Mad Men party

On Saturday night we went to our great friend Benedict Wong's Mad Men party to celebrate his 40th Birthday.

I was ready on time for a change.  The Actor was late as he had to eat, iron his shirt and polish his shoes.  I ended up having a sandwich and two glasses of chocolate milkshake (always good for stomach lining!).   I was going to get him to take some pictures of me but it was 10.45pm when he arrived and we'd been told there was no entry at the club after 11pm.  Lots of people asked me to post some pictures so I took a few of myself.

I put Carmen rollers in my hair and curled it under and tried to do a beehive at the back with backcombing... needless to say it didn't work and my hair flopped straight back into the usual Seventies style

I wore a gold sequin shift dress which that I  bought on Ebay for £10

With a white marabou jacket, Ebay £40

Pearl, citrine and jet necklace, a present

and Dents satin gloves, Ebay £7

Giles for Gina patent shoes from his SS06 collection, a present from Giles.

Then I decided I was absolutely boiling in a heavy sequin dress so I put on this silk printed Betsey Johnson dress which I bought on Ebay ages ago for £15.  I've popped a Westwood choker on with it here.  I later changed that for the previous necklace.  I took my black sequin boots which I also changed into.  Sorry for the shocking picture, this was the least blurred.

The party was at the Mildmay Working Man's club in Newington Green.  I've been to lots of things here.  The last thing was an Oasis party.  It's Liam's favourite venue.  He always said he'd marry Nicole Appleton here.

Here's a snap of the dancefloor.  There was a giant screen playing Mad Men.

And the smoking pit which was constantly packed.

Everyone in the following pictures apart from me, Laura and Steven are actors... Here are some snaps of my friends and a few of me for a change

Birthday boy Benedict Wong.  Happy Birthday darling!

Adrian Bower

Navin Chowdhry and Jake Maskall

Josephine Butler and Donna Grant

John Simm and his wife Kate Magowan

Belinda Stewart-Wilson

Daisy Beaumont

Daisy's fabulous diamante gloves

Maime McCoy

Laura Price Bates

Caroline Loncq

Henry and I

Henry and Daisy Robertson

Daisy Beaumont, Adrian Bower and Kirsty-Loretta Mitchell

Steven Williams and Jake Maskall

Adrian Bower and I

Vix sent me a link to a site called Mad Men Yourself which is fun.  It was really helpful for accessories.  I had a bit of trouble choosing the right nose, the selection was dreadful.  Here's what mine turned out like.  My instinct would have been to pick the black cocktail dress but I was thinking gold and sparkly.

This was the closest I could get.

Here's me at 6am after quite a few JD and cokes.  Not sure what I'm doing with my dress but there was a fair bit of dancing back at mine.  I've added a pair of bunny ears to my outfit.

Needless to say I had a terrible hangover, one of those ones where you're frightened to open your eyes!  I tried to talk The Actor into getting some food delivered for dinner but he was having none of it.  He brought me a cup of tea and a pint of paracetamol and wheeled me off to his friend's new pub for a fantastic roast chicken and stuffing with tons of vegetables followed by an enormous plate of cheese, biscuits and grapes.  I forgot my camera but we'll definitely go back and I shall blog about it.

I haven't switched on the laptop for two days so I'm off to catch up with everyone's blogs, I've missed you all!  It's dull and rainy in London today. Tonight it's another night in front of the TV for me which I'm delighted about.  Have a lovely evening xxx  

Things that caught my eye this week

Fashion designer Danielle Scutt's stunning new jewellery collection

My favourite is the necklace and belt above which I think are fabulous.  The collection is a collaboration with Freedom at Top Shop which means they shouldn't be expensive.  They go in store on 1st April.  Danielle cites her inspiration for the collection as Frida Kahlo, Peggy Guggenheim and Prevost's novel Manon Lescaut.  The luxury pieces are made of matt gold components, enamel and woven platinum blonde hair, I'm assuming the hair's not real!

