When you watch old television shows, films, or read old books, sometimes fathers teaching their sons how to shave crops up. I grew up without my father, and just learnt to shave the way most people do nowadays – trial and error, with a cheap plastic razor and some cheap artificial soap in a can. I always wondered why fathers ever bothered teaching their sons, as it’s so easy to learn. Eventually, I read about wet shaving with a safety razor, and it made sense that sons got taught – it’s much harder to do.

I wanted to learn to shave with a safety razor, as I enjoy ritual and older ways of doing things, but had no safety razor to try with. However, Emmie found a safety razor & shaving brush for me at a flea market around 6 weeks ago. I already had a safety razor case as a gift from Emmie’s mum, and I dug it out and the razor fit perfectly.

With the use of the interweb I managed to date the razor to the early 70s, but the case and blades (there were a lot included – I won’t be using them though, as they’re 80 years old) are from the 20s. The razor is wonderful, but doesn’t the case just look amazing? Why would you want to use a modern plastic thing when you can have something like this?

It takes a little longer to shave this way, but it’s absolutely worth it. The close shave a safety razor gives is unparalleled by any method short of a cut-throat razor and it’s wonderful to your skin (unlike a modern razor with 4-5 blades, which causes many men so much irritation). Emmie hates it when I use it as she’s afraid of it – they use raw razor blades, and it’s much easier to cut yourself with one.

Shaving with a safety razor is quite different to modern shaving – you do need to get a proper, traditional shaving soap that you lather up with a brush and lots of water, and you need blades and a razor, which is a high cost up front compared to modern shaving, but in the long run it’s worth it. The only waste is some soap down the sink and a solid metal blade, which you can recycle. On top of that, the soap lasts so much longer – you use a toothpaste sized amount of soap, and I estimate my current soap will last well over a year. The blades are incredibly cheap (I recently bought 35 razor blades for less than the cost of an 8 pack of Mach 3 blades). On top of all that, you get an incredibly close shave. I’d recommend it to anybody that wants to give it a go.

When in England this year, Alex and I took a walk along the canal and checked out all the wonderful narrowboats. A lot of them have little gardens on the top of them, but the most adorable one I have ever seen must have been this teapot one.

(Click here for a larger version)

Since seeing this adorable little garden (at the end of summer obviously a little tired and run down) I’ve been on the lookout for cheap teapots to make a little teapot garden for myself. Isn’t it lovely?

This is a dress I’ve seen being sold on ebay several times. I’ve wanted it but was never quite sure whether it would fit me, whether it was too short, whether it was worth taking the chance, so I didn’t buy it. Until it came up in a fatshionista friday sales post by the lovely Lauren of  the pocket rocket.

I’m a firm believer of confidence. Confidence is key, especially when it comes to pulling of dresses that might be a tad bit short and a wee bit tight. So I wore this dress with my head held high and my back straight and made myself  be comfortable with it. With a cardigan, because it’s autumn and freezing.

In other news : I found a HUGE bright yellow coat at a thrift shop today. It’s going to be all kinds of rad for winter. Now I want a nice big braided belt to wear on top of it.

• Dress – Second hand, size 22 UK
• Cardigan – George by Asda, size 20 UK
• Shoes – Evans

Well Emmie may not enjoy autumn, but I love what it means for me – more suits can be worn! In summer I can only wear incredibly light suits, in both colour and weight. Once autumn comes, I can wear much more, and usually in November, although earlier this year with our cold spell, overcoats! I LOVE wearing overcoats – a coat down to the knees looks so elegant.

It also expands the hats I can wear, and I’ve got two nice hats (and a cap) that will be good for autumn/winter heading here and they should arrive within the next few days! Once they arrive, I’ll make a collective post about the rest of my hat collection.

I have, as promised, started working on my blogroll – it’s small at the moment, but I’ll expand it over time.

Autumn is here. Damn autumn. I’m getting more and more tired and mornings have turned into agony. I get out of bed wihtin seconds of my alarm going off. I have to, or I’m going to fall right back asleep. Warm scarves, cardigans, leg warmers and boots are my go to items of clothing to keep me feeling warm and cosy.

On this one particular day though, a day for flea markets and garage sales, I was full of energy and feeling happy and optimistic. It was a fantastic day, I found many gorgeous xmas gifts, two more toy sewing machines to add to my collection and a fantastic rya rug, among other things.

