Fabric Flower Class with Ulla

In June I took Ulla Milbrath's "Summer Blooms" class at the Castle. I went with my friend Lisa. We had a wonderful time learning to make fabric flowers, which we turned into pins and necklaces. The weeks that followed I couldn't stop wearing my fabric flower necklace - I loved it so much! Check out Ulla's blog with pictures of the other student's creations.

My fabulous dress by Sarah Borruso

I am wearing in this picture the fabulous "Unfolding Dress" by the talented designer Sarah Borruso, who owns the San Francisco fashion label Stars + Ravens. I went to one of Sarah's trunk shows and fell in love with her style: vintage meets modern - very San Francisco. "The unfolding dress" was originaly created in a beautiful silk charmeuse . Knowing how chilly San Francisco and the Bay Area are most of the year, I opted for a light wool as fabric of choice. Sarah made this custom dress for me and I am so delighted with it.
Here I am at Sarah's second trunk show in another fabulous dress she designed. This dress is made of a lovely heavy silk that she hand painted. Her own dress has the same cut, but she cut lots of little slashes into the fabric. Very cool!
Last not least I had to try on her Monika Vitti dress, that sports a sexy opening in the back.

Lovely textures: ruffles and lace

I came across this new Bristish designer Erdem Moralioglu, simply known as 'Erdem'. He is a graduate of the Royal College of Art and won the prestigious Fashion Fringe Award in 2005. I love his use of lace and ruffle to create texture. He also does awesome prints.
On a visit to Bloomingdale's Valentina and I fell in love with this gorgeous ruffly/feathery skirted Diane Von Furstenberg dress, that I included as the last image, because it also plays successfully with texture. Now reading up on Erdem I find out that he worked with Diane Von Furstenberg for a year. They obviously share some design principles.

Valentina would look beautiful in this Diane Von Furstenberg dress. I love the juxtaposition of a simple tee-shirt dress with the ruffly-feathery skirt. On closer inspections we saw that this skirt was created out of many, many narrow leaf shaped , frayed organza pieces - just amazing!

Looking for a dress?

Well, It all started with a dress...and Paulette Edition is just something I stumbled upon, when looking for dresses online and found Sunday Brunch Dress Shop. Iris Schwarz sells her beautiful prints by the name of Paulette Edition on etsy . I love how she layers her images, like diaphanous fabric over skin... Which dresss would you wear?

Meanwhile I can picture myself wearing this one I found at the Sunday Brunch Dress Shop:

Red Ruffles

I love this Fendi dress, because a. it is that gorgeous rich red I can't get enough of and b. I somehow need more ruffles in my life. I'd wear it in fall with boots.

On the way to a BBQ

Ready to go to my friend's BBQ I am wearing a vintage seersucker dress that is covered with a bandana pattern with rose.

Some things in my house

On my sideboard are some of the gifts I received for my birthday displayed. The doll dates from approx. 1909 and is called "The dollar princess" because she cost one dollar in those days.


I decorated my bed room wall with a trio of vintage embroidered piano shawls.

I dressed the mannequin in my bed room in a silk nightgown.

Malaysian Fashion

Headscarves for sale!


Malaysian women's fashion is a mirror of the country's multicultural ethnic and religious make up. Most Malays are muslims and their degree of devoutness shows in their dress code. You can see the whole gamut of fully covered women to the more modern version of jeans and head scarfes. The Chinese on the other hand are very modern and enjoy showing some skin. That results sometimes in the intriguing image of a Chinese woman in super tight and short hot pants (a lot of women wear hot pants - they seem to love them) and tank top standing in line at the bus stop next to Malayan Muslim Lady, who is fully covered and wearing a headscarve. The difference couldn't be bolder. I have seen this many times. Unfortunately never had my camera with me to capture this anachronism.There are also Indian women who will dress very modern in Jeans and t-shirt or sport Saris or other traditional Indian dress. I found the juxtaposition of traditional and modern dress in everyday life in Malaysian very intriguing.

A woman completely covered and in black is mostly from Saudi Arabia. This is the typical strict Saudi Muslim dress code. The Malayan Muslims are more colorful. As seen here in this next photo. They wear a long nigth shirt-like dress, called a baju kurung, that is usually boldly patterned over a very long skirt. Often their headscarves can be also patterend or at least colorful.
This is the traditional Malayan dress: a long fitted jacket, called kebaya over a sarong. This combination is also worn in Indonisia. Muslim women will add a head scarf.
The modern and more liberal version of Muslim dress code, can be seen here on this stylish women in jeans, heels with her chic handbag and shades. A lot of women will also wear jeans and snug t-shirt and a black headscarf.
Ladies of Indian decent are often seen dressed very modern, but with a red dot on their forehead. But many are also still sporting traditional dress, like these in the photo.


It seems that Chinese women's appearance is the most western. They also show the most skin, often wearing short skirts and hot pants. I photographed one that looked rather decent, compared to some hotties I saw.

Fabric Heaven in Langkawi

Yes, we love chartreuse!
My aunt took me to this amazing fabric store. I have never seen so much fabric in one place.
The colors and display were completely over the top. I enjoyed the place, but was too overwhelmed to buying anything,

My Edwardian Ball History

This coming Saturday we will be attending the 2009 Edwardian Ball. This will be our 5th time at this fabulous event that celebrates all things Edward Gorey. People dress up in period clothing anything goes from Victorian to the roaring 20's or sport their unique Circus, Vaudeville, Cabaret-Punk style. There will be Ballroom dancing and fabulous circus acts, as well as the live music by the great Rosin Coven, the pagean lounge orchestra that instigates the Edwardian Ball every year (Eight musicians blend violin, two cellos, bass, guitar, harp, vibraphone, trombone, drums & lush vocal harmonies in a strangely beautiful mix of classical, jazz, chamber, tango, klezmer, sultry lounge, theatrical cabaret, and cinematic dreams.). This event has been getting bigger and bigger and this years ball has been moved to the Regency Ballroom. It has been one of my favorite events of all times: the music, costumes, performances are a fairy tale dream come alive. If you have never been, you should check it out. I will be there for sure.



2005 our first Edwardian Ball, when it was still held at the Kat Club.





2006 the Edwardian Ball moved to the beautiful Great American Music Hall
We had our portrait taken there. I am wearing a vintage flapper dress.



2007 I wore my He/She costume




2008 we took Valentina along

Halloween at our house

Every Halloween I look forward to my daughter's ideas for her costume. Naturally I loved her idea this year to go as Holly Golighty from Breakfast at Tiffany's. It's one of her favorite movies and she adores Audrey Hepburn. I was very sleepy, when I had to get up really early to tease her hair into a beehive.






These are some Halloween set ups around our home.

Bats and Hats

I can't remember where I found this image. I wish I could wear this fabulous bat hat this coming Friday with my vintage black velvet cape!

In the mood for dark fairy dresses

This Halloween I don't quite know what to dress up as. There isn't a specific character I want to be. It is more a mood I would love to portrait. These dresses definitely fit the bill. Something out of a dark fairy tale. Leave it to Alexander McQueen to come up again with gorgeous masterpieces. I fondly remember last years plaid and lace creations that had me in a swoon.