Saturday, April 30, 2011

Royal Wedding SALE at SerendipityVintage.com!


We're having a Royal Wedding-inspired sale at SerendipityVintage.com on all wedding and evening wear vintage sewing patterns in honor of all upcoming bridal and evening events, royal or not!  All patterns in this section are 10% off until May 7, 2011.  Here are a few of the items in the shop:










Click here to see more Wedding and Evening dress patterns.  I will be adding more patterns to this section as the days go by, so check back often!

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Vintage Thingies Thursday: Royal Wedding Edition


I have to admit that I tried not to get too caught up in the Royal Wedding hoopla over the past weeks but as the day draws near Kate and Will's wedding is consuming most of my attention. Naturally I have to post about along with nearly everyone else in the blogosphere.

Dear readers, are you going to watch the wedding live? I can't decide -- it starts at 3 a.m. Pacific Time!

I've been looking at my tiny collection of British royalty-related items, and have been perusing past royal wedding photos online.  I thumbed through my tiny collection of books about Charles, Di, and William:


I can't wait to see Kate's dress! Frankly, it's the only reason I'm considering getting up at 3 a.m. to watch because I'm dying to see it. I'm sure she will look as lovely as Diana did on her day:

Image from Trevor Hall's Born to Be King

In honor of the upcoming wedding I decided to adapt a recipe from the 1959 Better Homes & Garden's Holiday Cook Book in order to make my version of Royal Wedding Cookies, or a fancy dress hat worthy of being worn to a royal wedding.

The original recipe is for Easter Bonnet cookies. I spent hours experimenting with this recipe, including dyeing the coconut different shades with food coloring in order to see the effect. The cookie itself is a sugar cookie, and to make it look like a hat the crown is made by dipping a marshmallow in milk then rolling it in colored coconut:


To update this recipe to modern times, I decided that an all-white iced cookie with a feathery coconut crown and an extra mint sprig "feather" would look elegant. Even so, I would call this a vintage cookie FAIL. It was WAY too much work for a cookie that only somewhat resembles a hat:


I suppose that is why few, if any besides myself, have trotted out this recipe in 60 years.  If you'd like "construction" details, let me know.


Suzanne also has a nice Royal Wedding edition of Vintage Thingies Thursday up right now -- I encourage you to visit.

Enjoy the wedding!


Saturday, April 9, 2011

Field Trip: FIDM Motion Picture Costume Design Exhibition

Costumes for Anne Hathaway as the White Queen in Alice of Wonderland

Went on a fun field trip today to the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising's 2010 Motion Picture Costume Design Exhibition of actual costumes used in some of last year's biggest movies.  You can view the exhibits from past years by clicking here).

Some months ago I visited FIDM when they had costumes from Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland and I was delighted to see a few of the wonderful costumes were still on display for this exhibit.  I was very bad...photography is not allowed but I took a few photos (without the flash!) as the costumes for Alice and the White Queen were among my favorites:

Anne Hathaway's gown as the White Queen
Detail of the gown for the White Queen

Costumes for Mia Wasikowska as Alice
Detail of the costume for Alice

For those of you in the area, the exhibit will be up until the end of this month.   If you stop by, DON'T MISS a visit the FIDM scholarship store for incredibly cheap clothing and accessories --  designers and various clothing labels donate their fit samples and retail stores donate overstock clothes, jewelry, and accessories are to the store to benefit the students, yet the public is welcome.  This time of year there are beautiful wedding gowns that retail for $1,000 that are sold for as little as $200.  The store also offers a constantly updated selection of fabric on sale at only $1.00 a yard!  Yes, my stash grew by leaps and bounds today.

Have a wonderful weekend all...more later!

Monday, April 4, 2011