I met the Pope of Trash, and made a new sleazy dress for the occasion.

Remember this post? The one where I pretty much ended up collapsing to my knees and wailing "WHY GOD? WHYYYY?" at the top of my lungs after royally ballsing up a great many times?

Well yeah, I tried again. Only this time it worked!

 

Hell yes. That's bright.

I had a stroke of luck, and the first time I visited the Liverpool branch of Abakhan Fabrics after moving here, I evidently had a stroke of another kind and bought another piece of the same cursed fabric which had led to the crushing of my dreams a few months before. I used iDye again, and despite the high synthetic content I used the all-purpose dye in bright yellow, and just ran it through a hot wash in my machine.

Here's the finished article! I added pom-pom trim and black facings to the petal bust and skirt drape as planned, and made a little kitty ears hat to match! I felt very Poison Ivy wearing this! You too can look fabulously feline in a kitty ears hat of your very own at http://www.kalandrajane.com/ and if any of you fancy one in the yellow leopard print, I have a little left for custom orders.

I wore it with my cropped fake leather jacket and some 1950s deadstock vintage black velour killer stiletto heels, and off I trotted with le boyfriend in tow to see John Waters! The performance was part of Liverpool's 10th Annual Homotopia event - a celebration of all things LGBTQ which even from the limited bits of it I experienced, seems a hell of a lot more inclusive and community-focussed than the commercialised 'pride' events of certain other cities *ahem*.

The Liverpool Echo gave the performance a great writeup, and I had such a good time! His Highness was as witty and acerbic as you'd expect him to be in person, keeping everyone enthralled and amused (and feeling a little bit guilty for laughing at some of his more ribald anecdotes), every bit the expert raconteur.

Then we got to meet him! Squeals of delight! The queue for book signing and photographs was rather long, luckily there were only about 25 people in front of us. Mr. Waters was charming and funny, sent get well wishes to a friend who'd been unable to attend the show due to an operation, signed a book for him, and one for myself of course! He sent me on my way with a fantastically bitchy joke I won't repeat here, and a sly wink!

PS. I read the whole book the next night, and will certainly be buying his new book when it's out next year!

Art Deco Beauty: Stockport Plaza

Not far from Manchester lies Stockport, a town with excellent charity shops, a history of hatmaking (which will be explored in a future post once I finally visit the museum), wartime air raid tunnels, and a fabulous theatre; The Plaza. 

The theatre shortly after it opened in 1932

The Plaza was built as a performance theatre and 'super cinema' in 1932, erected at the cusp of the arrival of talking pictures, and decorated lavishly in ostentatious art deco style. My mum lived in Stockport in the 1970s, but alas by then the Plaza was a run-down bingo hall, a decayed ruin of its former self. In 2000 a trust was set up to buy the cinema back from the leisure company who had allowed it to fall into disrepair and who had ripped out some of the beautiful original features, and after just six months' intensive restoration the Plaza was back in business and back to its full 1930s splendour.

The Compton Organ

Thankfully, even in the bingo hall days, the Compton theatre organ survived relatively unscathed, and is in full working order today. The glass panels light up in a myriad of colours all around it, and the organ has no electrical amplification - its enormous sound is produced solely by pipes and valves, disguised behind one of the filigree panels in the wall to the side of the stage.

Prior to every film shown at the Plaza there is an organ recital of classic tunes from the 1920s-50s, it's marvellous to hear them, and to watch the old ladies in the crowd singing along.

Lloyd Loom furniture in the tearoom

One casualty was the Plaza tearoom's furniture, which was lost. Luckily, it was all made by the fabulous Lloyd Loom, who are still going strong after nearly a century. They traced and recreated the original designs and colour scheme, so well in fact that when we visited the tearoom I thought the furniture was all original; it was perfect, down to the tiny vintage brass labels on the back of each Lloyd Loom chair.

Stage panorama copyright Njo LEDs Ltd.

In the early days the theatre was lit by 'Holophane' colour-changing prismatic lighs, during the restoration the beautiful rainbow colours were put back into place using modern LED technology. The colour changing light show is captivating, bathing every gilded surface and really showing off every little feature of the interior.

Picture copyright Stockport Plaza

The exterior. The Plaza was built into a solid sandstone rock face, as were many other buildings along the same street, including the WWII Stockport tunnels air raid shelters which I visited recently and will cover in another post.

Picture Copyright Stockport Plaza

Recently I visited the Plaza to see The Artist and, rather aptly, The Smallest Show on Earth, a British comedy from 1957 starring Peter Sellers, in which a run-down 'fleapit' of a cinema is restored to its silent-era glory. It was lovely to see these films in such an appropriate vintage setting. You also get a film before every feature screening, such as a Laurel and Hardy or Harold Lloyd comedy short, and a vintage newsreel! For the traditionalists among you there is also the national anthem at the end of each film, along with a kitsch Technicolor reel of the Queen trooping the colour in the 1950s.

Picture by Steve Rogers, on our outing to see The Artist

The Plaza runs films, plays, dance and variety performances all year round and you can find more information on their website.You can find even more stunning photos of the Plaza here and here.

Stage panorama copyright Njo LEDs Ltd.

Winning!

I've recently been lucky enough to win two blog giveaways! The first was from Tasha at By gum, by golly! and was sponsored by BombshellShocked on etsy.


Vintage sewing and knitting books, plus a cute Barbie card from Tasha! These will prove really helpful with construction when I'm working with vintage sewing patterns, and I hope to learn to knit at some point. In the meantime, Mum, get your needles at the ready! Hehe!


The next giveaway was from the lovely LandGirl1980's film and literary blog, LandGirl's Library.


Fabulous wartime-themed goodies! I can't wait to get viewing and reading these.

Thank you so much to both ladies, I really appreciate the prizes and feel so lucky to have won two giveaways!

Plus... my fabrics have arrived from the USA! Thanks to some creative customs labelling I also managed to dodge any exorbitant charges, so keep a eye out for my dressmaking adventures over the next few weeks!