(Life) Style Tips in February 2021

While it is February, one can taste the full joys of anticipation. Spring stands at the gate with her finger on the latch. 

Patience Strong

While the 26th is Tell a Fairy Tale Day and the 28th is Tooth Fairy day, let’s make it an entire Fairy Week. February doesn’t have a lot going for it, so it’s the perfect time for a week-long celebration of the otherworldly. Get inspired by fantastic recipes, dress in your otherworld finery or get together with a friend or two for a distanced viewing of a favourite fairy-themed film.

Slowly start emerging from your January cocoon. Wear lightweight layers symbolising your new, still somewhat crumpled wings that are about to unfold in the coming spring. Thin wool muslins would be fantastic – warm and ethereal – but cotton over tight layers of wool will do the trick, too. If you’re not sure where to start, how about a thin but luxuriously long shawl? If you wrap it right, the ends even look like wings.

February is the shortest month, so if you’re having a miserable month, try to schedule it for February.

Lemony Snickett

If you kept to neutrals at the beginning of the year start introducing blocks of colours or simple patterns like stripes or checkerboard (or polka dots, if you must). Get your inspiration from the muslin dresses of the 1820s, 1980s characters like Peppermint Rose and Lady Lovely Locks or the illustrations of Kate Greenaway.

Once again we have Ballet day on our hands, so why not indulge your childhood fantasies of becoming a dancer by means of home-workout? It is surely more fun than crunches and planking. And if there’s no-one else around to judge you for your self-perceived “silliness” (we don’t believe in guilty pleasure here at the HQ) you might as well break out a tulle skirt, even if it’s only for yourself in your living room.

February is the uncertain month, neither black nor white but all shades between by turns. Nothing is sure.

Gladys Hasty Carroll

We’re all very done with the Pandemic, but we might have to endure it a bit longer. It’s been a year now, so you might as well treat yourself to an anniversary present. Get something frivolous, something that you think you’re not able to wear because you’re staying inside, anyway. Indulge with a new series that you can’t get at the streaming service of your choice, or with a piece of jewellery, a new set of sheets, a book you always wanted to read but the pretty edition is more expensive than you’d normally spend. If all else is too much, get yourself the prettiest roses from the supermarket you can possibly find without breaking the bank. It’s been a hard year. You earned a bit of luxury.

If you still want more, here’s last year’s February, and for our friends from the Southern Hemisphere, there’s August, too.

P.S.: This month’s graphic consists of this texture by Lost + Taken for the overall background and this one for the Black History Month polaroid, the second fairies on this page and a valentine’s card from this batch (keep telling yourself that they’re “just friends”) by The Graphics Fairy, this frame from Free Vintage Digital Stamps, the Lunar Moth wings from the Butterfly chart here at The Sum of All Crafts and a pride flag. The fonts are Botanink (personal use only), Blackletter Hand and The Goldsmith Vintage demo (also personal use only). While all these are free to use without credit I like sharing my sources so that others can use them, too.

MerMay 2019 Prompt List

I think 2019 is finally the year I don’t forget about MerMay – it’s basically Inktober but in May and with a theme – until it’s well underway. I’ve been wanting to do MerMay for ages now because I always love a challenge and if it’s about mythical creatures, even better, but always forgot about it until I saw all the beautiful mermaids on social media. Oh well. Bother.

To motivate myself this year I made my own prompt list, too, feel free to use it! I’d love to see your creations if you take part in MerMay, so if you do I’d love if you left a link to your Instagram or Tumblr or wherever you post your art in the comments. ♥

Mori Challenge Revisited: Question 18

18. Are you inspired by any foreign cultures other than Japan? What about them inspires you?

Back during the first incarnation of this challenge I simply made a list of all the things that inspired me. By now I’ve noticed a problem in the wording of the question: Japanese culture does inspire me, but it’s not necessarily the street fashion (which I think was meant. I guess.). I decided to make a list again, but this time I’m also including Japan – and a tiny bit of explanation, too.

top row: Culloden, Dunnet Head and Dunnet Head again, because it’s so pretty and I miss Scotland – middle row: taxodium distichum in Louisiana, lamp tsukumogami and a courtyard in the French Quarter – bottom row: a housetruck curtesy of Nambassa Trust and Peter Terry, the Battersea shield and a 1700s illustration of Scottish garb from The Gentle Shepherd. Because credit where credit is due.

