HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!

Halloween is the best season!! In a few hours you will have little ghosts and goblins go door to door saying "Trick or Treat"! Can wait to see all the costumes this year!!  I will be watching Halloween movies and waiting for those trick or treaters!!! YEA!!! However before let’s look at 13 hair-raising facts about Today, October 31.

1. ONCE UPON A TIME- Believe it or not, the birthplace of Halloween is a candy factory! The holiday began in Ireland about 6000 years and it is believed to have originated around 4000 B.C.

2.  SAMHAIN - Halloween was an ancient festival celebrated by the Celts called Samhain (pronounced sow-in).  It was their celebration of the end of harvest season. Also, the Celtic New Years. The Celts believed that on October 31, the boundaries between the worlds of the living and the dead got a little blurry and the dead would come back to life and cause havoc among the living. One way to you scare the dead? 

3. TRICK or TREAT? -This Halloween tradition began in the ancient Celtic era when they would put food and treats outside to placate spirits that roamed the streets in Samhain.

4. WEARING COSTUMES & MASKS - Celtics began the popular tradition of wearing costumes and masks on Halloween. They would wear them during the Samhain festival to ward off evil spirits that would pass through the veil.

5. JACK O' LANTERNS -  Pumpkins and Halloween go together like candy and costumes. Right? While the English and Irish previously carved faces into turnips or potatoes and placed them on their doorsteps to ward off evil spirits. Americans  were the first to carved pumpkins (which are native to North America). So carving pumpkins on Halloween is not only fun, it’s helpful too ;) 

6. CORN ANYONE? -  Candy corn has been a part of the Halloween “brand” since 1880, originally developed to resemble a corn kernel to appeal to America’s farmers and their families.   Almost 9 Billion Kernels will be produced this year! That is enough to circle the moon 21 TIMES!!  The most candy corn is sold on October 28th , two days before National Candy Corn Day!! 

7. BLACK & ORANGE - They have always beeN traditional Halloween colors but why? Orange is associated with strength and endurance, along with brown and gold, stands for the harvest and autumn. Black is typically a symbol of darkness and death. These two colors act as a reminder that Halloween once was a festival that marked the boundaries between life and death. 

8. ARE YOU AFRAID? - Samhainophobia is the fear of Halloween. Who know?

9. NICKNAMES - Halloween has had various nicknames through the ages including: All Hallows’ Eve, Witches Night, Lamswool, Snap-Apple Night, Samhain and Summer’s End.

10. SHOW ME THE MONEY- Today, Americans spend around $6 billion on Halloween and $2 billion of that is on candy alone!!

11. ITSY BITSY SPIDER - Don’t be scared if you see a spider on Halloween. Tradition suggests that it is actually the spirit of a loved one watching over you. 

12. TRUE MEANING OF A WITCH- The word for witch comes from the Old English Wicce which means “wise woman”

13. FULL MOON TONIGHT - It’s is actually very rare to for a full moon to occur on Halloween. Although, it’s has been predicted that one will occur on 10/31/2020. So that 5 years from now :0

We All Live In A Yellow Submarine…

We all live in a yellow submarine
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine
We all live in a yellow submarine
Yellow submarine, yellow submarine

Surely everyone, young and old, recognizes this lyrics / chorus from one of The Beatles most famous songs. John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr were The Beatles. Also known as The Fab Four. Their group was formed in 1960 in Liverpool, England and became one of the most successful bands in music. In 1968, an animated feature film ‘Yellow Submarine’ was released based on the music of The Beatles.  

Inspired by the 1968 animated film Yellow Submarine, Barbie puts a pink twist to the psychedelic movement of the era. The Yellow Submarine cover is very amusing, Barbie is a psychedelic heroine. The Beatles crazy atmosphere, the cheerful hysterical design of the clothes, the psychedelic submarine; a cartoon that will never go out of fashion. Barbie and her girlfriends capture all of that while belonging to a totally crazy world full of flowers, hearts, fairies, horses and an overdose of pink too.

Lovable Losers

Television's lovable losers from the Loser Comedies of the 1990’s are characters and comedies that speak to the tough times. When a person was down on their luck or struggling to achieve a goal, or they can’t find a date or they have a dysfunctional family they are often labeled losers.

 But the reality is that these people are not real losers.  They're actually people you'd want to hang out with.  Most of them are witty and most of them are smart. It’s just that they don’t care. And that’s what we love about them.

While loser comedies are still around and I don't mean Nick at Nite reruns.  