Lipstick earrings with platinum blonde hair

Jewellery, make-up and tea all in one pair of earrings - perfect.

Other things I've liked this week

Andy Warhol's portrait of Tina Chow on Little Augury's blog

Which reminded me of this Betsey Johnson Marilyn coat on Ebay

This is bonkers and not exactly a bargain purchase but I think it's great fun!  Available to Buy it now at £117

I also liked these Betsey Johnson red velvet wedges on Ebay

Unfortunately they are too small for me at size 5.  They are currently on at £21.75 with no bids yet.  I love the heart buckles.

Vintage Seventies fringed maxi dress on Ebay

I thought this was great but it went well above what I was prepared to pay and sold for £125!

I think I've found an outfit in my wardrobe for the Mad Men party tonight.  I am taking Kate's advice and saying I'm from Season 4 which goes into the early Sixties.  The Actor was talking about going as Colonel Gadaffi earlier!  I shall definitely take some pictures to blog.  God knows what I'm going to do with my hair.  I bought a set of original Carmen rollers on Ebay last year that someone had knocking about in their loft unopened.  I don't know if my theory is correct but every time I use them, no matter how I do it my hair looks like something straight out of the Seventies!  I tried to do a beehive earlier but it just falls back into my usual style after five minutes.  Hmmmm.  I'm hoping that I'll get away with it as I always dress up anyway.

Have a great Saturday xxx

Friday quotes - Vivienne Westwood

"You have a much better life if you wear impressive clothes"

Vivienne Westwood

(b. 1941)

Vivienne Westwood is one our greatest fashion designers.  She is famous for bringing punk and new wave to the mainstream.

With her ex-husband Malcolm McLaren she owned the influential Kings Road clothing shop, variously named SEX, Seditionaires, Let It Rock, Too Fast to Live, Too Young to Die and World's End.

McLaren was then manager of the Sex Pistols and together they designed the band's clothes which incorporated elements of BDSM, bondage gear, safety pins and razor blades.  Members of the Bromley contingent, Soo Catwoman, Jordan and Siouxsie Sioux modeled many of her creations.

Vivienne Westwood showed her first collection in Pirates in 1981 and subsequent years have seen Savage (1982), Buffalo Girls (AW82), Clint Eastwood (AW84) "Sometimes you need to transport your idea to an empty landscape and populate it with fantastic looking people."  The period from 1988-1992 is known as The Pagan Years where her heroes change from punks and ragamuffins to Tatler girls wearing clothes that parodied the upper class.  1993-1999 she called Anglomania and from 2000 to the present Exploration.

The first major retrospective of her work was at the V&A in 2004.  The exhibition was created from 145 outfits ranging from early punk garments to "historical" evening gowns.

In a 2007 interview she spoke out against what she perceive as the "drug of consumerism",[19] and she attended the première of The Age of Stupid, a film aiming to motivate the public to act against climate change.[20]
In 2007 she created a manifesto of Active Resistance to Propaganda, which deals with the pursuit of art and motivating people to act against climate change.  In her manifesto, she "penetrates to the root of the human predicament and offers the underlying solution. We have the choice to become more cultivated and therefore more human – or by muddling along as usual we shall remain the destructive and self-destroying animal, the victim of our own cleverness."

Against the claim that anti-consumerism and fashion contradict each other, she said in 2007 that "I don't feel comfortable defending my clothes.  But if you've got the money to afford them, then buy something from me.  Just don't buy too much."

Vivienne is married to her former student Andreas Kronthaler.  For thirty years she lived in the same Clapham council flat until Andreas persuaded her to move into a Queen Anne style house built in 1703 and once owned by Captain Cook.

I've loved Vivienne for a very long time.  She is one of my favourite designers, I think she's amazing.  Here are some of her quotes.

"Fashion is about eventually becoming naked"

 "I was the first person to have a punk rock hairstyle"

"Malcolm and I were probably the straightest people on that scene"

"When we were young I fell in love with Malcolm [McLaren]. 

I thought he was beautiful and I still do.

