We closed our (virtual) shop for refurbishments after new year but is is now open for our first collection this season – the Sweetheart collection. Perfect for spring in shades of Red, White & Blue (with a bit of Faux leopard thrown in for good measure!)
We’re rather pleased with it! Pieces are limited so grab yours before they are gone!
Hello all! Although our Etsy shop is currently closed whilst we design our S/S13 ready to wear collection, we are now taking orders for this years wedding season. If you are a bride or guest and looking to place a bespoke order just drop us a line! We can make a beautiful, vintage inspired headpiece – with or with out veilling – incorporating fabric, lace or trims from your dress or from a family piece. We can also colour match most fabrics with just a small sample of the fabric from your outfit and can supply full face or half face birdcage veils.
For now, here is a sneak peek at one of our new special occasion pieces – The Mae – a sassy, feathered little number with a birdcage veil which encases both the hat and the face. Featured here in black, it also looks a dream in white or ivory with a ballerina length, chiffon dress for bridal. It can also be made larger or with a half face birdcage. Marabou is such a beautiful texture and photographs so well this – design can be adapted in endless ways! The gorgeous dress (just seen) is by our good friend Rowan Joy – view the full collection here…it is stunning!
“For last year’s words belong to last year’s language
And next year’s words await another voice.” T.S. Eliot
Well our new years resolution is quite obvious…actually blog! We got so caught up in designing and making that we forgot to tell everyone what we’ve been up to! Never fear – lets start as we mean to go on this year…
Still captivating the world, here are some of our favourite photos of Marilyn fifty years after her death.
Everyone needs someone to dream about.
We seem to be using this blog of late mostly to apologise for being tardy! We know it is an age since we last spoke but we have lots of new things to show you and a chance to win a Strumpet hat from our new collection so we hope that makes up for our absence!
Back in June we colluded with Miss Dixiebelle and the Red Bus on a photoshoot. Inspired by the Jubilee, it was all very pretty, patriotic & pin-up! Starring top Strumpet Tara Nowy and shot by the wonderful Paul Marr (who else?) we got a gloriously sunny day and a great result!
Along with our tiny cocktail hats we also got some photos of our new Strumpet essential beret. We will be adding this collection to our etsy shop very soon and would love to know what you think so leave us a comment here, or on Facebook, or tweet us @hellostrumpet – you know where to contact us…
One of the reasons we have been silent (barring a few tweets) lately is because we have both had exciting holidays abroad – Kitty to Gay Paris and Wanda to Kawaii Japan! We have come back relaxed, refreshed and inspired – brimming with ideas for our new collection (we are talking mohair and origami people!) As summer seems to have passed us by our thoughts are turning to autumn and layering up in silks and wools – it’s our favourite season. We couldn’t resist teaming this ravishing leopard print beret with a repro vintage bathing suit from Miss D’s and expect more faux animal print as the season changes.
“So how do we win a hat?” we hear you cry…pop on over to Love My Dress – our very favourite wedding blog. We are giving away a £65 gift voucher to spend in our Etsy shop to one lucky reader – just leave a comment for Annabel telling her what you’ve got your eye on and how you’d wear it…easy!
Well, we must be off, we’re meeting with a bride tomorrow and have some designing to do before bedtime! So toodles for now – we positively pinkie promise we won’t leave it so long next time!
Love and glamour
Kitty & Wanda xxx
What a busy old month it’s been so far for us Strumpets! First of all we decided to open a seperate Etsy shop for our bridal pieces – Strumpet Bride! We thought it would make it easier to differentiate between the ready-to-wear and bridal collections. We are rather pleased with it!
Warning…temptation inside, seriously hard to resist!
Next we finished our very first order for Miss Dixiebelle! We love this fabulous boutique in Edinburgh’s Bruntisfield, stocking fabulous repro dresses and underwear along with well chosen vintage pieces. They also have their very own Beauty Parlour in the basement. So if you live in the Edinburgh area and want a Strumpet hat, a pin-up dress, a glamourous swimsuit or a becoming beehive – you know where to find them! We are also colluding with Miss Dixiebelle on a photoshoot soon – we’re keeping it on the down low for now – details to follow soon! Vanity Thrills, who works in the Miss DB beauty parlour has done hair for us before – we’d give anything to look as groomed in the hair department!
We also joined the Twitterati this month – follow us @hellostrumpet for our vintage inspired ramblings, suggestions & quotes!
Chiara sporting a Big Mamie hat
We are excited to launch a few new designs later this month – including the essential Miss Strumpet Beret. Sitting to the front of the forehead, they look fabulous on a peek-a-boo bang – in fact here is a sneeky peek-a-boo of our Big Mamie design, abley modelled by Emma Peel-alike Chiara!
4711 cologne
Miss Kitty has a couple of fabulous finds she’d like to share with you, dear readers. Whilst on the scent for a new fragrance she came accross 4711 cologne (interestingly from cologne!) This fragrance was originally launched in 1792 – it is a refreshing citrus-based fragrance that warms to a light floral, woody base and can be worn by ladies, chaps or by both! Best of all it comes in a beautiful bottle – lovely enough to adorn the prettiest of dressing tables! Known as the original cologne, it can be bought from an incredibly reasonable £7.00, for those on a budget requiring a pampering treat. The only downside is that the scent is very light and wears off quickly, so decant some into a purse sized atomiser and regularly re-spritz.
Revlon Lip Butter in Candy Apple
Her next beauty find comes in the form of a beautiful Lip Butter from Revlon. Encased in a rather glamourous case, this is a light, non-sticky, sheer lipstick – perfect to enhance ones beauty rather than for full on glamour and very nice it looks too. Kitty’s colour of choice is Candy Apple, a good pinky red.
We’ll be queuing at the local Picture house!
Miss Wanda has been keeping an eye on the newest film from director Wes Anderson for some time now and Moonrise Kingdom has just opened the Cannes film festival. If you haven’t seen the trailer yet, you simply must watch it…immediately! Shot beautifully, it looks like it comes from another, more magical time – we love the styling of the teenage heroine, great collars! With a cracking ensemble cast and two unknowns in the lead roles – we’ll be at the cinema with bells on as soon as it comes to a cinema near us!
Dear readers, we have realised that we have failed to post anything for a whole month and a half – oh the shame! I think we have been lulled into a false sense of security by facebook and had no idea we’d let the blog slide. Facebook is so quick and easy whereas we actually must engage our brains to write a blog post. Anyhoo…here’s what we’ve been up to since last we spoke!
We are just loving this little peplum skirt!
We have been busy working our little fingers to the bone of late. We colluded with RowanJoy and sneeked a couple of hats into the photoshoot for her latest collection – utterly amazing outfits from her this spring!
We had a meeting with Emma, pin-up queen bee at Miss Dixiebelle boutique and are delighted to report that she will be stocking our wears from the beginning of May. It is such a gorgeous shop and has a beauty parlour in the basement…need we say more regarding how excited we are?
We'd love to find some groovy boomerang bark cloth!
We have become obsessed with finding more truly & fabulously vintage fabrics and have become obsessed with bark cloth! We will be listing lots of new things in our shop very soon because tweed+barkcloth=extreme gorgeousness!
We are taking part in a charity fashion show this Friday in aid of the Sick Kids. It’s set to be a glamorous day out at the Balmoral Hotel with a sumptuous lunch and models circulating in beautiful vintage inspired attire! We are collaborating with RowanJoy again and making some pretty hats to complement her adorable dresses and playsuits.
A pretty posey by Sparrow & Rose
Ring from the Lucky Bitches range...love it!
We attended the GWC vintage wedding fair on Sunday and enjoyed meeting all you west coast brides to be. Our stand was next to the lovely Janet from Rene Walrus – she had so much sparkle on her table…everything handmade from gorgeous Swarowski crystals and pearls – we managed to sneak in a bottle of prosecco and much fun was had by us all! Other highlights for us were, again, the artistic floristry of Sparrow & Rose – so wild and beautiful – and Euan McWhirter’s glorious cocktail rings and beaded bangles…we’ve already got them on our Christmas lists (rather premature of us, we know)! At the fair, surrounded by all the lovely cakes and flowers and dresses and musing as to how we could get ourselves invited to more weddings we came up with a marvellous idea…
We’d love to hire ourselves out as wedding hype girls! It’s awful at a wedding when the dancefloor is empty and nobody wants to be the first on the floor, or when the reception is a ceilidh and another two dancers are needed to make up a set for an eightsome reel…call on us! We’ll circulate, mingle, and dance until dawn dressed in immaculate vintage dresses and perfect tiny hats! Here is a video of our favourite hype girl, Rosie, abley assisting her cousin Sophia Grace with her singing endeavours!
