Category — Advice

I’m in love with the 1920s right now since it’s the theme for my midyear work social function. Nothing says vintage like awesome headwear.

Super Kawaii Mama in a turban. Click for her blog.

And lo, once I started noticing them I could’t stop! I ran across this album for stylist of the year and there are so many turbans featured in the images.

Show Pony stylist of the year image using a turban. Click for the whole stylist of the year album

How the heck do you tie one? You can use any old large square scarf. Click to view the tutorials below.

Super fast tutorial: Tie a Turban from Starr Crow on Vimeo.

And if you’re stocking up on large square scarves, here are three ways to tie a headscarf: Three ways to tie a headscarf

I’ve packed away my summer clothes and I’m figuring out my winter wardrobe. Steampunk fashion and general masculine vintage seems to be happening for me, in part because I own a vintage fuzzy bowler hat that I just can’t stop wearing.

Me being a little steampunk gentleman for winter

I really enjoy the more masculine styles of steampunk so I’ve made a conscious decision to increase the amount of brown in my wardrobe. But after years of a black base, I’ve found the adjustment hard to manage. Black goes with everything but brown really doesn’t.

So I reverted to the old colour wheel and had a look online at what complements browns. Blue-green, or cyan apparently.

Colour wheel. Useful when choosing an outfit

Another colour wheel

It works well like these fractals and bikini.

cractal swirls in cyan and brown

blue and cyan bikini

So I’ve kept this in mind when I found this tie in a charity shop. It also has brown in its pattern. Perfect! Less perfect was me not noticing at 8am that this distressed vest that I picked up in a charity shop has an army green trim. It happens to go perfectly with a pair of pants I own but for the purposes of this outfit isn’t quite perfect. Hopefully not that major a detail.

cyan paisley tie

I can’t also found paint colour charts like the one below to think about what I like. I find this kind of thing really helpful when I get stuck.

Colour combinations used in painting

Corsetry and blue hair at Canton Lounge Bar opening

Don’t you love it when you rediscover an item you already own? This electric blue Morgana Femme Couture corset has been getting a real workout lately. It doesn’t hurt that a partner in crime has had blue hair.

The cut of this brand of corset makes me very happy. It accentuates my waist and my waist/hip ratio without the pain and hassle of tightlacing. Yay! That’s something you certainly won’t get with plastic boning which won’t hold the shape in the same way. Or cheaper corsets, which tend to be straighter on the sides rather than curving into the waist.

I bought this corset from Beyond the Trapdoor in Subiaco last year and they give good corset advice. Try on a few corset brands if you haven’t bought one before so you can see the difference in waist shape it gives you. A rough guide for cost is that my favourite corsets cost me about AU$300 – AU$500. Cheaper corsets that I’ve since given away which were steel boned but a bad shape cost me about $AU100.

Science fiction anime burlesque look

Science fiction burlesque modified cheat bustle

I like this outfit so I wanted to show you, but I’m also wearing a flared knee length petticoat that I’ve pinned at the front just with safety pins and at the back with a black bow to create a bustle effect. Handy to add some extra drama to things like this science fiction convention where I was manning a stall for Beyond the Trapdoor. Almost everything I’m wearing is from them.

I looove those Ellie heels as well but can only wear them for a few minutes at a time due to their absurd height and my acursed need for comfort. That cute bow/fur shrug is a removable piece from a Stop Staring dress. It’s so handy, I would have bought it separately.

A friend asked me to help him find some clothes, which happens occasionally. I like shopping for other people, but it’s largely guesswork.

silk and microfibre ties on etsy by Scatterbrain ties

circuitboard tie

fast fast fast mens desert rose tshirt

bunny tank tshirt. Hehehehe.

Charlie Sheen shirt. Click for link.

Here’s an unashamed plug for my brazilian waxist in Perth. There are only really a couple of specialists who do brazilians here, but she doesn’t have much of a web presence. And there’s the added bonus that she works out of a cute curiosity shop called Distracted in Leederville that’s about as indie-tastic as you can get in Perth. (Click image for link).

Maintenance is a funny thing. Once you up the ante it’s hard to go back down. Connie (At Bare Brazilian waxing) said a lot of her clients get waxed for hygiene reasons, or for the ’sense’ of cleanliness. That’s also the reason the Romans were into hair removal. It does make you wonder what’s next.

This guy rules. (click for link) He shows two ways of covering your eyebrows with makeup – one using spirit gum and eyebrow wax, and the other using a glue stick and powder.

I’m actually a big fan of the ludicrously high gothic eyebrow but I’m getting older and if you’ve been plucking for a while you start to notice- the hairs STOP GROWING BACK. So hoorah for tricks of the trade.