I thought he was a very charismatic, special and talented person. 

The thought of him dead is really something very sad"

Photography by William English

"We based the look on rock 'n' roll right from the beginning"

"I was walking down the street in rubber negligées and high-heel stiletto shoes at a time when other people were wearing denim, flares and platforms.  You felt very heroic.  I knew I looked good"

[On clothing shop SEX]

"We wanted to create the feeling of being inside a womb, but also in a sort of sex torture chamber"

[On her high heels]

"I like to literally put women on a pedestal"

"I think stamped-out clothing is just for clones and I think everybody looks terribly miserable"

"Fashion is life-enhancing and I think it's a lovely, generous thing to do for other people"

"If you ask me what I think people should be getting next season.  I'll tell you what I'd like them to buy - nothing.  I'd like people to stop buying and buying and buying.  There's this idea that somehow you've got to keep changing things, and as often as possible.  Maybe if people just decided not to buy anything for a while, they'd get a chance to think about what they wanted; what they really liked"

"Why do people think that if you don't dress up, others will appreciate your beauty more - that style will somehow emanate from you?  It's rubbish.  If you dress up it helps your personality to emerge - if you choose well"

"So many women don't seem to even understand what sexy means.

Sexy is about looking powerful and important"

"It is life-enhancing to dress well.  It's generous.

 It's a self-expression to find clothes that suit you"

"I think dress, hairstyle and make-up are the crucial factors in projecting an attractive persona and give one the chance to enhance one's best physical features"

"There's something really awful about the way people dress now.

Everyone looks the same.  Everyone wants to look neutral"

"I think some people would love to be able to make the clothes I make - and of course, I do influence them, but they keep simplifying, and minimalism doesn't quite work"

"I'm not trying to do something different, I'm trying to do the same thing but in a different way"

"The young need discipline and a full bookcase"

"All that self-expression has just created a generation of morons,

hooked on an endless appetite for rubbish"

"I think it is terribly important to have opinions, and to think.

We live in a world of action without thought"

"My manifesto is saying, essentially, every time you learn something, you see something you understand, you are helping to change the world and you are a freedom fighter.  Even if it just means looking a word up in the dictionary you didn't know before"

Photography by Mary McCartney

"Intelligence is composed mostly of imagination and insight,

things that have nothing to do with reason"

"My son has followed fashion since he was a punk.

He and I agree that fashion is about sex"

Photography by Juergen Teller

Vivienne Westwood, Andreas Kronthaler and Pamela Anderson

I thought Sex And The City was supposed to be about cutting-edge fashion and there was nothing remotely memorable or interesting about what I saw...I went to the premiere and left after ten minutes

Photography by Juergen Teller

Vivienne Westwood, Andreas Kronthaler and Pamela Anderson

"I would have loved to have dressed Kate Middleton

but I have to wait until she catches up a bit somewhere with style"

[On husband Andreas]

"If he didn't come home at night I wouldn't care...

I've never been more secure about anybody in my life"

"I am attracted to people who make this effort in knowing what suits them"

"When I'm in the street, the only people I notice,

are usually at least 70 years old, because they have style

"Fashion is very important.

It is life-enhancing and, like everything that gives pleasure,

it is worth doing well"

Vivienne Westwood

(b. 1941)

I am reblogging this clip that I saw earlier this week on Kate's blog as I think it's genius.  God I love Viv! She's genius.

More Friday quotes

Keith Richards

Ava Gardner

Marlene Dietrich

Joan Crawford

Frida Kahlo

Marilyn Monroe

Tallulah Bankhead

Diana Vreeland

Cher

Hedy Lamarr

Katharine Hepburn

Zsa Zsa Gabor

Joan Collins

Mick Jagger

I'm having a night in again tonight.  Tomorrow we're off to a Mad Men party.  I'm trying stuff on to see what I can get away with.  Prom dresses and anything from the Fifties aren't exactly my thing (I'd rather wear Westwood) but Kate has kindly given me some ideas.  Have a great evening xxx