Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Stockholm!

I forget that Stockholm is such a great city. Then, when there, I get overwhelmed by the atmosphere, people and places to go to and see. Why don't I visit more often?!?
I had a blast there last weekend. A extra bonusfun was bumping into Scotty the Blue Bunny at the Burlesque brunch at the park and getting to spend some time with him the day after. Thank you also to the people who organized the brunch, my girl Pepper and the vintage folk, Petri for being a sweetheart & a great host (pantertanten!) and Annika for being ... you <3
One picture tell more than thousands of words so here goes, in no specific order a few snaps from the trip. Have a great Tuesday!!! Ta!
Annika, Scotty and Petri at Kulturhuset´s rooftop after the Tom of Finland exhibition.
My Burlesque brunch goodies :)
With Pepper and Scotty at the brunch 
One hot mama!
Favourite café: Louie Louie (in Söder)
Evening look for Saturday...flowers, always flowers!
At Beyond Retro: the fantabulous overall that didn´t fit either. Shame.
I <3 Stockholm (or is it a bum?!)
Louie Louie
Penis origami, sort of :)
Sivletto. If you´re in to 50´s stuff GO HERE!!!
Promo for Helsinki Burlesque Festival 
In the train from the airport to the city
by Tom of Finland <3
bought a bunch of books, this among others
Burlesque brunch 28.07.2012

Thursday, July 26, 2012

Blue!

One of my favorite colors for summer is turquoise. I seem to have collected quite a few articles in that color... The latest buy was that PUG dress with the cats on it and last night I wore it out for dinner with friends. This time without the underskirt because it was so hot but with a pair of really lovely hair accessory from Trashy Diva. Even if I´m not a hippie flowers in your hair just ain´t never wrong :)
Tomorrow I´m going to Stockholm with a really good friend of mine, looking forward to meeting some lovely people there and I also got some awesome tips of vintage/retro shops and restaurants from the ladies in Blackbird Burlesque! Thank you once more! An absolute MUST is also the Tom of Finland- exhibition at Kulturhuset, apparently it´s free entrance as well so if you are in Stockholm be sure to see that.
Looking forward to coming home on Sunday as well... there will be a huge pin up painted on our wall in the basement this weekend <3 Jari you are a doll for doing this!
Last night while running I finally had the idea for my outfit for my upcoming Lucia-number haha! Apart from that huge cheesecake wedding dress it will be, hm...quite different from what I´ve done so far. We´ll see how the bits and pieces start falling together.
Have a marvelous end of the week ya´ll !

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Dress PUG, shoes Red Shoe, bad from a store (no longer) in Helsinki called ´Auringosta itään Kuusta länteen´

Flowers from Trashy Diva


Geez...teacher face....

Wednesday, July 25, 2012

Sexy and I know it?

