An Illustrated Fashion Blog by Angie Réhe

While eating my way through the blue mountains and enjoying the superlative company of my friends, the very last thing I expected was to find and purchase the most perfect and covetable example of a 1970’s belle époque dress imaginable.  But I did, in emerald green.  I die. Somewhere between the breakfast table and the nymph’s waterhole was an antique store in Blackheath and it was a veritable goldmine.  So taken was I in fact, that I didn’t even notice Tara Moss strolling by behind me.  Possibly I was too busy emitting a low growl to ward off other shoppers from my jackpot corner.

Sigh.  It’s perfect apart from a lining which could stand up on its own, so that will have to go.  Also, despite appearing 8 feet tall in my self portraits…well, let’s just say I’m not…so the maxi length thing, it may have to go too – if I can bring myself to take to it with the scissors…

All hail the 70s!

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Alas, the time has come to separate my arse from my beach towel.  Oh terry-toweling, I knew you well.

Truth be told, if it wasn’t for the prompting* from a certain Patsyfox devotee (that’s you Webb), I would still be spending my days in a bikini, promising myself to at least cut out the drinking during daylight hours, and canvasing more friends/acquaintances to find someone who has a copy of season 2 of True Blood.  I shouldn’t complain – if my liver wasn’t at capacity by xmas, it certainly is now.  And god knows, I’m running out of available credit.  To the pencils I return…

So as the blue mountains/Sydney NYE fireworks from a rooftop party/Sydney in general fade from my depleted memory bank, I look to the year ahead and give it a big hug.

Coming up in March as part of the L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival and celebrating the first birthday of Patsyfox: “On The Street…Patsyfox” An exhibition of drawings from throughout the year.  Where? Guilford Lane Gallery.  When? 10th-21st March 2010.   Is there an opening party?  Of course there is! Thursday March 11th.  Be there early, for I will surely drink the rider.

That’s not all.  Launching during LMFF is The Patsyfox Drawing Salon!  Workshop classes to be held during the festival in the Patsyfox exhibition space, then short courses begin in the evenings, for beginners and advanced, all taught by yours truly, naturally.  Watch this space, because I will be plugging both of these things relentlessly…

So best I shake the sand out of my pencil case and burn some rubber in the sketchbook… In memory of my beach towel, I bring you Bondi Patsyfox…

*Relentless nagging

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I never thought I’d say this but I actually think I’m sick of drinking.  There – I said it, pass the thermometer.  I may have passed over without noticing it but I think it’s true.  Maybe it’s the cheap lick-envelopes I bought to post my xmas cards.  Maybe it’s just genuine liver-at-capacity.  Not that I haven’t been enjoying getting to this point.

In a year that has seen my brother Tex and sister Suzanne erased from this earth in the same spectacular moment, I have discovered many things, including an iron will to continue.  Not that the event hasn’t left a meteor-sized crater on my landscape – It’s just that I’ve stared in the face of the unthinkable and am still here.  I watched them drive down the driveway and their tail lights disappear down the country road, thinking to myself that five family members in one piece of metal was a lot.  And it was.  As I drove frantically through the countryside an hour later trying to find the missing three, I used the law of probability as my comfort.  Unfortunately what I learned from this is that shit happens.  To all of us.  Deserved or not.

So to the memory of Tex and Suzanne, and my father before them, I raise a glass to a life lived as I want it.  Why not?

I came across this video the other day on Sarah Wilson’s website and was struck with the irony of sliding doors – near misses and direct hits.  I admit I watched with some bitterness that my family’s car wasn’t one of the near misses.  C’est la vie.

I wish you all much merriment and joy and a fabulous 2010.  Personally I think it’s going to be a good one.

Thank you to all my insanely fabulous friends – you know who you are, and how much i have to thank you for.

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It’s been a suspiciously smooth day today – coffee with my old pilates buddies, discovery that the cheap printer has 300g matt paper for my xmas cards in stock, a park out the front, and can print them right away, and while I wait I can have coffee at the newly opened cafe next door which is selling (good) coffees for one dollar.  And for the entire duration of that cafe latte I didn’t see one pramzilla. When the mailman came, who I’ve considered beating off with a stick, there were no bills!  Is it wrong that this makes me so suspicious?  Then while enjoying an afternoon cup of tea, a call from my friend Kim, announcing a tree change.

