in other words, there's no room for the "fat" of a lot of exercises in horror, just the lean, straight terror. Lots of old time radio shows were that way-- with thirty minutes, you don't have the luxury of spending fifteen of them explaining why you're going up to a haunted cabin in the woods; the show had better open with you there, about to find something terrible crawling on the roof! One of the best of this genre was "Inside Out", by Lights Out, Everybody genius Arch Oboler (it appears under the title "The Dark" on a sixties' record Mr. O put out, also here on Youtube). In eight minutes, there's a full opera of horrible things happening in the sub-basement of an abandoned building, and it's only after you're scared out of your skin that you might even pause to think why x happened at z moment. Who cares! It's just scary! 

You would noooot like what this cute girl is seeing with that flashlight.

Yamishibai is like that. The off-kilter, paper-theater way the animation is presented only makes it more effective. Nothing is still in the frames, but ever-so-slightly moving. One of my favorites (they're all my favorites) of the baker's dozen of entries up on Crunchy Roll is "Contradiction", which opens with a ringing telephone in the middle of the night and a desperate call from a friend who thought it would be fun to break into an abandoned hospital with her boyfriend (you know, like you do). Spoiler alert: bad things happened at the hospital. I love how the emphasis in these little cutlets is not on working out, in a cerebral, mystery murder kind of way, why things are happening. The spare fact, just that things are happening, that is deeply unsettling. You know how, in a dream, there's no logic to what is terrifying about "that door", but you just know, somewhere in your primal little guts, that whatever's behind it is wrong, or bad? There's the exact nerve this and the other Japanese series hits. I wish someone in America would adopt this kind of gut-level horror! I'm so tired of all these wan Saw remakes-- pictures where people who don't understand what is scary try to make a whole movie about it. What we need is real, old-fashioned, curl your hair scares!

Turns out yes, they did. SO. FREAKIN. SCARY. (episode here)

It's neat, too, that the chapters are presented in their original Japanese with subtitles. Nothing in this world is worse for a foreign film o phile than sitting through something serious that has been dubbed. NOTHING. EUUGH. I can't bear it. Also, watching a ton of them back to back, my little parrot brain loves picking up a word or two in another language. Things I learned, which are things you need to know in a Japanese horror setting: chotto matte (wait a minute), Taihen-da! (something terrible, or an emergency), dou shita no (what's wrong?), oka-aah-san (mom!). Matthew, from his scholarly obsession with j-rock, old school anime, and Japanese video games, can speak actually quite a lot of Japanese (he took classes at TFLI, too, which couldn't have hurt his fluency), so I can be like "WHAT DO THEY KEEP SAYING?" and he can actually explain to me the vocabulary being used. Nerd alert. 

Have you watched anything deeply unsettling lately? Got a yen for horror that just isn't sated by your run of the mill teen scream movie? What do you like to watch on Halloween to get you in the proper spooky spirit? Let's talk!

If you end up watching an episode or two (or...again, all of them at once), let me know what you think!! Show link here.

That's all for today-- if I recover from the series of tiny cardiac episodes the ends of each of these clips has created in my terror-weakened body, I will be back tomorrow with more Halloween postings! Til then. :)

Casablanca Waiter Halloween Costume (2013)

Good morning!

For day two of my Halloween-week posts, I'll show you how we turned Matthew from "guy-without-a-costume" to "Hollywood extra of the golden age" in five steps or less. Folks, it CAN be done! I sent Matthew to the grocery store the Saturday afternoon, pre-party, and he came back home to a half dressed, frazzled Gold Dust Woman.

Matthew: ((walking in the door, buoyantly)) Hey, I got a different kind of salsa, you know it doesn't taste the same since they changed it that one time--
Me: ((stamping around in platform boots, while affixing hot rollers to hair, panicked)) We have six ravens in this house! Six! Any idea where any one of them may be?!
Matthew: ((gingerly sets new salsa on kitchen counter, with touching innocence)) No?
Me: Aaaaaack! [Cathy style, starts rampaging through Matthew's closet with 30 minutes until the party]

Don't worry though, because THIS suddenly occurred to me:

It looks even swankier when paired with the leopard print couch!!

