I need your blind full secrets, hunting fast and loose

I have become addicted to the gorgeous handmade creations on Etsy. Such an array of "artyfacts" to suit my fancy. I can see my house filling even more with tonnes of them. Before I bankrupt myself buying from them and make it impossible for anyone else to get their hands on the lovely stuff , I thought it best to share a few of my favourites.

It's a corset, it's rococo, it's got black and white stripes... and ohhh my, it's got Marie Antoinette on it. I have died of corset envy! The few at the store are just too fabulous to choose between so I shall drool enviously until I can decide upon one. ...there's even one with a skeleton panel in it. It's so fabulous that if darling John Entwistle weren't already dead the sight of a girl wandering around in it would kill him all over again.
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5191694

I love the concept behind this particular shop - "dress in art" which is generally what try to do a lot of the time, right down to my Botticelli print umbrella and Marilyn Monroe shoes. Above is the gorgeous Klimt handbag but I'm also rather taken with their Kandinsky skirt and the Mondrian bag... and, well, I'm deffinately keeping my eye on this store until one item screams "BUY ME!"
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=7391891

The real gems here are the gorgeous lockets covered with fabulous art on the outside before you even start to think what to put on the inside. They're on sale at the moment so get over there!!! ...there's quite an array of fabulous bangles too and I've already treated myself to *one* of the Marilyn ones.

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=11219

Isn't this one of the most divine things ever?! I have enough Marilyn Monroe handbags to use a different one each month of the year... and yet I am now craving a Marie Antoinette handbag too. They have more utterly delish historically inspired frilly bags and cushions in their shop. Yummy!!!

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=6718452

You can't have this broach as it's already mine, but isn't it just beautiful?! It's based on the artist's painting 'The Queen and the Explorer' Featuring Queen Elizabeth poised in symbolic blessing of her explorer sir Francis Drake's ship. They've also done Wuthering Heights, Dorian Gray and ther most hilarious Madame Pompadour art.
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5619058&page=1

I've gone rather mad buying from this store, and this is the latest one taking my fancy. "FROU FROU Burlesque in Red" by Funky Love Designs. Their aray of hairclips goes right through fashion, glamour, art, history and fairytales. I've already bought hair clips featuring Anne Boleyn, Lord Byron ...and one of Robyn Dudley which I may have to be surgically removed from. *sigh*
http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=7540195

She keeps Moet et Chandon in a pretty cabinet

(essential soundtrack for his post. Turn up the volume and set the video to play)

For someone who is easily seduced by decadence, loves fashion, devours art and admires historical female rulers "The Regal Twelve" series by Alexia Sinclair reduces me to purring ecstacy. Inspired equally by Botticelli and Alexander McQueen the digital fantasy montages pay tribute to twelve beautiful and impressive women.

My beloved and most idolised Elizabeth I

The Queen of decadence Marie Antoniette

The deeply Catholic yet effortlessly regal Isabella of Spain

The wicked yet irresistable Blood Countess Elizabeth Bathory

For more of Alexia's spectacular work, visit http://alexiasinclair.com/

...and for those who find these royal ladies as enchanting and fascinating as I do, it's time you joined the regal court of twitter where three of these ladies hold court among the other undead royals:

Marie Antoinette - http://twitter.com/Chop_Chop_Cake

Elizabeth Bathory - http://twitter.com/BathoryErzsebet

Elizabeth Tudor - http://twitter.com/Always_The_Same (played by myself)

For anyone utterly addicted there's a whole role playing forum where you can exist as long in the royal heart as your decadent little heart desires: http://undead-royals.heavenforum.com/

She dwelt among the untrodden ways

For those afraid of delving deep into poetry, here a few few snippets from an array favourite verse to whet your appetite:


She dwelt among the untrodden ways
Beside the springs of Dove,
A Maid whom there were none to praise
And very few to love:
"She Dwelt" by William Wordsworth


Heard a carol, mournful, holy,
Chanted loudly, chanted lowly,
Till her blood was frozen slowly,
And her eyes were darkened wholly,
Turn'd to tower'd Camelot.
"The Lady of Shallot" by Alfred, Lord Tennyson


They fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you...
"This Be The Verse" by Philip Larkin


Let us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherised upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
"The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock" by T.S. Eliot


So sweet, so louely, and so mild as she,
Adornd with beautyes grace and vertues store
Her goodly eyes lyke Saphyres shining bright,
Her forehead Yuory white,
Her cheekes lyke apples which the sun hath rudded,
Her lips lyke cherryes charming men to byte,
"Epithalamion" by Edmund Spenser


