Fashion Post - Mad Men ★

so if you've followed this blog for a while, you might have realised by now that i'm quite a big fan of vintage and retro fashion, particularly fashion from the 50's-60's!

you might also remember that i've mentioned what a BIG fan i am of the show 'Mad Men'

now if you've never seen the show, basically it's set in the 1960s, at a fictional advertising agency on Madison Avenue in New York City. 

it focuses on the character Don Draper (the creative director at the ad agency) as well as those in his life, both in and out of the office including his friends, family and work colleagues. 

The show follows the public and private lives of these characters and since it's set in the 60's, their wardrobes are just incredible, resulting in what is, quite possibly, the best dressed cast on TV!

the actors and actresses are always dressed to perfection in the most glorious outfits, dresses and suits! and although the story-lines are fantastic, if i'm honest i mostly just watch it for the clothes!!!

and although the guys always look verrry dapper in their suits, i'm not gonna lie, i watch it for the girl's wardrobes more than anything else!!! they always all look so fabulous!

another brilliant thing about the show is that it's not filled with generic style actresses, there are all sorts of wonderful women of all shapes and sizes. The 50's and 60's were a time of curves after all so it's only appropriate that the show's casting should follow accordingly...

right well... it's been a while since i did a fashion based post so today i thought i might post some photos of the gorrrrgeous Banana Republic 'Mad Men' inspired collection designed by Mad Men's fabulous costume designer extraordinaire Janie Bryant

as you can see, the clothes in the collection are just exquisite! ladylike dresses and separates + perfect accessories and shoes! it's all very VERY 'Mad Men' for sure!!!

so SOOO gorgeous! they all look like they've just stepped out of the Mad Men offices of 'Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce' 

and unsurprisingly i want just about EVERY dress from the collection! 

but hey, it's not just the women's stuff that's beautiful, the men's collection is just as divine!!!

my my, any fella in a Mad Men suit like that is sure to set hearts racing! i mean, why can't ALL guys dress like that nowadays!!!

anyway, moving on... quickly, before i start to drool over the beautiful girly dresses (and the guys!!!)

the collection is available for a limited time only and can be found in Banana Republic shops or alternatively, bought via the Banana Republic website.

you can shop the collection here - Mad Men Collection

there's also a whole bunch of accompanying accessories like handbags, shoes, hats, scarves, necklaces and sunglasses

now in all honesty, i would give just about anything to own a full 'Mad Men' inspired outfit from the collection, the only problem is... i don't know how i'd ever manage to pick just ONE dress!!!

(All images sourced from Banana Republic and AMC 

therefore all Copyright © belongs to them accordingly)

* * *

not much else to report on tonight, there'll probably be a new Creative Café post tomorrow night so look out for that

and until then, that's all folks... ◕‿◕ ★ xX

illustration times ♥

so it's been another quiet day here at Chateux Boylan... i'm joking, my house isn't really called that although that would be pretty awesome...

anyway, yes, quiet day, i've sat inside all day working on my digital illustrations slowly building an absolute loathing a hatred for the editing software on my macbook, namely: photoshop, illustrator, gimp 2.6 and picasa

apparently... when they're ALL open at the same time + itunes + tweetie my laptop has what i can only compare to a mini nervous breakdown

and NO it's not because it's a mac (Mike... shut up NOW i can already hear you saying "get a proper computer... get a PC" no no NO) it's just being very annoying and naughty at the moment and won't seem to do as it's told!

despite all this, i still managed to finish my new Pinup Girl illustration!

she's rather curvy and another redhead (yes i have been watching a lot of 'Mad Men' lately and yes she probably is loosely based on Christina Hendricks character Joan, from the show) and is wearing a sort of burglar/jailbird outfit! 

i'm not sure which it is exactly but it was based on a super cute outfit off 'Pinup Girl Clothing'

anyway, here she is! she's 'here to steal your heart'...

and yes... i am getting rather carried away with these colourful backgrounds aren't i!

i intend to make the next one yellow so i have a nice little set... better draw something new i suppose!!!

the backgrounds fit well together though, i mean she looks nice next to the two i did yesterday, they make a cute little set of triplets i think...

no... just me?!

ok

well in that case i'll draw them a raven haired sister, put her on a yellow background and they can be colourful quadruplets instead!