I´m about to start working on my final paper again, the one on body image and burlesque performers. I went through my "red library" as I fondly call my small collection of erotic literature and encyclopedias of all matters sexual to find some reference but apart from Jo "Boobs" Weldon´s The Burlesque Handbook", Michelle Baldwin´s "Burlesque and the New Bump-n-Grind" (in Finnish by Tiia Aarnipuu with a little on the Finnish burly-Q-scene) I don´t have books on burlesque per se. This is a shout-out to all you wonderful people put there: if you have good tips let me know even if for this small-ish paper ( five interviews, ca 30 pages when finished) these might be enough when adding other literature like Palo&Palo "Rakkaudesta seksiin" (for the love of sex) that take up e.g looks, religion and signals people send. The signals are interesting, humans as well as other animals can from the signals another person sends determine for example  age, sexual lust and gender (or so we´d like to think) and these trades might be accentuated or toned down (what we humans do with make up and clothes and cosmetic surgery).
In the animal kingdom it´s usually the males who strut their stuff with big feathers and blue balls, in the Western world it´s still more common for us girls to wear that red lipstick -which I think is a shame. We are back in my favorite moan about heteronormativity and how boys and girls and all in between should be able to play all roles without getting bullied or smirked at. And no, there´s nothing whatsoever wrong with being a "traditional boy" who likes cars over dolls or the "traditional girl" who happily plays home rather than builds tree houses but I would like everyone to have a bit more choices and adults to realize that it actually IS those words we use and the way we encourage certain behaviors in certain genders that fuck it up for a lot of people.
We do it without thinking, it might be that we feel very strongly about equality and think we treat everyone the same...And even then we might have that little faux pas- moment when we make the boys drive the tractors and have the girls do gardening. This is actual example of a conversation I had a while back with my partner about our summer trainees and their chores. And my partner is VERY considerate and was quite upset when I asked him about it. He said the boys are more "used to" big machinery than girls, which very much might be so but I asked why is that?! It´s probably something that they got taught before ending up at our place and of course being very busy in the summer one might not have the time to teach everyone but still. I´ve said it before and I´ll say it again: don´t assume. Another wonderful friend of mine said she always wanted to learn about the big machinery but because she is a pretty girl with big brown eyes and big boobs the answer always was "we´ll see about it later" and she had to do horse stuff. Nothing wrong with horse stuff but she wanted to learn about the tractors. It´s not like we drive with our genitals here, come on people! And please remember this the next time you have the urge to splutter out something like "fucking women drivers!!!" in the traffic. I know you do it. It´s really not nice.
So I wandered off topic again, what a surprise. Another book that I´m going to use is "Sköna bröst - en kärleksförklaring till liljekullar, taxöron och meloner" (hm, I guess it could be translated in to Lovely breasts - a declaration of love for bosoms, droops and melons?) and it´s actually published by the Swedish clothes brand Lindex and all money goes to the breast cancer fond. Being a woman in burlesque the issue of boobs probably comes up sooner or later, maybe just as a passing thought. Tassels and pasties and outrageous bra´s... Who would not love those? You don´t need to have big boobs to wear them, heck you don´t have to have ANY boobs, just put them on your ass! Or your flat chest. Try to love what you have and embrace it. A good posture and a little love for yourself (seen as a good self-esteem by others) and you will get noticed for it. Take it from one who knows, I have never in my life been complimented as much as these days and I had a much better figure at twenty. And do remember to be nice to people and compliment persons when you can. You better mean it, though. A compliment in words but without the honesty (eyes not smiling, chilly voice) will be taken as the fuckery it (probably) is. Our communication is based 80% on body talk so even if the words are sweet the meaning might be something totally different...I think you know what I mean. It´s a good way of trying to work with oneself as well. When that *gorgeous* person walks in and you´re hit with the pang of *fuuuuck*...get to know them. If they act like arses then that´s another thing but don´t assume they will be stuck up just because they look good. I know a lot of really hot people who are extremely shy, it´s really really cute and it makes them...yeah: even hotter :)
When thinking about this paper I remembered something Bettie Blackheart taught me in the start. I could not remember the thing correctly so she was kind enough to look it up for me, it´s from the Big Book of Burlesque given out at Tease-O-Rama and written by the gorgeous Alotta Boutté: "Four Tips on Giving Your Body Some Extra Love Before Exposing It (aka battle of the body image). My favorite must be the following:
3. Accentuate the negative - There are parts of us we wish we different, more, less, higher, lower, removed...but it´s going to be there the way it is. So why not turn it in to something fabulous? Wrap it in something luxurious (if on budget, luxurious feeling). Wrap it in jewels. Bedazzle it. I´m a plus sized gal with the belly that comes with it. I slap some glitter on that puppy, occasionally rhinestone it making it sparkle and shine.

Oh girl, you have no idea how much I love you for those words!

Picture from the interwebs.

Tuesday, July 24, 2012

Gems from the attic

I was helping some friends empty the upstairs of their stables. A lot (and I mean *a lot*) of stuff have been stored there during decades, both family and friends have brought their belongings there so there was a lot of furniture, kitchen stuff, horse carriages--- you name it. We went through some boxes and what do you know! There were some old beautiful photographs that I got to take home. Old pictures really intreague me, who were these folk, what became of them and for what purpose was the photo taken? Especially the last one of the lady in the cape fascinates me...Who is she? Why is she wearing such a "risky" outfit for the times, she must be in theater? Or maybe vaudeville?
You can spin a fantastic story around old pictures and therefor I want to share some with you, for inspiration because they are lovely.









Wednesday, July 18, 2012

PUG!

We survived our Hellsinki-time, lots of friends and mayhem ;) Yesterday I even got to meet up with Sandy to plan our up-coming shenanigans. And I found some *awesome* secondhand dresses at UFF, thanks Bettie for the hint! I´ve planned a Lucia-number for some time and now I got the dress for it! So definetly putting that together for next Xmas season!

I also got the opportunity to wear my new kitteh-dress from Pin Up Girl Clothing! Even if the summer has been (according to some, I kinda don´t mind the weather) cold and rainy and it´s very summer-y I couldn´t resist, adding a pair of awesome blue shoes I found in Florida (by Carlos Santana, hmmm...somehow I have a hard time believing he designed them haha!)

The art show (Art is so gay, see previous post) was very thought provoking so I really recommend you go there, it´ll be open for another week. I also got stuff done for the interviews I´ll do with the burlesque girls about body image, sent them to my teacher and are now awaiting what he says about it. When he gives me green light the actual work begins!

