Another Rummage In The Wardrobe: Versatile Blogger Award

 

 

 

Earlier this year, lovely Veshoevius of the brilliant blog The Taxonomy Of My Wardrobe nominated me for a Versatile Blogger Award. It is now, 7 months later, that I have finally finished my post in response.

 

 

As part of receiving this award I have to reveal seven facts about myself. This blog owes just as much to the memory of the women in my family, and the clothes they have passed down to me, as it does to my own style and character, so I think it only right that I include some photos and facts about them too. 

 

 

1. I'm in my late thirties, and the older I get the more I feel I want to play like a child and read (and write) fables and fairy tales.

 

2. Kiki lived into her early nineties, and her kindness and grace shone through her, just as her inimitable sense of style continued until the end. I took this portrait of her about a year before she died. In old age, with her couturier years behind her, she had a particular fondness for raw silk Chinese jackets in jewel colours.

 

3. I'm not interested in marriage, finding the practice archaic and unnecessary, nor am I a religious person, so wearing the exquisite dress Kiki made for her own wedding in my Bluebell Fairy post was a close as I'll ever get to donning a matrimonial white dress in a church.

 

4. Penny had a great sense of fun, a caring heart, and always looked beautifully groomed into her old age. A fan of the classic cuts of Jean Muir, she continued to turn heads and had many admirers throughout her life. She passed away in her late eighties. Here she is in her late seventies/early eighties, with me in my mid twenties.

 

5. As my dear Mother is still alive and well, thank goodness, and I want to respect her privacy, I won't show a picture of her nowadays, although I wish I could as she is gorgeous. But she'd kill me! Instead, here's an image of her on holiday in her early twenties, showing off those incredible pins of hers.  

 

6. Like most Brits, I'm of a mixed heritage: being a quarter Irish, quarter Scottish, quarter Jewish and quarter English. I love the sunshine in summer, but can't cope in the heat, so you'll always find me in the shade of the garden hiding under a big hat or parasol and slathering on more factor 35.

 

 

 

7. I'm distantly related to the Pre-Raphaelite painter William and his wife and Rossetti's muse Jane Morris, via Kiki's side of the family. Planning to do a blog post photo shoot in tribute to Jane in the coming months.

 

 

Here are my versatile blogger nominations, each and every nominee a unique delight:

1. Mary Lou of Mary Lou Cinnamon 

2. Kelly-Marie of A Harem Of Peacocks

3. Harlow Darling of Vintage At Heart

4. Vix of Vintage Vixen

5. Rosalind of Clothes, Cameras & Coffee

6. Jill of Tea With The Vintage Baroness

7. Judith of Style Crone

 

 

The Outfits

 

For outfit details of the images 2, 4, 7, 8 & 9, just click on the image number to go to the relevant  blog post.

Outfit in image 1: vintage dress from Oxfam Online.

 

 

The Soundtrack

 

The Jam: English Rose

 

 

 I am delighted to be a part of the next Visible Monday, hosted by Patti from Not Dead Yet Style, click on the website link to see her outfit and those of many others.

Crinkle Me Like Fortuny

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Relationship has true significance only when it is a process of self-revelation, when it is revealing oneself in the very action of relationship. But most of us do not want to be revealed in relationship. On the contrary, we use relationship as a means of covering up our own insufficiency, our own troubles, our own uncertainty. So relationship becomes mere movement, mere activity. I do not know if you have noticed that relationship is very painful, and that as long as it is not a revealing process, in which you are discovering yourself, relationship is merely a means of escape from yourself.

 

Extract from The Collected Works of Krishnamurti, via 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Outfit:

Hand Beaded Black Silk & Gauze Crinkle Dress: present from my dear Mum many years ago, bought at a craft fair

Peacock Feather Hairband: from Ebay

Black Floral High Heels: very old from the high street

Black Stockings: from M&S

Various Bracelets, Turquoise Earrings & Green Art Deco Ring: passed down from grannies Kiki and Penny

 

 

The Soundtrack:

Roberta Flack: The First Time I Ever Saw Your Face

 

 

All photographs taken by my dear Mum at my parents' house earlier this year.

The beautiful redhead in the painting is granny Kiki.

 

 

 While I like to capture some sort of serenity in my photographs, in reality behind the scenes my life is very demanding right now, hence my lack of comments on your blogs over the last week. I'm missing visiting you all, will pop around soon to say hello I promise!

 

 

 I am delighted to be a part of the next Visible Monday, hosted by Patti from Not Dead Yet Style, click on the website link to see her outfit and those of many others.

Deer Serenade

 

as crows fly
in the dawn light
on the cold hill
the deer are running

the thud of their hooves
on the bed of the stream
is the drum that rocks
the roots of the birch
and the wind that shakes
the birch tree’s leaves

rain is their tribe song
rain is their robe

snow is the dust
of the bones of deer
falling to earth

and earth is the dark
deep silence of things
where you dream yourself
human, alive
watching the red deer running
on the wall of a cave

    

Deer by Chris Powici, via 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Outfit:

Pink Dress: gift from my Mum from a Boden sale a few years ago

Pink Silk Patterned Skirt: made by granny Kiki in the 1950s/60s

Cowboy boots: very old from R Soles

Wooden Bracelet: Granny Penny's

 

 

The Soundtrack:

Kate Bush: The Jig Of Life

 

 

All photographs taken by me in our garden, self portraits using the self timer.