* * *

in other news... 

i had some fun this afternoon when i was having a skeet at the official Mad Men website (yes... i am a nerd i know) and i spotted THIS awesome little app that lets you create a Mad Men-esque character (like the little figure in the opening credits of the show... if you've never seen it then never mind)

here are the little versions of the shows cast, aren't they adorable!

it's site is aptly named 'mad men yourself' and was super duper fun

here's my Mad Men character surrounded by all the lovely Guys at Sterling Cooper 

you build up your character from scratch, selecting everything from skin colour, nose, eyes, body shape and mouth right up to picking a cute outfit from the 'wardrobe', some little extras (like handbags, cocktail glasses, cigarettes and jewellery) and last but not least you choose a background for your character.

here's a close up of mine... and look... i made her, her very own Sterling Cooper Ad man as well... 

and look at the Sterling Cooper offices... so cute! 

 anyway that's enough Mad Men stuff... we all know the show is awesome so lets leave it at that shall we!

* * *

ok time for me to go and make myself some dinner now

people hardly ever do remember but... don't forget to leave a comment it you can find it in your heart to!

that's all folks... 

♥ ◕‿◕ ★ xX

'hvala i doviđenja'

(that's 'thank you and goodbye' in Montenegrin, for Montenegro)

Flowers and Raindrops ♥

ok so we won't talk about yesterday, yesterday was not a great day! Yesterday involved a lot of frantic phone calls, emails and text messages. Yesterday involved a lot of rain and some rather annoying news + a total cock-up concerning a planned trip.

Let's talk about today. today it's raining... again! however, today when I got into college i had to go down to reception to pick up the beautiful big bouquet of flowers that had been delivered for me. They are now sitting on my desk making everything seem so much brighter and happier. I was so chuffed that there were some pink gerbera daisies in the bunch along with some gorgeous pink/red roses. I adore gerberas, red ones are my favourites but whatever their colour they're always pretty. Here's they all are prettifying up my desk space...

so today i've also been doing some more research into old ads. Had a great chat all about 'Mad Men' and 'Dick Tracy' and 'Metropolis' (the Dick Tracy/Metropolis stuff is for a commission i'm currently working on) with my tutor Ian. He's a massive 'Mad Men' fan as well so he seems to like my research so far. I also got on with some more drawings in my logbook.

 Today i'm listening to some Tchaikovsky, some French Opera (stuff from Carmen mostly, habanera, Seguedilla etc) + a bit of Vivaldi (i like classical stuff when sketching... go figure!)whilst working on some studies of pieces by Angelique Houtkamp who I spoke a little more about + posted some pictures by, in this post last week - 'Blog... à la college ♥'

so here's what i've been working on today...

it's actually finished now. i snapped this early this morning but her hair + tattoos are all drawn in now as well. it's taken me bloody ages to do! i didn't intend on drawing the tattoos but once i'd started i couldn't stop!

this photo also shows the original 1950's magazine cover that Angelique based her piece on. the pose is identical but she's really made it her own. it's one of my favourite pieces by her, so much detail in it, just gorgeous!

so yesterday... yeah it wasn't too good! the only GREAT thing about it was that my friend Jeni popped by to visit me and to collect the print of her 'Jeni in Penguinland' illustration 

(follow the link to see it if you haven't already) + a little postcard i got her during my trip to Cork over the summer. i also got the owl one for my friend Kyren. i don't know what it was about the one i chose for Jeni, it just reminded me of her for some reason and i just knew she'd find it funny.

 the owl one explains itself really + Kyren (or Kyrowl as he is more commonly known) really likes owls. inexplicably... 

anyway, the postcards are from Paperchase which is without a doubt my absolute most very favourite (thank you Charlie and Lola for reminding me how to describe things...) stationary shop in the world! especially the massive one in London! there's also a fab one in Selfridges in Birmingham which i try to go to every year. I fully love love love paperchase! 

ok dokes i'll stop rambling on and on and on now...

it's lunch time so i don't have to feel guilty about blogging today = good times

however it's nearly 1pm which is when lunch time ends = bad times

so on that happy note i'll finish this up

if you're reading this then i hope you have a truly super duper day

that's all folks...

