Edith Head : Costume Designer Extraordinaire

You must have heard of her , if not then you would certainly have seen some of her marvelous creations.
She was born in 1897 and sadly left our presence in 1981.
She won 8 Academy Awards for Costume design and was actually nominated for 35 of them.
Never really having any formal training in art she was a teacher and offered to teach Art at Hollywood School for Girls and took night classes at Chouinard Art College where she met her first husband. She took a job at Paramount as a costume sketch artist in 1924 and started designing for silent movies. She divorced her husband in 1936 after a long separation and met her second husband and married him in 1944.
She worked at Paramount for 44 years and moved to Universal Pictures on March 27, 1967.

She designed beautiful clothing for some of America's most beautiful and famous leading ladies. My absolute favorite would be Grace Kelly. Never has there ever been another woman with her style.

 Grace Kelly above a sheer gown she wore in Rear Window with Jimmy Stewart

Great movie, great fashion. 1954.

Grace Kelly "To Catch a Thief" 1955 with Cary Grant 

Another one of my favorite actresses so full of style and charm and beauty was Audrey Hepburn and here is the beautiful gown she wore in "Sabrina" 1954 with Humphrey Bogart and William Holden.





Below we find the dress that Elizabeth Taylor wore in "A Place in the Sun" 1951 with Montgomery Clift.

The bustline was covered with fabric daisies and this style was what all the girls wanted for prom that year.

Look how stunning she is in this dress.

I love the suit below that Edith Head made for Lucille Ball in "The Facts of Life" with Bob Hope in 1960

Edith's illustrations are fabulous.

Below we have a very sombre looking Bette Davis in 1950's "All About Eve" she starred with George Sanders one of my favorite actors.

She did the costume design for Olivia Dehavilland in "The Heiress" (below).  Olivia won best actress that year for her portrayal of Catherine Sloper a painfully shy girl whose emotionally detached father doesn't hold back his disappointment in her.

And here she is "Edith Head" a very talented woman who paved the way for women costume designers in Hollywood.



Featured and a Giveway on "Giveaway Blogdom"

Happy Sunday to everyone. I feel very lucky today to have been interviewed and featured with a giveaway of the above party clutch/pouch, one of my own creations. Try to win!!

Check out the link here http://giveawayblogdom.blogspot.com/2011/03/meet-etsy-owner-dressedtothe9s-and.html

I would like to thank Brandy over at Giveaway Blogdom for all her hard work.

Thanks Brandy.

Connie

New bag...Changed the button

Last weekend I made this clutch but I wasn't happy with the button that I used so I have now changed it to a black button that is a little sparkly although you can't really see that in the picture. I like it much better, hope you do too!

Go to my previous post to see the "Before"

http://dressedtothe9sconnie.blogspot.com/2011/03/new-bag-need-your-opinion.html


After

Clutches- Use them, Love them

I love clutches and recently I have begun to be a little overfocused on creating some myself (you may have seen my post earlier this week).
I was hoping to get some more opinions on that particular one ( I am changing the button ) but not to worry, I shall forge ahead.
I have been researching some of the embellishmnents used on clutches so as to get some inspiration. I stumbled upon some lovely spring 2011 clutches by Oscar that are beautifully embellished. See below.

The flowers on these are so pretty something I think that I can recreate or atleast something similar. I know when we use a clutch it is generally for an event, a dinner, a wedding, a dance and we leave them on the table so they really get looked at by others. That's why it's nice to have some detail on them.

This one from Bulgari Spring 2011 is especially beautiful

I love Chanel , pretty sure I will never own one this one feels like something I could get some inspiration from.

Judith Leiber Spring 2011

If I can produce some clutches (of course mine would be all fabric) and if they could be half as pretty as these I would surely be pleased.

Have a lovely Saturday! I'm off to sew clutches!



New Bag--Need Your Opinion!

Hello there, today is March 1st and I am thinking spring...it won't be long now. I bought a spring dress the other day to cheer myself up and I can't wait to be able to wear it.
The reason I am posting today is to get your opinion on something. I made a new bag yesterday and wanted to see what you think. I am probably going to change the button to something a little more French as suggested by a dear friend but here it is..............

I apologize for the poor pictures, I prefer to take daytime pictures because the light is better but for these it was dark and I had to use a flash.

The inside is made of a quilted fabric, the outside has been starched to make it a little stiffer and the suede is actually faux suede making it vegan friendly!

It would fit a cell phone, credit cards, lipstick, a few dollars and your keys etc. Not too big not too small.

Any thoughts would be welcome. Thanks.



The Nature of the Flower is to Bloom

I needed to make something bright and cheery on this winter day in February. Red. Yes red. I found some lovely red satins and a little organza to make a corsage. One of the fabrics was a large check satin hard to see in this picture but so pretty.

