A Painter's Style

This is Sharon Eisley who is a fine artist friend of mine. I've known her for almost 20 years but we've only been friends for about the last 16 or 17 of those years. I have always loved her personal style and when she recently paid a quick visit to us I managed to take a few snapshots of her wearing a rose barrette I made and gave her.

What I love about her style: it's eclectic, colorful, interesting, pretty, flattering (even when she's wearing a style that isn't a personal favorite of mine, like cords- all the rage with youngsters like her- somehow she pulls it off), and it's not shy.

She is famous for finding great things at thrift stores. She has also been known to sew some really cute clothes for herself using vintage patterns. The next time I go to her house I must do a shoot of her wearing her forties pants and top (the same pattern I have in my collection).

Now she's a mom of two kids and never lets herself frump out or start weirdly believing that now that she's a mom she must become more restrained and boring. Something that happens to some women.

I am especially infatuated with the top she's wearing.

If you want to have a look at her art visit her here: Sharon Eisley

Or read her blog here: When In Home

Betty Davis Bathing Suit

I don't buy vintage patterns any more because I've spent quite a lot of money for the ones I have and the prices, while I was still collecting them, were consistently crawling up until at last they were plainly out of my reach. I am so happy I fought hard for the two vintage bathing suit patterns I managed to get my hands on before the game was up. This one cost me $30 something dollars. It was worth it. I have never seen another copy of it. This is such a cute swimsuit style! I'd totally wear it, though I'd worry about my boobs flopping around under that unsupported top.



If you look closely at the picture you will see that the design suggests you can also wear it as a play-suit.

Vintage bathing suit patterns are more rare than vintage lingerie patterns. My greatest pleasure is that I managed to get a few truly sweet examples of each before my mad collecting was shut down.

I can't find a copyright date on it but it's clearly the 1930's. If I had to guess more particularly I would say between 1930 and 1935.

Eyebrows Lead to Sin and Corruption: Remove them for best safety features

Lately there's been an anti-brow trend in fashion. When a person is born with light or no eyebrows it seems completely visually sweet and normal and I have never thought "That person needs to get themselves a prosthetic brow!". However, many less salubrious thoughts come to mind when I see people otherwise brow-endowed either white them out or shave them.

SHAVE THEM?!! For fashion shoots I don't believe anyone is asked to shave their brows. Though why I shouldn't imagine such a thing is a mystery since I'm pretty sure it's expected that all models have a brazilian wax or a porn-star special*. (This is obviously the main reason I never became a supermodel.)

This trend makes me think of chemotherapy. It makes me think of aliens. The best thing it makes me think of is David Bowie in his least sexy sartorial moment in time when he recorded Aladdin Sane and had himself photographed with Twiggy. Who wouldn't?

I find myself feeling that there is some religious cult at work here.

It's almost as though some designers have come to realize that the eyebrow is nothing more than a cumbersome slug on the face, or that it embodies some symbol of imposed chastity and one can be much more liberated if one just REMOVES the offending feature completely!

Look carefully at those brow-less women, don't they seem like they might be capable of leading Jesus himself down a corrupt path where there is nothing going but carnal ruptures in chintzy thin curtained motel rooms on the off-off Vegas strip where every room is gilded with ceiling mirrors and vibrating mattresses and everything is spent by the hour and billed to the man on top?


Yes, that is me. Thanksgiving 1996. It's a shame you can't see it in this picture but I managed to match my hair to my band jacket EXACTLY (with permanent dye). It's tempting to blame Boy George for this brow perfidy, but if anyone in particular can be blamed I'm afraid the honors go completely to David Bowie. Not even David doing Aladdin but David doing "The Man Who Fell To Earth" which I can't watch now or I kind of want to kill myself just a little. Back then I watched it at least 13 times in one year**. The first time I saw it I saw it in the theater. I think that's fairly damning in itself.

Now look, shaving your eyebrows is a big commitment and quite disturbing. You can see I speak from regrettable experience.

I say it's regrettable because I know it's what you need to hear so you can sleep again. Truth is, I still enjoy pictures of myself with the brashly painted BLACK AS SIN brow on my pale as the north pole face.

What I'm happy no one can see, that there's no photographic proof of is what I looked like in the morning, sans theatrics. An unnaturally naked brow is not a pretty sight. I'm pretty sure an unnaturally naked brow is a gateway facial feature to sin.



Yes, it's all about sin. No matter how I may twist and turn the whole naked brow trend it seems fraught with bad behavior and at least two of the seven deadly sins: sex and rock-n-roll.

And purposeful hideosity.






*The 100% naked 12 year old special.

**That was impressive back when I didn't have my own vcr collection and had yet to let my OCD loose and free. I was still trying to control myself at least a little bit. If I hadn't been I would have watched it exactly 543 times in one year.

Wear your roadkill!

It's taken a long time but it seems the fashion industry has finally decided to cash in on the diy/frugal movement. You don't need to pay thousands of dollars for luxury furs anymore because now it's chic to look shaggy... all you need is a little (bad) luck, a very large car, and a skinning knife, things that everyone already has on hand!


If you're really lucky you'll hit a wolf, like this girl did. Don't have enough salvageable fur for sleeves? No problem! Sleeves on winter coats are passe. With global warming we'll all be wearing nothing but fur wristlets soon anyway.

The great thing about this new moment in furs is that what used to be a total waste of dead alpaca on the roadside is "upcycled" into a garment that everyone will want to borrow from you!






(Although I don't think it is wrong to wear a fur coat if you live in an arctic climate where that may be your best bet for keeping warm, I am fundamentally opposed to the fur industry. I do wear leather and I'm uncomfortable with that too, though when I wear synthetics I get foot fungus.)

Simplicity 4628

I have quite a few vintage slip patterns. This one isn't super exciting but it sure is practical. I do wish it included a pattern for the bra at the right- vintage bra patterns are much harder to find. I don't think as many women sewed their own bras even back then. Slips, however, are generally easy to sew. It's not easy to find attractive modern undergarment patterns. Luckily I don't need to.


If I ever get back to a vintage size 20 (38 bust, 32 waist) I'll finally make myself a ton of slips. And dresses to go over them. I've made at least one from my collection though I can't find it.

I don't see a date on the pattern but I'd say this is mid 1940's.

A Smock and a Dress

These are designs I sketched twelve years ago. I was playing around a lot with designing clothes that could be worn to do anything in- garden, cook, clean, play, or socialize. That's a smock on the left. The dress was something I thought I might like to make for myself to wear in summer.

Please observe that my croquis are not underfed. In the context of fashion design a croquis is a drawing of a figure on which a designer may quickly sketch new design ideas.

Girdle Designs

These are designs I sketched for girdles. I love vintage lingerie and have a small collection. I've always been interested in designing and learning to make a collection of them for myself. I did once start working on a girdle pattern and sample when I was still costuming but I never finished it.

I dislike most modern undergarments. Everyone already knows what I think of thong underwear both from a philosophical, a comfort, and especially from a fashion point of view. I dislike all sleazy undergarments. My favorite period for undergarments is the 20's through the 40's. Pre-bullet bras which have never been my favorite, though they've enjoyed some renewed popularity from time to time.

This is a pencil sketch I made some time in 2008. I wish I would date all my sketches like I do my writing. I had to increase the contrast in this scan by a lot just to show the line drawing, so it looks a little funny.