★ ◕‿◕ ♥ xX

Giggles and Gravity ♥

So today at college I've spent the day sketching and fixing up my desk. It's looking pretty super now, I've slowly been filling up the board with pin-up pix + the desk is covered in all my other arty farty junk like books, canvases etc etc

i've tried to be good today and not use the internet too much (aka spend too much time online procrastinating) so I turned the 'airport' off on my macbook for a bit. However... I forgot to turn off the 'push notifications' on my iPod touch so every time I got a message on facebook it made a little noise telling me. 

Plan = FAIL!

I posted an envelope full of goodies to my friend mike today since the pin board in his halls room at uni is SOOOOO empty! He probably won't be very grateful though. What a gaylord. 

Ah, speaking of gaylord's... you would NOT believe what I found today whilst flicking through a big book of 40's advertisements (awesome book, I also have the 50's and 60's editions 'All American Ads' so SO good) I turned the page and BAM! This is what I saw...

now if you can't read that properly due to the crappy quality of the picture (I took it on my phone and bluetoothed it to the macbook... aren't I clever) it's an ad for a shaving kit called... GAYLORD!

Ok, I know i'm 19 and supposed to be a grown-up but COME ON! How could I not giggle at that?!

In fact I giggled so much I sent all of my pencil crayons and sketching pencils flying everywhere. Gravity obviously hates me since they all ended up clattering to the floor and the lead is most likely broken to bits now...

stupid gravity!

the ad itself says: 

'For a King on his day! (in reference to father's day)

Give dad GAYLORD for his shaving and after shaving requirements. GAYLORD is the choice of virile, immaculate men for that fit, fresh feeling. A tingling, stimulating tang - a distinctive, masculine fragrance. In dramatic, burgundy-bright horsehead containers.

GAYLORD for good grooming'

that is EXACTLY what it says! i swear...

Anyway, i've had a great day flicking through the add books. You can see the little sketch I did this morning below. It's not great but I tried my best (+ my daft iPod kept distracting me with notifications)

it's from an old Jantzen swimsuits ad. Now i'm not much of a swimmer but my golly gosh... Jantzen just made the most adorable swimwear! It's not even funny how awesome their stuff was! And their ads were even better. These were two of my particular faves from the book. I didn't attempt to photograph them on my phone so these copies are off an awesome website (one I just adore) called Plan 59. 

Plan 59 is a fabulous site chock full of mid-century ads and works like a facebook photo gallery, so you click on the image to see the next one etc. I love it, I spent about half-an-hour flicking through the files this afternoon, so great. They don't make ads like that anymore...

Check out the site here - http://www.plan59.com/main.htm

and naturally all this though of ads got me thinking about the glorious genius that is 'Mad Men'. I shan't ramble on about it too much (today...) but if you watch the show you'll understand why looking at books filled with 40's/50's/60's advertisements would make me think of 'Mad Men'

and look... a token shot of the AWESOME cast for your viewing pleasure!

and that's it i guess. i am ruddy starving since i've barely left my desk all day + still feeling a bit off.

oh oh i almost forgot... i won a bouquet of flowers last night off a show on Manx Radio!!!

i didn't even know my mum had entered me into the draw to win them... until it was announced on the air that i'd won! 

what a super mum i have! ♥

i won them off Ashlea Tracey's Sunday night connections show. check out her super duper facebook page here - Connections with Ashlea Tracey

she said they should arrive my mid-week so i'll definitely be posting a photo of them on here when they do!

better do some work now...

so... that's all folks!

 ★ ◕‿◕ ♥ xX