I really out-do myself in hoarding weird vintage clothes, men's and women's both. Backstory: I was going to dress Matthew up as a shriner (remember my great fez?)-- come to find out, it is sorely looked upon for non-shriners to wear masonic garb (my bad). I thought maybe Matthew could dress as Edgar Allan Poe-- EAP's a favorite of mine, plus heck, Matthew looks a little like him...but I was unable to locate any of the umpteen ravens I bought in a fit of The Birds decorating mania one year (and too proud to buy another). Saturday morning, at the flea market, I found a fez (with a vinyl carrying case...no joke!) on a $5 table outside the dairy exhibition building, and picked it up thinking I might be able to dress him up as Victor Mature in The Shanghai Gesture, a kind of suave, desert lothario. Finally, we hit upon inspiration...a French Morrocan waiter in an old forties' movie! No, seriously! Matthew's friend Brian texted him to ask if my parents' party was a dress-up thing, and Matthew texted him back the following picture with the caption, "You tell me" :

I drew his moustache in a little crooked, but he's still adorable.

I know you're going "Why would you think forties' waiter first off when seeing a fez like this?", and do you know, I searched the internet up and down to try and explain to Matthew where it was his costume inspiration was coming from. Many, many hits on Wilmer Valderrama later, I was able to find this Australian costume company website's "1920's waiter costume", which I combined here with a photo of the exterior of Rick's Café Americain from Casablanca:

See! I'm not crazy! (N.B.: I may still be crazy)

We used a white Navy dress-uniform jacket (the Navy equivalent of a black-tie uniform) and a cummerbund from some long ago estate sale, a seventies' bow-tie that is a little too John Travolta, but it couldn't be helped, a pair of white gloves, and the fez from the flea market...and voilà! Costume. My husband says to me on the ride over to the party, "I am more than happy to be the canvas. And this is a really great costume!" Crisis averted. Look at the stamp inside the fez:

The same hat on Worthpoint here

Authentic, huh! I thought it was just a very good quality party fez...turns out, it's the real deal from Cairo, probably sometime in the fifties'! The same hat, with the same case, sold on ebay.co.uk in 2011 for $78 USD. GOOD GRIEF! Score.

Here's Matthew and my dad from the party itself-- I love how they look like they're from the same movie, Pappy as a Clark-Gable-in-Mogambo style safarist, and Matthew as a local double agent at the Casbah Club. We grabbed one of my many serving trays for him to use as a prop, and what's more, it came in handy! Soon, Sus, her husband Matt, and I were sipping Coke Zeros and crackin' up about Halloweens past, as Matthew murmured in his best faux French accent, "Mesdames, messieurs, bienvenue to ze Casbah clooob.". Later, we carved pumpkins with the Huberts, and had a ball! It was a great start to whatever else Halloween season 2013 has in store for us!

What's your favorite "last minute" costume? Have any strokes of genius in the midst of a panic? Are you more of a "planning it for months" costumier or a "Um, I'm...uh...a college student?" type fancy dress donner? Let's talk!

That's all for today but more shrieks and scares on the blog tomorrow. I'll see you then!

                       

Stevie Nicks Halloween Costume (2013)

Good morning!

I know, it's a little late to get ramped up about All Hallow's Eve-- I just put out my jack o lantern and my skeleton-that-plays-"Dixie"-for-no-apparent-reason (he's a rebel skeleton from the dirty south? I have no idea...like this one but sans the hat) today, which makes me feel like I've missed it altogether! However, with some festivities behind us (my folks' Halloween get together) and some yet ahead (my friend Kate's annual bash), we're ready to keep the spirit of Halloween alive in our hearts. Today and tomorrow, I'll show you our costumes from this past weekend, and hopefully, by Friday, we'll be ready for Saturday eve's fancy dressup occasion.

