A Trip on a Vintage Cruise

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clare quartermaine Mar 23, 2017 0 comments

So we were asked to put on a fashion show... on a cruise ship - To Amsterdam

And a riot it was!

When I had a phone call in June last year asking us to put on a fashion show on a cruise - i thought it was a prank call... But the lovely fella, who called on behalf of P&O, had seen our little fashion shows at The Festival of Vintage in York and wanted the same for his event. I wrongly assumed it would be from Southampton (which is a very long way from Yorkshire) - but when reassured that it was Hull to Rotterdam, I thought 'What the hell"!

I have done fashion shows at The Festival of Vintage in York for 5 years and over that time have built up a pool of wonderful northern based ladies who love the whole experience and are reliable, flexible and simply lovely. (since fashion shows are not without their stresses - having a bunch of lasses that don't let you down and are non-divas is a massive plus). So when i asked them if they were interested in coming along - there was no hesitation and so we were booked!

So when the day finally arrived, we boarded 'The Pride of Hull' - and there was an air of complete excitement following my 'cackle' of Foxy Ladies pottering around the ship with rollers in their hair and sunglasses on. You can imagine the scene! Since the ship was also used by other travellers - we bumped into a few surprised truck drivers during the journey! ;-)

The other entertainers were so friendly and the space to use was fabulous and we had enlisted the lovely Bethany from The Vintage Beauty Parlour and Sarah Bloor from Pinup Curl to prepare the ladies for the initial show which was at 7:30pm. My goodness - they did a fine job and the foxy ladies looked fabulous! We had a great audience - with several familiar faces too! Our first show was 3 catwalks of different eras - firstly 1920s/30, secondly 1940s, thirdly postwar 40s, 50s, early 60s. A great show and we had some lovely feedback. There were some new styles from our spring/summer 2017 collection plus for favourites that we keep in the collection.

: The girls rocking a 50s look!

After the show - we enjoyed the entertainment and retired to our tiny cabins (which was probably the main downside of the experience).

The following day was an early start but a day trip to Amsterdam! Yay! Again - a gaggle of excitable Foxy ladies, this time in head scarves and sunglasses pottering around the city without much of an idea on where we were! It was difficult getting around at a decent speed partly because there were a group of 12 but also because we kept getting stopped for pictures! Such fun! Many of us descended on the city's vintage shops and some excellent purchases were made!

: Behind the glamour....

Once back on the ship - we did our second show which was initially the menswear from 20th Century Chap followed by evening wear through the eras. This time the ladies had no changes and were able to have their own 'looks'. Again done exquisitely by Bethany & Sarah - a massive thank you to them!

Until now, we have generally avoided floor length gowns in favour of cocktail style dresses due to customer demand. Apart from the siren dress of course... However, we are now working of adding a few evening gowns into our collection which brings me much joy!

I was able to showcase a few new ideas in this show - which started with the 20s Garbo velvet dress circa 1925, the early 1930s Sheba, the red velvet Siren circa 1935, The Ava Evening Dress in gold satin with black crepe & bolero circa 1939, The 40s Vivienne circa 1942, The 1940s Hayworth Cocktail Dress in brocade, Darcy swing dress circa 1952, Bardot wiggle 1958 and lastly, my personal fav, The Manhatten Dress circa 1962. Pictured below in all their finery

: If we could wear evening gowns all the time - we really would - wouldn't we?

It has always been REALLY important to me that we represent 'all' women in these shows - so my ladies represent a range of sizes, ages and shapes. In this era of social media pressures, i prefer to avoid adding the 'polish' that has become the norm. This is why vintage style fashion is so liberating for many women - it's about celebrating femininity and shape - and i still believe that there really is a style within the eras aforementioned that will suit anyone. Maybe there is a blog post on that entire subject - for another day!

So the highlights from this show are:-