• Dress – gift from my mum
• Belt – Evans
• Cardigan – F&F by Tesco, size 20 UK
• Leggings – gifted, from Ellos
• Shoes – Evans
• Earrings – gift from my awesome husband

“To be overcome by the fragrance of flowers is a delectable form of defeat.”

- Beverly Nichols

I’m working on my blogroll. For the time being I’ve only added FATshion blogs, but I’m going to add fat politics, vintage and random blog links too. Alex is also compiling his list. We don’t have the same interests at all, except for the fact that we love video games and old things so seeing his links will be interesting for me too. We have such different interest and come from such different backgrounds, that it seems almost impossible that we should get along as nicely as we do. I guess it helps that we share the same values and that he’s the kindest and most generous man I know. It’s also pretty damn rad that he’s a feminist just like me, though you wouldn’t think so looking at him.

Does anyone have any suggestions for blogs about fat fashion or fat politics that should go on my blog roll?

And to not disappoint, have a picture of Semla, our kitty cat.

xoxo

Autumn hit a few days ago. October came with winds and hail, rain and clouds and we admit defeat. We put our coats on, bring in our duvets and remember the mild summer days when the grain was growing still and the sun woke us up early in the mornings.

Well, this blog is supposed to be a joint effort, so it’s time I stop slacking and start writing. I’ve had a few blogs, but the only thing consistent with them is that I stop updating after a while. Emmie’s managed to keep her other blog going for years, and it’s only currently on an update hiatus because there’s nothing to update about. My first few posts are going to be cross-posts from my old blog. I’m also quite interested in attire, although in a quite radically different way to Emmie. I’m not going to blog exclusively about what I wear, however, as you’ll see. This first post will be regarding one of my most treasured vintage items of attire, even though it’s one of the few I have never worn – my top hat.

Emmie bought this hat for me at a second hand shop for 150kr (£12.50 / $18). I wasn’t there at the time, but we share the same head size and she felt it fit quite well on her. The hat came with a box, which was quite battered, but I was thrilled.

When Emmie gave me the box and I took the hat out, I noticed that there was some newspaper at the bottom of the box. I can only assume it was there to prevent dust getting through the holes in the box. A quick glance at the newspaper gave a date of the 22nd September, 1956, showing that the hat was not a modern creation, and I became even more excited. I noticed that the hat was made by “H.J. Olsson”, in a town quite near where I live.

For a while after that, however, I couldn’t find out much about the hat. Nobody on the vintage forum I frequent, The Fedora Lounge, had any ideas regarding it, and I couldn’t find any information online from the names I had found on the hat’s lining.

One day, while looking at the hat, I noticed it was made in Eslöf. Until then I had read it as Eslöv, the name of a town quite near where I live, so I naturally assumed that the hat had come from there. A little bit of research revealed that Eslöf is the archaic name for Eslöv, so I thought it could assist with a more accurate ageing of the hat. I contacted the Eslöv bibliotek (library), asking if they would be able to provide any further information. I was quickly contacted by a librarian, who, over a few e-mails, informed me that the hat shop was opened in 1890, and closed down in 1966, and for the last 20 years was not run by the Olsson family. She also informed me that the name of Eslöv was changed to Eslöf in 1927. This meant that the hat was created some time between 1890 and just before 1930.

I also checked the quality of the hat, the feel of the material used to create the hat, and the quality of the light reflection, and determined that the hat is made of traditional silk plush. This makes the hat a much higher quality top hat, and makes the price Emmie bought it for even better – silk plush is much blacker than the modern alternatives, and has a much more defined shine – however, there are no looms left capable of creating the silk plush required, and obviously not enough demand for anybody to research the possibility of creating a modern loom that is capable. Top hats are one of the few items that royalty buy second hand – a second hand silk top hat is much better than a modern melusine.

I still need to acquire or create a velvet pad to give the top hat the proper shine it deserves – since receiving the photos I have purchased some hat brushes and brushed the hat, but I need a velvet pad to get it into perfect condition.

This blog is turning into a FATshion blog. Whatever happened to the flea market finds? Well I feel inspired and I’ve been better at getting photos taken.

I bought the (in)famous domino dress by Beth Ditto at Evans and I’ve been using it quite a bit. It’s seen early morning flea markets, the insides of grocery stores and now it’s also come with me to work.

I love the way it hugs my body without clinging too much. I used to hate my belly but nowadays I even think it’s a bit sexy. What an amazing transformation.

• Dress – Beth Ditto at Evans, size 24UK
• Cardigan – F&F by Tesco, size 20 UK
• Shoes & Accessories – Flea market finds