1. Celtic knots and decorative art, and by that I mean about everything from early Hallstatt culture to Christian illuminated books. I’m really not picky that way.
2. Scottish tartan, rough fabric and cuts. For a good example just look at the first few episodes of Outlander and you’ll get the general idea.
3. Pavee or an Lucht Siúil culture. The walking people or tinkers are the travelling people of Ireland with their own languages and traditions. I must admit, though, that mainly the aesthetic up until the 50s is what makes it inspiring for me.
4. the Housetrucker movement which still keeps a more old-fashioned traveller aesthetic going even in modern times. I’ve always been fascinated by off-grid living and these are a great visual inspiration.
5. overall European faerie lore is one of the biggest wellspring of inspiration and dreamstuff I’ve got. Selkies, Kelpies, the fair folk, beings from under the hill, klabauter, trolls, you name it. The fae have and always will be what I consider my “spirit people”.
6. tsukumogami 付喪神 are a great example for non-European folklore beings that fascinate and inspire me. These youkai are part of Japanese folklore: tools and items that have been around for such a long time that they have gained life and spirit.
7. old-fashioned rural France with tiny cottages, run-down chateaus and cobblestone-paved villages.
8. northern Italy, especially abandoned shepherd villages in the mountains and the tiny bits I know about my ancestors’ Friuli culture.
9. the swamps of Louisiana and Florida and the strange culture that has grown in there between adventurers, farmers, alligator wrestlers and indigenous people.
10. folk music from Celtic regions – Scotland, Ireland, Brittany – and the punk versions they all inevitably got.
11. tā moko and other Polynesian tattoos, the traditional body art from the South Pacific islands. While I would never consider getting something like them I feel incredibly inspired by the beautiful linework.
12. Shintō shrines, especially small, rural ones with their simplicity and serenity.
13. mottainai もったいない and wabi-sabi 侘寂 which are the concept of trying to avoid wasting things as every item has a soul of its own and the embracing of imperfection in Japanese culture, respectively.
14. New Orleans creole culture and voodoo, tying in with (one half of) № 9. Cultural contacts have always been a favourite thing of mine to study.
15. modern vulture, DIY and scavenging culture, including taxidermy, dumpster diving and collecting things from scrap heaps on the street or things that humans left lying aroung in nature.
16. the wild coast lines of northern France and Scotland because I love the thundering sea and crashing waves and screeching seagulls and rough winds.
17. 17th and 18th century pirate culture, especially lesser-known European pirates like Klaus Störtebeker and Gráinne Ní Mháille but also the original Caribbean pirate harbours. I love old-fashioned seafaring attire, too.
18. the Arthurian court and legends, or romanticised Medieval times in general. Hunting beasts, practising courtly love, jousting, being somewhat honourable and adventurous? Count me in. (Also includes Robin Hood and dashing smugglers.)
19. Canadian lumberjacks, because I have a weak spot for flannels and axes and cottages next to lakes. This would be my ideal off-the-grid holiday, I guess.

What inspires your Mori (or other!) fashion and lifestyle?

♥

This post is part of the 30 Question Mori Kei Challenge. For other posts from this challenge, please look here for all the questions!

Re-Evaluating Inspiration

Quote by Jennifer Wright via Twitter

Several months ago Verdinium asked me to review this post I wrote over two years ago and tell her if what I wrote back then was still true today. I guess she did not expect that I would feel something I – as a player of Changeling: The Dreaming – can only describe as a surge of glamour, a wave of inspiration crashing down on me again, as if I had opened a time capsule and a golden dust had streamed out of a mental biscuit tin, wrapping me in ideas that I had almost forgotten.
And when I read the quote above by Jennifer Wright it felt like one of those small everyday epiphanies. I don’t want my ghost to look boring, do I?
So I decided to write another post on what inspires my fashion, decor and lifestyle cravings most – and this time not only for Lolita -, and I hope you’ll find something you like there, too.