Here's my first costume, which, as the title of this post would clue you in, is a nod to the gypsy frontwoman of Fleetwood Mac:

A rare, eyeliner-less Lisa! I hadn't decided what to do for makeup at this point, and forgot
to take more pictures in the rush to get out the door!!

This was my best Stevie Nicks impersonation without actually going to the lengths of dyeing or feather perming my hair a reasonable Stevie platinum (I thought about it, but I couldn't commit to keeping it blonde). I'm wearing four inch heels and a top hat, which, as my dad pointed out upon my arrival at his house, actually makes me taller than his own 6'2'' (I think 6'6'' or so, including the hat, was the final tally). I have always (been a storm?) harbored a completely un-secret ambition to front a Stevie Nicks cover band, and now I know I have the wardrobe to pull it off, at least!! Now, to book some casino gigs and find a backing band....

My style board:

Inspiration board...top hat, sequins, boots. DONE.

Stevie's Fleetwood Mac (1975) and early Rumours (1977) look, on stage and off, was more bohemian gypsy patchwork than Welsh witch. I've always been a fan of the Rumours world tour or Tusk (1979) and onwards look of just piles of chiffon, velvet, sequins...shoulderpads out to here....hair like your mom probably had when you were a kid, teased to bejesus...that's my speed in a heartbeat. While her leotards and angel-sleeved black sheet dresses were chic, that "no, seriously, I'm in a rock and roll band" look of the late seventies' and early eighties' for Stevie is one of my favorites (and way more recognizable than say a even a cool outfit like this). To put it together, I wore a top hat from Thrift Smart out on Nolensville Rd, and teeteringly high heeled boots from  the newly opened Goodwill at Indian Lake. Items from the Zelda boutique off Hillsboro Rd's moving sale (Patterson Estate Sales did the honors) rounded out my look-- panne velvet layered lavender skirt,  sequined shawl pinned onto a camisole, and, my favorite piece, this 1910's jacket, which came with the following label:

OH MY SWEET LORD, $595. HOW. I knew the store, now in a larger location near the Bluebird Cafe and within walking distance of its old location, was a chi-chi, upscale kind of place to buy women's clothing . In its former incarnation on Harding Road (most of the estate sale inventory was from that time, I guess?), the boutique seems to have sold actually antique lace flapper dresses and remade/remodeled vintage clothing of a romantic persuasion. Lots of sequins, feathers, and feminine boho lines on these exquisite clothes-- however, I had no idea I would have to take out a loan to shop there retail back in the day! The coat was marked down to $195, as you see on the label, then priced at $70 by Patterson-- I got it for half off on the second day, so $35 total expenditure (which, before I saw the old price tag, I actually thought was a little high when compared with flea market prices for similar goods! Eeek!). Here are some close ups of my Stevie clothes:

You can see the detail on the sequined shawl and the jacket's embroidery a little better up close, but not much (I have to get a better camera, kids!). I wish I could wear stuff like this all the time, to tell the truth! I have a whole Rubbermaid storage bin, in my closet, of sequins and black velvet, chiffon and taffeta, shoulder padded, nipped waisted, jackets and blouses and skirts and dresses, circa 1980-1992. All black or gold or silver. As ubiquitous as these items seem on Goodwill racks now, I know that someday they'll come back into fashion, and I won't be able to have my actual-gold-items at fool's gold prices! I visited Pura Vida Vintage on Music Row a month or two ago with Jen Quier, and saw that there was a whole front room of these kinds of frippery, and knew my hoarding hadn't been in vain!

Anyway, what do you think? How would you make this outfit even "more Stevie"? Kelsey opined "MORE SCARVES. ALWAYS MORE SCARVES." and my friend Caroline, "You need to crimp your hair!" (words that have not been spoken so earnestly since 1994). Have you dressed up as a favorite celebrity for Halloween before? What touches made your costume especially "that person"? Let's talk!

               

That's all for today, but I will see you guys back here tomorrow for more HaaaaalllllooooooWEEEEEN..... (thunderclap, organ music). Til then! :)