The show 2 Broke Girls features two young women, who are witty, smart women living in Brooklyn and struggling to achieve their goal, of owning a cupcake store. 
The Middle follow Frankie Heck (Patricia Heaton) and husband Mike (Neil Flynn) as they try to raise their three uniquely quirky kids while making ends meet, in Nowhere, Indiana. 

ABC Family's original comedy Baby Daddy, centers around Ben, a 20-something bachelor bartender living in New York City. Ben gets the surprise of his life when a one-night stand leaves his baby girl on his doorstep. Ben decides to raise his little girl with the help of his brother, Danny, his close friend, Tucker, and his loving, protective and sometimes over-bearing mother, Bonnie, and his close female friend, Riley, who has had a secret crush on him since childhood.

Loser comedies may not be trendy, or sexy, or glamorous, 
or modern.They may not have looks. They may not get many dates. Things might not always work out for them. Or be the June Cleaver Family.  But that’s their charm and why we have a special place in our hearts for them. They're our television’s lovable losers. 

Bonnie and Clyde’s Love Song

Legendary notorious outlaws and lovers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow traveled through the central part of the US during the Depression-era.  Their shared longing for excitement, money and fame spurred a deadly crime spree through the central part of the United States until law enforcement finally stopped them in Louisiana, with a vengeance.

Track eight on Kellie Pickler’s album The Woman I am is titled “Bonnie and Clyde,” which is a complete girl jam. She wrote this song with her husband, and it is all about needing someone “just like Bonnie and Clyde.” The opening line to the song is,” I knew I’d be doing time.” which refers to Bonnie and Clyde and how they were wanted. Kellie Pickler has lyrics referring to how towns were not safe from Bonnie and Clyde such as,” This whole town ain’t safe with us. You and me boy are dangerous. Our love is a warning sign. I’m your Bonnie and you’re my Clyde. Kellie also has a line that says,” We’ll go down in history because Bonnie and Clyde are in the history books.”  Kellie Pickler does a great job of making Bonnie and Clyde’s love story into a modern day love song.

Beach Party Anyone!?!

Although the movie Teen Beach is aimed primarily at tweens and teens, the throwback to classic beach party musicals possesses a sense of carefree nostalgia that any generation can relate to, drawing its style inspiration from the fashion-forward ‘60s. 

Disney found inspiration in an oft-forgotten niche of 60’s culture: the kitschy teenage fodder of the early 60’s beach movies, such as Beach Party and Bikini Beach. Just like the early teen beach movies Teen Beach Movie is largely similar in plot; it follows a beachside romance between two young lovers, McKenzie and Brady (today’s Frankie Avalon and Annette Funicello), but there is no biker boy to cause complications, but instead a biker girl named Lela. They both are largely ridiculous, at times genuinely weird and mostly very amusing both for their goofy, innocent, fun-kid-times vibe as well as their purpose as a time capsule to an era that was just beginning, often awkwardly, to embrace youth.

Please Don't Lick The Screen

Pop art legend Andy Warhol has created many memorable paintings, but his painting / advertisement of lifesavers that says “Please do not lick this page is my favorite. I like the color and the witty saying at the bottom of the page. This is why for my Fashion Photography assignment, Artist Inspiration, I choose this painting. I did my layout a little different. Instead of lining up my lifesavers in perfect lines and rows, I decided to make a pile of them. I had both hard and gummy lifesavers to have different textures and different colors. I used part of the original saying,” Please do not lick this page,” but I substituted the word photo for the word page. I also took a picture with the saying,” Please do lick this photo,” just for fun. The lifesaver advertisement was great inspiration for my photography.

It's Flashback Friday Daddio!!!

A subculture of young people and students were rebelling against the mainstream. They emerged as a rejection for the conformity and materialism of the 1950’s. They wore  black turtleneck sweaters, stove-pipe trousers, dark glasses and berets. They hung out in coffee shops reciting poetry in Greenwich Village. The baby book Urban Babies Wear Black, by Michelle Sinclair Colman and Illustrations by Nathalie Dion, dresses the baby on the cover like a beatnik, all in black and wearing a black cap. They even have a page in the book that says urban babies drink latte, like the beatnik generation did. I can just picture this little baby in the Gaslight, in the Village sipping milk and hitting the bongos. I wonder what this urban baby’s first word is. “Daddio”?

From Dustbowl to Grammy Stage : The Feedsack Dress

Life on America’s farms in the 1930’s (dustbowl) meant hard work and frugal habits. With feed sacks and flour bags, farmwomen took thriftiness to new heights of creativity, transforming the humble bags into dresses, underwear, towels, curtains, quilts, and other household necessities. Feed sacks, scraps and old clothes were given new life and transformed into things like day dresses and quilts.

