Rainy wintery friday

It's raining, finally!! I am not usually a big rain lover but I am loving it today. 1. we needed it 2. it's a nice change 3. it feels festive. I mean it's Nov 20th but the weather hasn't really felt different except the chilly evenings. Ben and I went to Rockridge today and walked around in the rain, had lunch at the Crepevine which is so yummy, and I went to my usual thrift shops. Got a few Christmas items and had a lovely time walking in the rain and window shopping. Last night I had dinner at Linda's with 5 other dynamic beautiful women and they all bought Joy Jars!! How fortuitous is that??!! So I am feeling really inspired, motivated and assured that I am on the right path with Hip Chick's. I'm excited to see where this all leads..............

Cow skulls and the joy of living authentically

Yesterday was a great day for this hip chick. I went to the studio and right away made a sale in the first five minutes of opening. What a way to start the day! I am so delighted that my shabby chicy merchandise is appealing to customers and it's validating to me as I am about to expand and move forward. I spent some time tagging items, and I wanted to paint out our fireplace cover that Ben made out of fiber insulation. It was hideously obnoxious and as it's a focal point in the room I had to do something to jazzy it up. This "plug" if you will, is pretty big about 3x3 and glaringly white...what to do.....I thought about painting a scrolly design but that wasn't firing me up until I looked up at my cow skull over my doorway and knew I could get psyched about that. So I furiouslly painted my skull and shazam our hideous screen is now a work of art that makes our fireplace dazzle. Maybe there's a market there...hahaha. As I worked on my skull I had another sale to top off my jubuliant mood, two tables for a little girl's room were out the door for a mere $50.00 (Bargains are the norm at Hip Chick's) As I was driving home in the usual traffic, I was so satisfied by my day. I am able to do what I love and make some money doing it. I'm not making enough to support myself yet but just getting started and making small sales has me excited and motivated for the future of my business. I get to paint and sell my paintings and that feels fantastic. It shows me that I can do what I love and make a living if I only believe in myself. It's scary to be so open and exposed, to say here's what I am and what I can do, but the benefit to it is worth it. The satisfaction that comes from living authentically is priceless. Money is merely a symbol, a validating useful means of getting what we need and want. There is no amount of money that equals the satisfaction of putting yourself into a passion and getting positive feedback. That personal connection is what it's all about, the essence of what drives us as people. We all love to make people happy and we all have our own unique ability to do this. To me that's the beauty of life is seeing how everyone finds their way to express themselves and live authentically. Are you living your life authentically?????? I'd love to hear about it.....

Past Due Tuesday-Dress Mannequins

I love dress mannequins, they are so charming and fun! This beauty was found at a shop in Sonoma and I fainted when I saw it. I bought my first and only mannequin Nov 1st at the Alameda antique fair for $30. I have wanted one for ages but they are so pricey, usually the vintage ones start at $200 and go up from there. My girl is a bit bigger than the one pictured here , she's more of a plus size and she's got a pink tutu on and pearls (of course). I would've taken her photo but my camera is in the shop, she'll get some exposure at a later date. Here's some interesting findings about the history of these dress mannequins.....

Mannequins - A brief history.

Mannequins have been around for thousands of years but their use in store display is more recent. Kings and Queens who were concerned about their appearance, like the ancient pharaohs, would have a dress form made to their body dimensions. The court dress maker or tailor would use the ‘dress form’ to display and make the clothes thus avoiding any royal embarrassment during the course of a fitting.

The evolution of this ancient crude dress form through the middle ages and up until just before the industrial revolution is unknown because there are so few written records and no museum examples to study. Wickerwork mannequins were certainly around in the late 1700s and were probably filled with stuffing and leather. Wire-framed versions came into existence in 1835 but mannequins were still not in use for store display. The invention of plate glass, the filament lamp and the sewing machine were the catalysts that put mannequins in the store.

In the 1880s window panes began to be installed in retail establishments and street lights started to appear. The improvement of sewing machines enabled ready to wear clothing to be made in large quantities. The industrial revolution also created a new middle class with money to spend on what was previously only available to royalty and landed gentry - fashionable clothes! More retail stores opened and the store owners needed mannequins to display the latest fashions.

These early mannequins were made of wax, wood or heavy fabric and because they needed to stay upright their feet were made of iron. To give them shape papier-mâché and sawdust were used. Consequently the result was an expensive, hard to maintain and very heavy object. However such was the interest in fashion that by the turn of the century the mannequin was already the center of a fledgling industry called 'window trimming' which later became known as 'visual merchandising'.

The advent of the department store with its large show windows, behind which mannequins bearing the latest fashions could be admired by the crowds, encouraged window trimmers to be artistic as well as practical. Mannequins slowly developed from being just a simple prop to display the merchandise towards a more realistic form. Mannequins with glass eyes, real hair and facial expressions began to appear.

The First World War sent millions of European men off to fight and left the women at home to do the men’s jobs. This change brought about a revolution in women’s clothing, they shed their bustiers and crinolines and adopted a more fluid line of clothes. Mannequins gradually became more lithe and realistic to reflect these changes but never could they be mistaken for the real thing. Not until the 1930s and Lester Gaba did realism become ubiquitous.

Lester Gaba was a soap sculptor in New York and was asked by a large department store if he could produce some mannequins in a more stable material with the same detail and quality that he could get with soap. He created six astonishing specimens from plaster that become known as the 'Gaba Girls'. They were each given names and a party at a prestigious hotel where they were dressed in fine clothes and jewels, New York high-society loved them! The socialites also loved Lester Gaba who had taken to the eccentric habit of going everywhere with a sitting mannequin called Cynthia. Cynthia, elbow on her knees with a cigarette in hand, traveled by taxi and appeared with Lester Gaba in a box at the opera, the Stork Club and many other famous venues. The publicity was enormous and stores could not get enough of the Gaba Girls or their imitators.

The depression and the Second World War brought about shortages and shop windows became rather somber with the mannequins of the day looking slightly melancholy and concerned. However it all changed when the war was over and by the late 1940s mannequins looked happy and prosperous, some of them even wore a radiant smile. Male mannequins in particular looked relaxed and some even had holes drilled between their lips for inserting pipes!

In the 1950s new materials became available and by the late 1960s the true mass production of fiberglass and then plastic mannequins became a reality. Advances in technology have continued so that mannequin artists can now manufacture any conceivable design and are bounded only by the limits of their creativity.

(Article by Jodie Deen, © Displayarama 2004)