Here are the photos I promised, will get back to cooking lunch! Ta!



Red tull underskirt by Olivia Rouge


Skirt PUG, leopard scarf+ Bettie Page t-shirt Fast´n´Loud

Sankta Lucia.......

Sunday, July 15, 2012

Pin Up´s

Hello again!

I´m in the middle of packing and putting things together, this time I´m off to Helsinki for two days with my partner to spend some well-deserved "two-time"! We have booked a hotel and plan to go to see Helsingin Ylioppilasteatteri´s summer-play at Mustikkamaa tonight...unless it´s raining cats & dogs. Check out tickets and shows here. Tomorrow off to Forum Box gallery -since I missed the opening of the show "Art Is So Gay" we´re going to see that. There will be 40 artists´ display of art (inspired) of sexuality and gender, amongst them my friends Tapani Kokko, Reima Juhani Hirvonen, Marko Suomi and Petra Innanen. That info one finds here. So if you re in Helsinki in the near future go check these out!!! Other than that there will be some second-hand shopping and hopefully a pedicure and of course tomorrow some drinks with good friends. Hooyah.

Anyhoo, a lot of people ask me what got me started in burlesque, the "how"-question. Truth be told, I´m not really sure. I know how the kickball went: lessons with Bettie, but what got me interested to look into burlesque remains a bit of a mystery even to myself. What I do know there is some blame in pin up-girls :) There was a point when I realized that my home is starting to overflow with all kinds of pin up-things, from calendars, pictures and statuettes to matchboxes and soap. I bought them and soon enough I started getting them as gifts from my well-observing friends. There is just something very wonderful about those old images. The innocence, the cheesecake, the eroticism has always been very appealing to me. And yes, I know that the paintings are perfected images of he models (maybe you have seen the photos of some original models? If not, you can see them e.g here ) but they still intrigue me. I haven´t got a favorite artist, there are many, but I seem to end up with a lot of Gil Elvgren-stuff. And of course, I mostly use redheaded girls when posting something ;)
Thought I would cheer your Sunday up with a couple of pretty girls, so here you go!











Thursday, July 12, 2012

Back in biz.

Bzzz bzz bzzz says the busy bee! I´m back "in civilization" after a relaxing week away from it all. Seems like there´s a lot to catch up with as usual but feel up and perky. Dates getting booked, I´ll keep you informed as soon as possible! There will be a very cool burlesque event in Helsinki in August: The Velvet Tea Room at the good old restaurant boat Wäiski - come and see us there!

Tonight I´m very happy to go and meet up with Mimi de FrouFrou, Lafayette Lestrange and Welma Jackpot  -- not to perform, just for drinks! Yey! You should definetly have a drink too, this weather is (hopefully) going to rain down soon, at least here it´s hot and humid and a feel of thunder (which I love).  I´m thinking about wearing my new Pin Up Couture leopard print skirt tonight...hmmmm... Also got the wonderful turqoise dress with kitttens on it, will surely post photos later!

I was scrolling through pictures on my computer and found these old ones. The first is with my lovely vintage hat (that Fiona Timantti fixed for me later, thanks hun!) and the other is from a photoshoot with the fantastic Roy Bäckström.

Got to go again, have a wonderful Thursday ya´ll <3



Monday, July 2, 2012

Monday thoughts, maybe.

It has been one Monday, alright. As in I´m glad to be leaving for Northern Carelia tomorrow. Not a specifically bad day but just...a Monday. I´m not packed yet but then, how much does a girl need for a bit over a week at a summer cottage with no running water?! Things that made me happy today were friends (thanks Antti for being a sweetie!), glitter butterflies given to me by my nice neighbour Katriina, shoes and books of old Hollywood legends.

The shoes actually are my `Diamonds`-number ones that used to belong to my mother. They have seen a party or two for sure. They are lovely, glittery things but a bit worn out and it´s been on my list for a while now to do something about them. Finally got to it, and some 500 Swarovski´s later they look a whole lot different! Hurrah!

Since I haven´t figured out how to post pictures from my iphone to my blog there will probably be a pause here but if something interesting turns up, I´ll post it on facebook. So not really off lines. Other than chilling by the lake (hopefully) I´ll be starting my final thesis for my sex. councelor class which means starting to work on interviews. I´ll be interviewing five Finnish female burlesque performers about their opinions on body image before and after starting their performance career so if you have any good ideas, pointers or such please let me know!

Other than this I´ll leave you with hopes of a very relaxing Summer week and the pictures of the things that made me happy today! Puss o kram!