Taylor Swift wore a dress during her 2012 Grammy performance that looked like her stylist dug up an 1930’s feed sack and made her a dress. The color seems to be different from the photo, but it is hard to tell. The print of Taylor’s dress is floral and many feed sack dresses were solid or floral pattern.  The length is about the same as the little girl’s dress in the picture.

#Flashbackfriday: Pretty In Pink

Jackie Kennedy (Onassis) remains in fashion history as one of the most elegant first-ladies. The ’60s were marked by her clothing choices, and millions of women around the world watched her outfits with admiration and tried to reproduce them. Perhaps the most iconic fashion statement worn by Jackie Kennedy was her pink Chanel suit. Worn on the day of John F. Kennedy’s tragic death, the pink suit has become a symbol of her husband’s assassination and one of the lasting images of the 1960s. Even Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon) from the movie Legally Blonde knew this was a powerful look when she made her debut in Washington D.C. Barbie even make an Elle Woods Barbie in the pink suit with matching pillbox hat. While visiting British troops in 1995, Princess Diana wore a Jackie O. inspired pink suit by Gianni Versace, and in May of 2012, the Duchess wore a rose pink dress by Emilia Wickstead and L.K. Benett heels to a garden party held at Buckingham Palace in celebration of Queen Elizabeth’s Diamond Jubilee. Since the 60’s there have been many variations and alterations to the original cut of this popular suit however, there will always only be the ‘one’ worn by Jackie.

Cinematic Style

There’s no denying that Eva Marie Saint is a beauty, but some of her clothes in this film are simply divine. Take this dress as the most obvious – and stunning – example of the Signature a line dress (the new look) that Eva Marie Saint wore in Alford Hitchcock’s film North by Northwest. Eva entices in this nearly off-the-shoulder red floral silk dress and the style and pattern have stayed classic with modern twists. Alice + Olive (the end dresses) have two dresses that capture Eva’s dress from the movie. The Red dress on the left has the boat neck just like Eva’s dress, but instead of an a-line, it is a gathered waist, but the floral print is quite similar. The dress on the end at the right is woven with hints of gold threads, Alice + Olivia’s floral-brocade floral print is a little different but it captures the same feel. The stiff lining gives the flounce skirt extra volume, drawing attention to a minuscule waist, which makes it look like Eva’s dress. The third dress I couldn’t’t find the designer but the length of the dress, the print and the waist gives it the Eva’s dress feel. All these dresses have their own unique North by Northwest feel to them but none of them are like the original.

A POP of Color

Peter Max is a multi-dimensional artist who became famous in the 1960s and early 70s for his pop artist (psychedelic) style and posters that converge to the mass media. Max gave the Art Nouveau style of the early 1900s a psychedelic makeover with a bright, acidic palette of hot pinks, yellows and greens. His bold colors and uplifting images have inspired others.

 

It doesn’t get more American than neo – psychedelic artist Lisa Frank. She could be the cousin to psychedelic artist Peter Max, except her art was made for young girls during the 1980′s and 1990′s. Lisa’s artwork consists of neon rainbows, tigers, unicorns, pandas, dolphins and surfing penguins. Lisa Frank creates a cute and freaky world with images that populated school desks nationwide as spiral notebooks, stickers, pencils and erasers. I’m convinced that Peter Max is a close relative of Lisa Frank

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Feathers and Frills

Ginger Rogers had some serious style. Ginger Rogers liked to take part in the design of the clothing that she wore. One of the clothing pieces that she designed was an ostrich feather gown that she wore in a movie with Fred Astaire. Ginger Rogers wore the most incredible satin bodice/ostrich feather dress in Top Hat.  Look how the dress moves as Ginger dances cross the floor it is incredible and the fullness of the feather skirt made it appear like she was floating on a cloud.  Ginger Rogers’s style is still dancing around and you can channel the great Ginger Rogers in these truly inspired feather skirts. 

  

The feather skirts that Glamour magazine displayed are glamorous wardrobe piece; interesting textures and materials make for great statement skirts. There are so many ways you can wear them. You can make it into an outfit fit for a cocktail party or dress it down for a fun casual date. So many options from a vintage rock and roll tee shirt and heels to a sequined top. Frilly feathers dress down or up and will make you want to dance backwards in high heels. 

 

The simple elegance dress and skirt Taylor Swift​​ & Karlie Kloss​ are wearing in the March Vogue issue have a Ginger Rogers-ness to them. I can just picture this two fabulous outfit floating/dancing stunningly a ballroom or in a modern day remake of Top Hat. Now all you will need is Fred Astaire.

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