 

I'm posting this a bit early as will be very busy over the next few days.

Looking forward to catching up with your new posts over the weekend!

 

Heat Haze

 

It seems like you could, but

you can't go back and pull

the roots and runners and replant.

It's all too deep for that.

You've overprized intention,

have mistaken any bent you're

given

for control. You thought you chose

the bean and chose the soil.

You even thought you abandoned

one or two gardens. But those

things

keep growing where we put them -

if we put them at all.

A certain kind of Eden holds us

thrall.

Even the one vine that tendrils out

alone

in time turns on its own impulse,

twisting back down its upward course

a strong and then a stronger rope,

the greenest saddest strongest

kind of hope.

 

 

A Certain Kind Of Eden, by Kay Ryan via 1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Outfit:

1930s style dark floral dress: from a charity shop

Vintage 1950s rose head scarf: inherited from granny Kiki

Black sunhat: old from the high street

Nude pumps: old from New Look

Silver earrings, just seen: from Accesorize

 

 

 

The Soundtrack:

 Sergei Rachmaninov: Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini in A minor

 

 

 

All photos taken by me in our garden, using the self timer during the final gasp of our hot summer.

 

 

 I am delighted to be a part of the next Visible Monday, hosted by Patti from Not Dead Yet Style, click on the website link to see her outfit and those of many others.

 

 

P.S. Not that any of us need any help with dressing and living well, but I found this recent documentary about inspiring octogenarian beauties absolutely brilliant and think you would too. Click on the link here to watch it:

Fabulous Fashionistas: Channel 4 Documentary

 

 

Shepherd's Hut Love

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

“I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that was not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms.”  

 

 

Extract from Walden: Or, Life In The Woods, by Henry David Thoreau via 1

 

 

 

The Outfits:

Vintage 1970s denim hot pants: inherited from my dear Mum, along with the legs!

Green & Black Breton Top: from a charity shop

White & Blue Swan Breton Jumper: old from Topshop, in the days I still shopped there

Watercolour Painted Top: gift from my Mum

Capri Pant Jeans: old from H&M

Hunter Wellies: from Ebay

 

 

 

The Soundtrack

Mazzy Star: She Hangs Brightly 

 

 

All photographs taken on holiday in Dorset about 4 years ago, long before my blogging began. It was one of our loveliest ever shepherd's hut adventures, and that's saying something as we've had a few! Details of Sam the shepherd's hut, available for holiday let, can be found at the glamping website Canopy & Stars.

 

This seems a fitting post with which to celebrate the first anniversary of this blog Kiki & the Gypsy, which started life simply as a wardrobe of old clothes, a love of nature, and a photograph from our stay in a gypsy carriage to use as the header.

  Enormous thanks to all of you who read and comment on this blog, I feel very lucky to have found this welcoming and inspiring community, you're amazing and have brought such pleasure to my life.

 Here's to the next year of blogging!

 

 

 I am delighted to be a part of the next Visible Monday, hosted by Patti from Not Dead Yet Style, click on the website link to see her outfit and those of many others.

It's also a great pleasure to be joining Ariane at her Show Me Your Style link up at Style Sud-Est.

I'm also popping by Jane from The Flight Platform for her link-up, themed this week Behind The Bike Sheds (hope these hot pants are rebellious enough for you Jane!).

Femininity

 

 



“Like no one else,' I told him in a letter written at the end of July, 'you share that part of my mind that associates itself mostly with ideal things and places....The impression thinking about you gives me is very closely linked with that given me by a lonely hillside or a sunny afternoon or wind on the moorlands or rich music...or books that have meant more to me than I can explain, or the smell of the earth after a shower or the calmness of the sky at sunset....This is grand, but still it isn't enough for this world, whatever it may be like "when we're beyond the sun." The earthly and obvious part of me longs to see and touch you and realise you as tangible.” 

 

 

Extract from The Testament Of Youth, by Vera Brittain via 1

 

The Outfit:

Vintage 1940s/50s Crepe & Satin Cerise Sheath Dress: bought from lovely Jill the Vintage Baroness at Adeline's Attic Vintage. Thanks again Jill!

Black Lace Peep Toe High Heels: old from New Look

Amber Earrings: my Mother's

Amber Bracelet: gift from a friend

 

 

The Soundtrack

Nina Simone: See-line Woman 

 

 

All photographs taken by me using the self timer in my parents' beautiful garden.

 

 

I'm delighted to link this post to Shoe Shine, a great event hosted by Bella of The Citizen Rosebud, click on the website to see her cute shoes and those of many others.

 

 I am also pleased to be a part of the next Visible Monday, hosted by Patti from Not Dead Yet Style, click on the website link to see her outfit and those of many others.