First and probably foremost there’s History and Art.
It starts with late Roman and early medieval fashion, then come 12th century braids and tapestries of tame lions and wild unicorns from the Middle Ages, doublets and musketeer boots from the 16th to 18th century, riding habits and the 18th century Highland attire from Outlander, the Pre-Raphaelites with their deep jewel colours and their own expressive, bohemian attire and lifestyle, flowing Edwardian dresses and sailor collars, Jugendstil, Art Deco and Lebensreform and after all that working class boystyle of the early 20th century.
I’m inspired by all these thing, things that my ancestors wore, the striped blouse in my great-grandmother’s photograph where she looks so stubborn. Or the braids of Brave‘s Elinor, the small details in pictures of the Romanovs. Armour, especially spaulders, muslins that look like props from a Jane Austen film and of course the whole costume department of Downton Abbey.
Through all ages I’m inspired by the things people used to express themselves, probably because I live in an age and place where expressing yourself is incredibly easy and at the same time rather complicated.

Then there’s Ritual and Magic.
Dark, mossy woods and cold ashes of ritual fires. Crystals and tarot cards, moon tables and the aesthetics of the early Harry Potter films. Herbs in the window, the devil’s traps from Supernatural. Alchemy symbols, copper cauldrons, polished copper in general and an abundance of darkened silver rings with shimmering stones. The idea of the kithain of Changeling – The Dreaming and the subsequent dreams of chimaera and flowing sidhe gowns, dancing lights in the darkness combined with the sound of Loreena McKennitt’s older works.
When I was younger – in my tweens – I spent every Friday after school in the library, reading everything on magic and witchcraft and myths I could ever find. I dreamt of dragons and mermaids and to find Atlantis, ruins covered in algae, dreamt that one day something inexplicable would happen, a cat with a crescent moon on her forehead would talk to me or I’d discover that I had the power to conjure flames or lightning.
Well, suffice to say that these things never happened, but practising witchcraft, honouring the things around me and the things I cannot see and dressing the part sort of make up for that.

Not as far from that as one would initially believe lies Dystopia.
The aesthetic of post-apocalyptic or cyberpunk things isn’t lost on me. Bleached rags and goggles and dirt are as fascinating as street samurai and techno druids. Basically we are already living in a science-fiction novel, compared to 20 years ago. The fascination of touch screens and scavenged clothes, Shadowrun and Degenesis, is inspiration enough for me to sometimes dress like someone from the not-too-far future or a time far, far after our civilisation has gone down.

Sweets and Theatres are a completely different thing. I have a weakness for stripes – red and white, or pastel-coloured – and vintage packaging design, als well as for theatricality. Best example would be the classic paper moon, oversized props and ballet tutus. Glittery flowing dresses and fake diamonds have their place, too, just like dramatic make-up. All in all this ties in well with my love for the turn of the century, but the Commedia dell’ Arte now and then proves to be a source of inspiration, too.

Last but surely not least there’s Nature. I remember a scarf my mother had when I was little – black and white wool, loosely woven – that looked like the bark of a birch tree. I grew up between fallen leaves and dried grass and the mud of spring in the shire, always (almost always) dirty and often damp and scratched, small twigs stuck in my hair. I am a moss daughter, a fairy accidentally stuck in a human body. I admire raw gems far more than cut diamonds, the shape of oak leaves are my favourite and I wish there was a perfume that smells like faint log fires on an icy day.
There are dried herbs hung all over my place, twigs and crystals, raw wood. My closet is full of wool and linen and coarse silk and I try to reduce my consumer habits in regards to plastic as far as possible. Nature is not only my inspiration for fashion and decoration, but also for my lifestyle.

You see, this post took surprisingly long to write. That’s among other things such as real life and uni and stuff because the parts of me inspired by the things above are seldom at the surface of me at the same time. Which is perfectly normal, by the way.

My plan is to come closer to these parts and not always hide behind the “oh, this is safe and comfortable and nobody will notice me” part. It will be a slow process, but I think I might get there. But more on this notion another time.

What inspires your fashion and lifestyle choices most?

By Skill and Valour: Costume Conclusions

As I mentioned in the first post all the details in a LARP character come from a few central questions. This also applies to the costume planning.

First of all there are the limitations – or rather possibilities – of the place she comes from: The Horasian Empire. It is inspired by Renaissance Italy and Baroque France, so we have a time frame from, let’s say, the 1420s to about 1720. That’s 300 years, which is a lot. So let’s reign it in a little further on the basis of the TV show I mainly used for inspiration so far: The Borgias and The Musketeers.