When you are old and gray and full of sleep,
And nodding by the fire, take down this book,
And slowly read, and dream of the soft look
Your eyes had once, and of their shadows deep;
"When You Are Old" by William Butler Yeats


He turned; he spurred to the West; he did not know who stood
Bowed, with her head o'er the musket, drenched with her own red blood!
Not till the dawn he heard it, his face grew grey to hear
How Bess, the landlord's daughter,
The landlord's black-eyed daughter,
Had watched for her love in the moonlight, and died in the darkness there.
"The Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes


I fear thy kisses, gentle maiden;
Thou needest not fear mine;
My spirit is too deeply laden
Ever to burthen thine.
"To ___" by Percy Bysshe Shelley

fragrance in your sighs and sunlight in your glances

Today has been National Poetry Day and TS Eliot has been declared the nation's favourite poet. ...alas for me his name always recalls a quote from Eric Idle:

"In a perfect universe 'T. S. Eliot' would be spelt 'toilets' backwards" - Eric Idle


I have a great love of poetry, for the perfect crafting of evocative words. As a small child I studied poetry recital where most children would be out learning how to play football. So I thought for today I would pull out a lesser known piece from the book in which I transcribe my most favourite poems. From an era of true gentlemen who would gift admired ladies beautiful things that they could treasure all their lives.

lines written for a blank page of The Keepsake

by W. M. Praed

Lady, there's fragrance in your sighs,
And sunlight in your glances;
I never saw such lips and eyes
In pictures or romances;
And Love will readily suppose,
To make you quite enslaving,
That you have taste for verse and prose.
Hot pressed, and line engraving.

And then, you waltz so like a Fay,
That round you envy rankles;
Your partner's head is turned, they say,
As surely as his ankles;
And I was taught, in days far gone.
By a most prudent mother,
That in this world of sorrow, one
Good turn deserves another.

I may not win you! — that's a bore!
But yet 'tis sweet to woo you;
And for this cause, — and twenty more,
I send this gay book to you.
If its songs please you, — by this light!
I will not hold it treason
To bid you dream of me to-night,
And dance with me next season.

It had to be mine

I shall soon be re-launching my Little Willow website... thanks to geocities for closing down (that's a great help, thanks!)

...but before then a special gem from my collection. Bought in auction a few years ago, this is a Starkey family photograph taken during a party at Ringo's mum Elsie's house by the man himself. I fought over it tooth and nail with a dealer because it was a picture of my idol Maureen taken by her husband. And for that reason, it had to be mine.

D is for Dandy

(originally written as a segment for the Vintage Fashion Guild's label resource)

SHOP - Apple Tailoring / Dandy Fashions
DESIGNER - John Crittle

At the end of May 1968 John Lennon made his first public appearance with his new girlfriend Yoko Ono at the opening of a second Apple fashion outlet at 161 King's Road. It was originally a shop called Dandy Fashions and run by Australian designer John Crittle who designed clothes for The Rolling Stones, The Who, Procul Harum, Elvis Presley and Jimi Hendrix. Dandy Fashions had been a joint venture with Tara Browne, a friend of The Beatles and heir to the Guinness brewery fortune. Tara died in a car crash in December 1966, prompting a verse in the Beatles song A Day In The Life.

John Crittle went into business with The Beatles in February of 1968, George Harrison remembering that "we bought a few things from [John Crittle] and the next thing we knew, we owned the place!" John was a highly respected designer and retained the position of Director of the enterprise working alongside Apple manager Neil Aspinall and Apple accountant Stephen Maltz. This store was re-named Apple Tailoring and specialised in civil and theatrical wear.



When the Apple Boutique closed, the Beatles ended their connection with Apple Tailoring and gave the premises back to the manager. Paul McCartney issued a press statement declaring that "The Kings Road shop, which is known as Apple Tailoring, isn't going to be part of Apple anymore. But it isn't closing down and we are leaving our investment there because we have a moral and personal obligation to our partner John Crittle, who is now in sole control."

In 1975, John Crittle split up with his wife Andrew, leaving her and their six-year-old daughter behind and moving back to Australia. Their daughter Darcey Bussell (who took on the surname of her stepfather) was estranged from her father but made him very proud when she became the Royal Ballet's youngest principal ballerina at 20 years old. He returned to London two years before his death to watch his daughter dance but she refused contact with him. He died aged 56, suffering from emphysema.

where the Beautiful People can buy Beautiful Things

A fab 40th anniversary piece about the Apple Boutique including interviews with Pattie Boyd and Simon Posthuma from now and then: