Freakish Friday Finds!

It's that time of year again when Shoegazer embraces all things spooky in the name of Halloween. Last year I had a dedicated "Halloween Week", but this year Friday Finds have been possessed and become FREAKISH FRIDAY FINDS! Bwahahahaha! I'm posting this a few weeks before Halloween so that if you see something you want to buy or make then you still have time! Take a peek if you dare...

.:*PRINTS and PAPERGOODS*:.

 

 

 Above: Halloween sprites by Amy Earles of the wonderful Wool and Water 

Above: Quirky Halloween cards and party invitations from Rifle Paper

.:*MISC*:.

Above: Costume and make up inspiration. A look for a gothic masked ball. Available to buy as a print from etsy.

Above: A unique way to make your pumpkin lanterns. Instructions.

Above: Make yourself some ghostly friends. Instructions.

Above: Not sure where this image is from (a classic case of 'click and save' without taking note! oops!) but it is a little bit adorable. A mini, trick-or-treating Princess Leia and R2D2 walking hand in hand down the street.

.:*TELEVISION*:.

Above: I really really cannot wait until the Halloween Special of the brilliant Psychoville! Showing on Halloween night on the BBC and starring two of my favourite people, the League of Gentlemen's Reece Shearsmith and Steve Pemberton. There are too few Halloween Specials around! Also on TV at the moment, on BBC4 is A History of Horror with Mark Gatiss (another member of TLoG) -a brilliant and informative watch.

.:*MUSIC*:.

Three absolute musts for my Halloween playlist...

Kate Bush - Get Out Of My House
(album: The Dreaming)

The one Kate Bush song I could never listen to in entirity as a child because it scared me. I think it's the combination of the deamonic belches of Kate Bush possessed by a donkey with the gut wrenching screams of "GET OUT OF MY HOUSE"... and the sly, devilish man whispering that he'll turn into the wind and get in no matter how much she shuts him out. Brrr, it makes me shudder just thinking of it. Hear it here.

Bauhaus - Bela Lugosi's Dead

A dark, brooding, gothic lament to the actor who lived and died as Dracular (literally, he was buried in his Dracular costume) by Bauhaus. Wait out the long intro to hear the haunting vocals. Hear it here.

The Cure - Lullaby

Oh Robert Smith, how perfect you are.... and how perfect the video for Lullaby is. It suits the song beautifully and is my all time favourite music video:

I hope you enjoyed this gaggle of ghoulish treats. More to come soon.

Please comment if you like what you see :)

Shoegazer Visits: The V&A Museum, Ldn. Pt 2.

Part 2 - Fashion.

The fashion and costume department of the V&A wasn’t as vast as I’d remembered it... and, excuse me V&A, but where were Elton John’s glasses?! I’m an accessories kind of girl and they had stuck in my head since my last visit there years ago, but this time there didn’t seem to be any accessories except a few gloves and shoes. Pfft. Maybe I missed a section? Who knows. Anyway, what did I see that I liked? Well, the first section of the fashion zone that I came to was the Future Fashion display, where outfits by graduates from the Royal College of Art are on show. There were a lot of shoulders going on... and harsh structured lines. This outfit reminded me of Darf Vader’s mask (I’m not so hot on fashion talk... likening this to old Darf’s mask is the best I can do...)

This ensemble (below) by 2008 graduate Heikki Salonen (b.1979, Helsinki) caught my attention because it is based on The Cure’s Disintegration album cover and, well, I’m always going to be biased to anything Cure related. A small section of the cover image has been blown up and repeated. It is purposefully pixellated to reveal the digital process behind it, and the design has been printed onto silk crepe.

Another piece by Salonen that I quite liked was this sleeveless, jacket/dress with a pearl shirt underneath it which can be worn separately.

These ensembles (below) by Kate Eary put a playful twist on traditional men’s military wear with brass door locks echoing the ornamental fastenings (“frogging”) on ceremonial and military clothing.

Elsewhere, I liked this cascading dress, I didn’t catch who it was by:

This vintage YSL (I think?) embellished dress:

And this vented sports corset, I like the structure of it:

Next up: The rest of the museum!