October on Last-Year Girl and Last-Week Links: 1 November 2013

Subject: Ironing ones hair with an iron

What has happened to this delightful idea, we have not heard about it lately.

Oh to be able to issue ideas in the grand manner of Diana Vreeland! I'll give you a pinch and a punch for the first of the month instead, and move on with the week's links.

The above is just one of the delightful notes in this selection of Vreeland memos, taken from a new book (also featured are her directives on Mexico, summer dressing and pearls).

I get the sense Anne Scott-James would have issued no such memos. Having just read In The Mink, I was interested to see that The Butterfly Balcony featured a wartime post from during her tenure at Picture Post, all about Black Out accessories. Here a woman at Selfridges is trying on a luminous flower, an accessory intended to make her more visible to vehicles and other pedestrians in the dark.

Deborah Turbeville, who died this week, was a fashion editor at Harper's Bazaar before getting behind the camera herself and creating gorgeous, ghostly photographs: her obituary in the Guardian can be read here and the New York Times one here.

I love the gorgeous pictures of Barbara Ruben, an East London-based seamstress, shared on What We Wore. Make sure to scroll down that post to see her looking beautiful in an animal-print (I think!) bikini. Her best friend had an identical one, she reveals.

While vaguely on the subject of female friendships, or at least relationships, this is a great selection of fictional female flatshares - for once I feel like I'd read most of the books mentioned.

I live alone. But if I was to share my flat, I'd be happy for some of Michaela Gall's great ladies to live with me, in ceramic form at least. Here's the Duchess of Queensbury wearing her now semi-famous mantua.

While I've got my imaginary purse out, I'd really really like some of Rosapina Vintage's new collection - she shared her sketches, including the pinafore above, on her blog.

Talking of sketches, wasn't it fun to see Edith Head on the Google home page on Monday? And, for even more sketches, this travelling library of sketchbooks sounds lovely.

Finally, interesting to see that LVMH have bought a share in French publishing house Gallimard. Do they reckon on books becoming a luxury up there with champagne and Louis Vuitton bags? Perhaps a future Les Journées Particulières will take you behind the scenes of a printing press? Let's all keep buying books while we can still afford them!

Have a good weekend (books will probably feature in mine, somewhere along the way).

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THIS MONTH ON LAST-YEAR GIRL

Basically I've read quite a lot:
* I had a peek into the life of a 1930s model, thanks to Noel Streatfeild/Susan Scarlett's Clothes Pegs.
* And into the career of a fashion journalist in the 30s and 40s through the eyes of Anne Scott-James and her book In The Mink.
* I reread a copy of the 2000 relaunched edition of Nova magazine...
* ... before being transported straight back into 2013 by Alexa Chung's IT.

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