A brassy, pink pearled piece to add to the centre along with a piece of faux leather attached to the back with the pin sewn to it. I make these often and sell them on my Etsy store.
Cut out circles of various sizes and singe the edges so they curl up, sew together with nylon thread and glue the backing on with the brooch pin sewn to it.
There you have it. You can wear it on a number of things. A jacket, a hat, a belt, your wrist, even pin it on a handbag or tote.



A New Necklace: Bib Style!

I've been working this weekend on some things for my Etsy shop. It's nice to have 3 days off so I can get caught up with that (It's family day in Canada). I find that it can take just as long to do the photography for any given item as it does to make the item itself.
I had this idea in my head for using some of the faux leather and suede that I have in my designer fabric books (I'm going to have to take a picture for you of all the books I have in my studio closet so you can laugh).
So the necklace shape dictated itself by the pattern on the piece of faux leather I used.

I cut out the shape for the base of the necklace and installed two grommets. Next thing I did was prepare my florets. I used as the base of the flower a circle of faux suede that I clipped to make petals and then singed them with a lighter around the edges. I also cut out three circles of a satiny crinkle fabric and then 9 circles from some organza that I also burned the edges of. Last but not least I found 3 peachy/orange rhinestones to embellish the centres of the flowers.

I put everything together to see how it looked and then cut some black ribbon for a tie.

The last thing to do was to sew it all together (each flower in its place) and secure the ribbon.

Finally I get to put it on and take some pictures for my Etsy store.
It is so easy to make some of these things and very gratifying. Bib necklaces are very popular right now and look especially good with something strapless so they become a focal point.

 

Small Cosmetic Bag

I had a need for a small cosmetic bag for my rather small purse and I also had this pattern idea for small evening pouches so I decided to make a prototype of the pattern I had in mind yesterday, I have been thinking about it for 3 weeks.
I had heard of people making handbags and clutches from placemats so I based my pattern on that procedure.
I didn't use a placemat but instead I made what looked like a small placemat from some beautiful lightly quilted orange fabric from one of my Interior Decorating fabric sample books. I used 2 fabrics , the orange and what would end up being the lining a soft fabric in chartreuse. I like the combination.

My pictures don't really show how I sewed it together but hopefully you can figure it out. I want to make more of these but slightly larger and with a thin strap like cording or similar. I want to embelllish them and hopefully they could be little evening bags/pouches. Big enough for a lipstick , a few dollars, cell phone, keys and I.D.

Its a really simple procedure really. The only problem I cam across was when I went to sew the corners to square off the bottom...see next picture. It was a bit thick to get under my presser foot so I ended up sewing it by hand.

I'm quite happy with how it turned out aside from that and it fits a few of my cosmetics and goes quite nicely in my purse. Now to start making more of them.

Here is the finished product

Winter Blah's!

It's around this time of year that we all start feeling a little blue, maybe it's because winter is too long and Christmas is past or because we feel trapped indoors and unable to really stretch our legs and get moving. That's what I find hard about winter. I love to run and get outside but the cold is so nasty it makes it difficult and the snow makes it hard to run outside so I end up using my treadmill and it's not quite the same workout for me.
This is a great time to create. Creating things is very fulfilling and if you can sit by a window and work on things with the sun shining on you all the better! Make it something bright and cheerful and it will put a smile on your face.

One of my flower brooch/corsage creations

Inspiration!!

Inspiration comes in all forms. I find it every day , everywhere. Looking through a magazine, reading a book, surfing the web, watching a program on television, people watching, home decor, exhibits and travel. Ideas just pop into my head when I see something. Maybe it is such a small element of the whole thing I am looking at or the way something is folded or the colour or the shape, a button, a shadow. It just hits me and I have to write it down, do a sketch, make a note. Keeping a notebook with you at all times is very important because you can not remember a fleeting moment when something struck you. Writing it down is one way to remember. Some people also record their thoughts on their cell phones. Just hit that little record button and start talking about what you just saw or thought of. When you get home you can make notes. I also love to take pictures, hence the reason for this blog today.

This picture was taken on the Ponte Vecchio in Florence about a year and a half ago. Walking by all those windows of jewelry really got my creative juices flowing.

Here is another window with these beautiful fish bracelets so gorgeous I thought to myself. I wasn't necessarily inspired that particular day by them and even now I'm not sure how I might use something of this design in one of my own creations or how I would interpret it but I have a picture anyway for future reference. The next two pictures did however inspire me to try something with beads and fabric when I got home. It was something I made and put in my Etsy shop to sell.

Here is the item I made and sold on Etsy.

It is made with a piece of upholstery fabric, lace, organza, beads and a few rhinestones.