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DGBVintage

For some reason, I haven't tended to write much about the vintage side of things on here.  I guess I struggle to focus on two different things at once: when I'm making bears, the vintage site always suffers, and vice versa.  I have been focusing heavily on the bears recently and have let the other website slide.

It's still something I enjoy though: it's all part of the same thing to me - an interest in fabric, design and construction.

I haven't changed the front page of the vintage website for a long time, so I've been faffing around in Paintshop Pro tonight.  This is what I came up with...

It looks like a bit of a mish-mash, doesn't it?  I guess I was thinking of holidays and postcards, which is where the hand-writing (and the kisses!) came in.  I always have this problem with front page layouts - I'm not commercially-minded enough to come up with a strong advertising message; I just do something pretty.

Ah well, that's my vintage post for this year - I will be back to bears tomorrow!

And some more...

I have updated the lingerie website again - this time with some of the most beautiful 1930s and 1940s underwear.

Brief moan about the website: it always takes ages to update it! I built it with my own fair hands, after reading a book entitled something like 'An Idiot's Guide to Building Web Pages'. If the cap fits... I managed it but there's a lot of stuff which would probably be automated on a professionally-built website, which I have to do manually. Photographing the lingerie and writing descriptions takes long enough, but I spent all this morning, from about 9:30am until 2pm actually putting the new stuff on the website. And I'll need to do it all again in another couple of days!

Anyway, our spare room was looking rather a mess. In addition to the three six-foot clothes rails, there was a wardrobe full of unlisted lingerie, lingerie hanging on the back of the door, from the picture rail, on the back of the chair, laid out on the bed... I've never really got organised since closing the Ebay shop.

I went through stuff until I couldn't possibly jam anything else onto the clothes rails, and then gave up. I did find ten amazing pieces of vintage nightwear though, so it wasn't a wasted expedition. Part of the stuff I found was bought from a UK auction house about a year ago. It was a wonderful lot - far better quality than anything I've ever found on Ebay, but with a price tag to match. As a result, I have had to put it on the website at quite a high price. It is slightly daunting - listing a negligee set at over £200 - but you can pay that much in a posh designer store (in fact, in many cases, you'd be lucky to pay only that much), and I'd put the pieces from this lot up against modern designer lingerie any day. They are incredibly lovely.

Anyway, here are some pictures of the four pieces from THAT lot that I listed today (if you click on the pictures, you should be able to see them better):

The first and the third items pictured are actually sets - they come with robes; the other two are individual nightdresses. They all have wide sweeping skirts and beautiful details. In the fourth picture, the lines you can see on the bodice are actually strips of silk sewn on the inside of the bodice - so they show up as being more opaque from the outside. Each strip is then framed, on the outside, with lots of tiny satin-stitched leaves.

It is one of my big ambitions to learn dress-making and start making vintage-style lingerie myself: the details are inspiring in a way that modern nightwear rarely is.

New rabbit, new lingerie...

Well, my third rabbit was going the same way as the second one. I think his head is slightly too small in proportion to his body. The self-standing body is quite tall - so I had this long slim body with a tiny head on top - not a good look. Also, being all-white, he looked quite plain. I have the same problem with realistic polar bears - they tend to look very blank, and any feature added to the face stands out like a sore thumb.

Anyway, I couldn't face the idea of a tall, thin, white rabbit with a white sandwich board, so I decided (in a rare pragmatic moment) that the obvious thing to do would be to cover the foam board that I was using to make the sandwich board in a colourful, jazzy fabric. That would put some colour in his cheeks!

Somehow it all came together: I made little cases for the two pieces of foam board - like pillow cases - but sewed red ribbons into the side and top seams of one. Then a snapper at the end of each ribbon, and corresponding snappers on the inside of the rear board, and presto!

Sorry, it's not a great photo. You can see the red ribbons running over his shoulders, though, and there are two more ribbons round his waist - one on each side. The photo pinned to the board is Clarissa - pictured in my last post - with a 'Happy Mother's Day' message (I'm always late with these things).

My little rabbit messenger is called Horatio, and he looks lovely on the top shelf of the unit. The only slight problem is that I'm not sure people notice him up there. I've read that you sell more if you display things at eye-level - maybe he is a little out of range. I did point him out to one lady, and she looked up with a surprised-sounding 'Oh!'. Maybe the board should say "Big Brother is watching you!"

I do like displaying things on the top shelf - it looks great - even though it really is high (a step ladder job) and it puts things out of people's reach. The unit has a cosy feel with lots of bears around the top edges, looking down on you.

I was worried about Horatio in particular though. Customers do tend to rearrange the bears - or just pick them up to look and then drop them back on the shelf any-old-how. Horatio stands independently due to the steel shot in his feet. Even with that though, it's still something of a balancing act. He needs to be arranged with his body aligned vertically to his legs. If he is put on the shelf with body and legs angled, he will fall over. This makes him rather delicate in retail terms - although it is a shame because, when posed properly, he stands absolutely fine.

If someone were to knock him over when he was wearing his sandwich board though, the foam board might snap (particularly if one of his ultra-heavy feet landed on it).

So, better on the top shelf.

When I mentioned new lingerie in the title, I wasn't about to flash my knickers at you. In addition to making and selling teddy bears, I also sell vintage lingerie and nightwear. This is something which started as a hobby - buying and selling on Ebay. I have recently moved off Ebay to an independent website though, and I have just updated it!

Here are some of the new items listed:

It was a day for chiffon items: the top picture is a double-layer chiffon nightdress in a gorgeous blue colour. It flares from the neckline, and the straps tie on top of the shoulder. The second pic is of a peignoir set, by Vanity Fair. It is incredibly fluffy, with four layers of fabric. The nightdress is chiffon over nylon; the robe is double-layer chiffon. The third picture is of a yellow chiffon nightdress - again, double layer, with a lovely embroidered floral trim around the hemline.

I love these things - especially the sets. I find it difficult to understand why people don't snap them up, for you so rarely ever see nightwear like this in the shops now. You see the occasional red chiffon babydoll in Ann Summers... complete with maribou feather trim, strategic cut-outs and matching thong (bleurgh!). And of course, there are some beautiful couture designer items reminiscent of vintage lingerie. I did go into Monsoon the other day and saw a lovely nightdress with crystal pleats to the hemline - how often do you see crystal pleats today?

Anyway, do have a look at the new stuff sometime.