The Borgias starts in 1492 when Rodrigo Borgia becomes Pope Alexander VI. The Musketeers is set in the 1630s. There we have it, that’s about half of the years. With “only” ~150 years worth of fashion I can cope and probably find a middle ground.

The next step is Wikipedia – the fashion pages, to be exact. While not a perfect research basis for re-enactors and costumers it’s enough for a overview for people like me who are in it for the inspiration. The pages conveniently start at 1500-1550, and I also consulted 1550-1600 and 1600-1650 and ventured a little further for some more inspiration. I then took mental notes of what I liked:

• slashed sleeves
• the front lacing of German 1500s fashion
• doublets/jerkins (men’s fashion, women’s fashion, who cares anyway)
• rounded toes
• carcanet collar necklaces
• stays
• bum rolls
• justaucorps (newer than baroque, but the early stages already appear there)
• bishop sleeves

These are mainly from the Renaissance, but extensive Borgia watching will do this to you. As said before the beautiful costumes from the series were a great source of inspiration, too.

Lucrezia Borgia, © Showtime (source)
more Lucrezia costumes

After I said this pale pink dress of Lucrezia’s I remembered a similarly coloured piece of silk in my stash, maybe it’s enough for a bodice. Of course the wealth of Lucrezia Borgia is nothing I will copy – after all my character’s family has fallen on harder times – but the slashed sleeves are great and the whole air of innocence around her.

Giulia “La Bella” Farnese, © Showtime (source)

more Giulia costumes

La bella Farnese is still too wealthily adorned for what I want to make, but beautiful inspiration nevertheless. I plan on making a set of “better” clothes and one of simple everyday ones for the character, and the Borgia dresses are more inspiration for the former than the latter.

probably Princess Maria of Saxony, by Lucas Cranach the Elder (via)

Because the costume for my character will be an amalgam of historical periods and fashions anyway I decided to let one of my favourite portraitists – Cranach the Elder – inspire me, too. I like the bodice lacing of the German fashion at that time and it can’t be too hard to incorporate that somewhere, can it?

After I amassed my inspiration I made a list of what I needed:

• a chemise (at least one, better two)
• fine attire: skirt and bodice with sleeves
• everyday attire: skirt, bodice and sleeves, maybe a overskirt

I then made a few sketches:

The “everyday” set

clockwise from upper left: chemise, everyday bodice, evening bodice with sleeves, cap

You might notice that the “everyday” set is more Baroque while the “posh” set is a bit more Renaissance-inspired. I decided to put the Chranachian lacing on the chest of the bodice rather than the waist. After all it’s about ambience, not about authenticity, so it’s a simple Baroque shape with Renaissance details.

Next stop: Making a chemise.

Style Inspiration: Holly Hobbie

In contrast to the last outfit post that didn’t exactly match the criteria for “cute” (but is still showing an essential part of me), let’s have another look at colonial style inspiration today.

While the confusion of Holly Hobbie and Sarah Kay is quite common I want to dedicate a seperate inspiration post to the former, too. In contrast to Sarah Kay who is Australian Holly Hobbie hails from the US of A. Her most famous recurring namesake character is the “Blue Girl”, developed during the late 60s:

There’s a little less finery and a little more raggedness going on with Holly Hobbie illustration in comparison to Sarah Kay (the characters are also a little bit taller and slightly less round-faced). Also, note the ubitiquos patchwork, isn’t it lovely?

The Holly Hobbie franchise was well-used: There were toys and stationary and lunchboxes and even a kid’s sewing machine! Eventually in 2006 the character and franchise got a makeover, too. The original Holly Hobbie character is now the great-grandmother of the modern one.

To me Holly Hobbie is a little bit sturdier than Sarah Kay, so maybe when Sarah Kay is Natural Kei Holly is already on their way to Mori Kei. Who knows. Fact is that I find Holly’s illustrations charming and inspiring as well, at the moment maybe even a bit more so than Sarah Kay. Maybe because of the patchwork, because I love patchwork.

 

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All pictures belong to Holly Hobbie resp. American Greetings resp. her other publishers.

P.S.: Holly Hobbie also wrote children’s books on two best friend piglets, but more on that another time.