The News Page 17
June to December 2012
Photo shoot Dress Me Up and Shoot Me
Saturday 20th October 2012
I am always on the lookout for new clothes, and I had noticed that the 1950’s look was very much back in fashion. After doing a bit of research on the web I managed to find a shop fairly close by http://www.vivienofholloway.com.
I visited on a Monday, I had already made up my mind that I wanted a red dress with white dots on it, and I tried this on together with the huge white petticoat,I ended up buying the dress, petticoat, belt and a decoration for my hair.
Upon getting home I found a leaflet inside which appeared to be for a photographic studio. Dress Me Up and Shoot Me http://www.dressmeupandshootme.co.uk and I looked at the website and was impressed by the pictures on the site, so sent off an email to find out what their position is regarding TVs.
Dress me up offered a few different photo options including Burlesque and 1950’s and have a full wardrobe of both Burlesque and 1950’s clothes so for once I was able to travel to a photo shoot with only one bag .When I got to the Studio, Steve from Dress me up, met me at the doors and gave me a guided tour, before introducing me to his helpers.
After meeting them, I was taken to see the two wardrobes which were both bursting with clothes, It was then time to go and have hair and makeup done. Every makeup artist has their own technique and it’s interesting to watch them and try and pick up tips along the way. Then we came to the hair which was given a few curls in before being layered on top of my head. It was then time to go off to the wardrobe, the first decisions were whether we were going with an over or under the bust corset. After trying on a couple of corsets we settled on black corset with some purple trim, this we teamed up with black knickers, suspender belt and black seamed stockings.
Next we looked for shoes and picked a very high purple sparkly lace up pair. After putting the shoes on it was time to lace up the corset, now Steve the photographer must have some kind of fetish about lacing up corsets. I’ve been laced into a corset before, but never this tight and I had to hold onto the door frame to stop myself from falling over as he laced me up, this was not easy as I also had on the aforementioned high heels.
Although it was only 10 yards from the dressing room to the front of the camera, with the high heels and tight corset it was very difficult to move. For the first couple of pictures had to mount a few stairs and stand there posing. There was also a giant star behind me which lit up when the pictures were being taken. When then moved onto another prop which involved material being wrapped about me and moving it. Next it was on to the rocking horse which again was very difficult to get onto with corset and heels, we did various pictures involving rocking and then some where I was leaning back as far as possible.
The next pictures were done on a swing suspended from the ceiling, and we almost had an accident with me falling off the swing, but luckily Steve just about caught me before I fell crashing to the floor.
We took off some of the clothes, but added a dressing gown for the final pictures which involved me lying on a Chasie lounge and holding a glass of champagne (which was empty). We took about 6 pictures here before it was time to finish.
Friday 16th November
Shopping with Nas
I try and do a shopping trip with Nas once a year, although I’m not sure if we did anything last year. pinning Nas down to a date to go shopping is becoming increasingly more difficult, but as I had not used up all my annual leave we managed to agree on a date. Rather than walking aimlessly around the shopping centres we try to collate a list before we go, this year it was not that big being a top and boots.
On the day of the trip , I booked my usual hair appointment at Level 1, Amanda who usually does my hair does not work on Fridays, so one of the other girls did my hair. We agreed on making the hair as curly as possible and it looked good, she put enough hairspray to hold the hair for a few hours. After my hair was done it was quick drive across to Nas’s where for once she was on time and we were able to start on the make up straight away. Nas did her usual great job on my make up, she went for a more lighter day time look. I got dressed in a mainly black jersey dress, with black tights and boots. Unfortunately as the dress was quite close fitting my ever expanding gut looked huge, so we put a wide belt around my waist which helped. After a quick spray of perfume, putting on my jewellery and grabbing my bag it was time to go.
We had thought about going into London, but eventually decided to go to Bluewater as all the shops are inside and we could work out the location of most them fairly easily. The journey to Bluewater can sometimes be a nightmare but luckily for us this time the M25 was behaving and we got there fairly quickly. However having got there the lower level car parks were closed and we had to drive around a bit to find a parking space, once parked we put our shopping heads on and hit the shops. As was it was leading up to the Christmas period I expected it to be quite busy, but luckily we had got there fairly early and it was not too bad. The boots were the first item on our list and I had seen a couple of pairs that I liked in Aldo on the internet, but its always the way, you find stuff on the internet, but you can never find them in the shop. However they did have three other pairs which all met my spec, ie knee high, a heel and black, one of them had a pretty high spiked heel and I don’t think I could walk in them. The two pairs that were left were great, eventually after trying on both pairs and walking round the shop we came to a decision.
Next it was off to find a top to match a skirt gold sparkly skirt that I had recently purchased, we had agreed that a plain dark colour would go well with the skirt and I had again seen something in Next that I had liked. Nas is not a big fan of Next, but she liked the top that I had picked out so I went ahead with my purchase. So there we were done, in less than an hour. We wandered round the shops a bit more and Nas got herself a couple of bits and we decided to have lunch before heading home. There are a few food options available and we decided to go to Jamie Olivers as the queue was not outside the door. The food was pretty good although Nas had a problem with hers and it took a long time for a replacement to be made, to be fair to them they did not charge us for that one. As it was close to my birthday I indulged in a glass of wine and we both had desserts.
We managed to get out of Bluewater before it got too busy and once again the journey home was fairly straight forward.
Saturday December 1st
The Trois Garcons and The Way Out Club
This was Nas’s annual Christmas, which due to her work commitments was quite early in the month. There were five of us going out, but two decided to meet us at the restaurant. I had booked a hair appointment at my usual place, and I again went for the curly look, before getting back into my car and driving around to Nas’s house. I was first to arrive so was straight into the make up chair, as there were only two of us I thought that for once we would be on time without the mad dash across London, but no that still happened.
After Nas had done my make up it was time to get ready, and it was just one of those nights went everything went wrong. Firstly the new top that I had got for the night did not look right, it just made look all chest and gut. Luckily I also had a dress with me, which fitted fine, but was very thin and it appeared to be quite sheer at the bottom. My new shoes, which although I had put heel grips in still were too big and kept slipping, and finally I only had one pair of tights with me and they laddered getting into the car.
As mentioned we were late leaving Nas’s and had to speed our way across London, with Rebecca navigating we criss crossed the back doubles and eventually we arrived at the restaurant, all be it 30 minutes late. Tess and Susan were already waiting in the restaurant and had called a number of times to check our progress. When we finally reached the restaurant we parked up quickly and made our way as quick as possible (in our heels) to our table.
Nas knows the owners of The Trois Garcons and we are always treated well when we go there, unfortunately I tend do my write ups a few months after going out so cannot remember exactly what I had to eat. I remember having Venison as my main meal and a Nougat dessert, which were both very good. Tess and Susan picked some great wine between them, and we were given a free glass of champagne by the restaurant. After the liqueurs and coffee we got into a discussion as to whether we were going to go on further, Nas, Rebecca and myself were up for going onto the new Way Out club, but the other two were ready to go home.
After paying up and saying our goodbyes to Tess and Susan, we squeezed back into Nas’s to make the short journey to the Way Out Club. Once again we were lucky in finding a parking space fairly close to the club. However as it was at a new venue we had to walk a little distance in my now painful shoes. Upon entering the club Nas immediately met Vicky Lee and disapperared to talk to her for a good half hour , whilst Rebecca and I went off to the bar. Eventually Nas came back to join us and we had another drink before going to look at the other side of the club where dance floor was located. By this time the weekly show was just about to start, and we would have stayed, but we did not have a good view and we were all beginning to get tired so we decided to go home.