1950s helsingborg

Yesterday was a blast from the past - and I mean that in two ways. I took a step back to my '40s and '50s life a few years back during a trip to Helsingborg, and got terribly homesick. Pair this trip with the Carol soundtrack on loop and my red lipstick and perhaps you'll see why.

Helsingborg is home to the wonderful Ebbas Fik, a 1950s style cafe. You can order delicious homemade burgers and wedges (with the potato skins on) or a dazzling selection of fika items, and pay 1 kronor to pick a song on the jukebox. I chose The Hollies - I'm Alive, and truly, the place came alive in that moment. The two-tone custard yellow and turquoise walls were bedecked with movie posters, and adverts, and there were shelves full of books and records for your perusal (and your pennies; they were all for sale). I felt transported.

I wandered the streets. Sweden has frozen over again this week, yet the skies were a beautiful blue, and the sun cast long golden rays across the streets. Sweden is a strange country, in the sense that it is incredibly easy to lose sense of which era you're in. The architecture has a timeless quality to it, with most of its old buildings and cobbled streets intact, and it is not so difficult to imagine how the streets might have looked fifty, eighty, even a hundred and fifty years in the past.

The next stop on my rather brief tour was to Dunkers kulturhus to the exhibition Vivian Maier: Street Photographer. The life of Vivian Maier (1926-2009) is little-known and somewhat sad. Working quietly as a nanny for 40 years, a 'real, live Mary Poppins', she spent her free time taking over 150,000 photographs of life in Chicago and New York. Her body of work was never published in her lifetime, and many of the photographs were still in negative form, unprinted. One of the curators of her work, John Maloof, said of her that 'she was a Socialist, a Feminist, a movie critic, and a tell-it-like-it-is type of person... She was constantly taking pictures, which she didn't show anyone.' Like so many great artists, she was never aware of the impact of her life's work.

Self portrait, ca.1956

Self portrait, ca.1956

ca.1953-8

ca. 1953-8

ca. 1953-8

The Return of the Vintage Vegan

After an extremely long pause, I have returned - not only to the blogosphere, but to the world of vintage lifestyle! An awful lot has happened since I last made a proper post on this blog (back in September 2013)... I've graduated from university, gotten a job, and have tried many different new things, from making new friendships to dyeing and cutting my hair in all manner of colours and all manner of ways. But now, after a break from vintage (apart from only the briefest of forays during the past year or so) I have found myself being pulled towards it once more. It was time to give my blog a little renovation, so I jazzed it up with a new name and a bit of a design change!

So, for your viewing pleasure, here are a couple of photographs from the past year...

Let's start off near-ish the beginning. I decided to bleach my hair and dye it all sorts of interesting colours:

But after a little while, I rewatched The Hour for the millionth time, and went to see Mojo in London, and I had a little bit of androgynous 1950s revival.

Not long after that, it was all change again. As I grew out my hair, I submitted my dissertation (and later found out that I got a First!)

THEN, I decided, in the heat of my new all-consuming Scandinavian passion, that I would go blonde. So I did. I even celebrated Midsommar like a true Swede (or at least, that's what it felt like...)

What's more, I even graduated!

 The next big thing was In The Flesh, a BAFTA-winning BBC show, all about the reintegration of the undead (known as PDS - Partially Deceased Syndrome - sufferers) after a stabilising drug is created. I am still full of praise for this programme. It dealt with so many issues in a brilliant way: mental health, sexuality, loss, prejudice... the list goes on and on. I got myself some "rotter" contacts and scared people out on the street, and for Halloween, where I went less "rotter" and more "walker" as I began my binge of the Walking Dead.

And then came the Big Chop. In a "now or never" sort of moment, I decided to shave off all of my hair.

All of this happened in just about a year. For a couple of weeks now, the '30s, '40s and '50s have been worming their way back into my life. And last week, I decided to take the leap and get my clothes back out of storage. This was all down to the wonderful The Fiercest Lilliputian and her hair, which is only a little longer than mine. She has an amazing vintage look, and she rocks is with this hair. I finally felt I had the courage to return to it myself, instead of waiting for my hair to grow into a more "vintage" cut. 

So hello again! I hope you haven't completely forgotten me.

Jess x

Summer time

About 10 minutes ago, I submitted my final assessed piece for my second year at university, which means... summer's here! It also means the return of more outfit posts, and of more cooking!
First off, here's a picture of what I wore to church on Sunday. You may notice a few things that are different about me, the main one being I'VE HAD A CHANGE OF HAIR! It is now a lot shorter and very extremely black. I'm still getting to grips with styling it, but I thought a '30s bob would be good for summer, especially as there is no air conditioning where I work! Also, I realise that I look a little tired/disheveled, and red lipstick-less...

Dress: charity shop
Cardigan: this got left at our house by a friend of my sister's, so I nicked it.

Bag: vintage store. This was a present from my mam.

 This is what my hair looked like on the day of the Great Chopping-Off once it had been styled by my hairdresser:

 And a couple of days after, in the midst of essay-editing...

What else have I been up to? Well, cooking, for a start. When I say cooking, I really mean visualising doing cooking, as we have had lots of people staying at our house over the past couple of days (including two fantastic American pianists!), so I have decided to spend my time leafing through my new copy of 'Mastering the Art of French Cooking' by Julia Child, Louisette Bertholle and Simone Beck, and choosing some recipes from there. I have also focused on making my lunches healthier, tastier, and prettier. Here's what I came up with from earlier this week:

Top left: spinach and basil paste with creme fraiche and tomatoes. Top right: spinach and basil paste with cranberry sauce, walnuts and blue cheese. Bottom: Creme fraiche, spinach and basil paste, gherkins, tomatoes and sesame seeds.
What is "spinach and basil paste" I hear you ask? Well, it is a handful or two of spinach leaves, blended with a couple of sprigs of fresh basil, a glug of olive oil, salt and pepper, and a teaspoon of grainy mustard. It is the most vibrant-looking spread I've ever made!

I spent all of Saturday afternoon in great celebration from finishing the writing of my essays, and decided to do a little bit of sketching/painting/general arty-fartyness. This is the result: a mixed-media piece of Mads Mikkelsen as Dr. Hannibal Lecter:

Well, I think it's time to get out of the house and into the sunshine, so I'll leave it here for now! I'm hoping to make some Hannibal food for my next post so keep an eye out.

Jess xx