Cheekbones like Faye Dunaway, talented, younger than me – there’s not a lot to like about Kim Kneipp.  Designer-cum-slow-fashion-stylist, she puts her career and finances where her mouth is, turning away work that doesn’t fit her ethos.  And it’s working out just fine.  Frockerphiliac doesn’t offer your run-of-the-mill styling services of endless shopping and latest “it” looks – it’s more stylish than that.  She works with clients to create an image true to them, and does it within a sustainable framework.  This can involve minor or complete reworkings of garments within their wardrobes, or sourcing garments from op shops, markets, and ethically sound labels.  It’s a little like, as Gwenny would say – except without it making me want to stick pins in my eyes – “shopping your own closet” – a concept I’ve become intimate with recently (which made the dream about the 2 blonde lesbians stealing all my clothes that much more disturbing).  Oh and when she revamps your wardrobe, she doesn’t muck around – I’ve heard stories of drills being pulled out of back pockets and racking being installed… You’ve been warned.

You can read more about her in the latest Frankie magazine, or just gaze upon her here.

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As canny subscribers to the Patsyfox newsletter already know, I lined up last week like the world’s biggest loser for over 2 hours, just to meet The Sartorialist and get his scrawl on paper.  Well of course I already met him last time he was here when I stalked him, so really it was a catch up.  Except he seemed to have no recollection of the event until I said “you know, first an e-mail, then me in your face with a camera….?” “Oh yeh, that’s right…”  Then quickly before he could call security I whipped out the illustration I did of him from that visit and suggested that if he would kindly sign it I was as good as gone.  Which he did.  And I was.

So you see, waiting for 2.25hrs with no mints or water behind the 2 guys with really bad breath was worth it.  P-fox (rap name) has just confirmed a 1st-birthday Patsyfox exhibition during L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival next March, and this drawing, along with most of the others, will be up for grabs.  So thanks Mr S for making it that bit more spesh.

I may have waited in line like a loser, but I’m thinking Patsyfox is the winner.  He may have a new TV show in the works, but I have the scrawl.  Patience is my new virtue.

Of course those who are onto my lazy tricks will realise this didn’t actually require a new drawing, and since I’ve been too busy at Xmas parties and working on the Patsyfox annual Xmas card to produce one, here’s something I did in life drawing this morning.  Damn those 5 minute drawings that look better than the long ones.

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Because I have little (read nil) respect for my credit card debt, I have this dress on lay-by at Nevada Duffy’s.

No, I don’t smoke.  Of course I don’t smoke! What – do I have ‘stupid’ or ‘age me faster please’ written on my forehead?  No.  I just admit with no small amount of guilt that sometimes smoking looks cool.

And cool & smokin’ is how I think I will look in my brand new Nevada Duffy purchase when I pick it up, which will be on Saturday, so I can wear it to her birthday party/karaoke concert that night.  I say concert because what she doesn’t know yet is that while it’s near impossible to get me up to sing, it is actually impossible to get me off.  The machine has had to be unplugged on more than one occassion.  But this is not about me, it’s about Nevada.

After a hiatus of far too long designing for other people, Nevada is back with her own label, keeping those of us who collect it happy.  Editions are limited, hand cut & finished, and often made up of unique pieces of fabric such as scarves (like my lay-by above), and that’s the way I like it – No-other biatch is going to have this dress.  You can also order things to be made up in your size / choice of fabric.  AND if you’re very lucky you can even order a piece from her archive to be made up for you.  There is nothing quite like having a garment whipped up just for you, trust me.  Except maybe having a boyfriend that whips frocks up for you, but that’s definitely another story.

You can seek out these treats at Nevada’s gorgeous teeny shop on the corner of Webb and Gore St in Fitzroy (Melbourne), open on Fridays and Saturdays, or by appointment.  You can also find a limited selection at Alice Euphemia.  Look out for her open studio event during L’Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival next March.

Next on my purchase list is this version of the dress in black silk with zip trim, and below it is the tiger leggings which Amanda bought, and they are SMO-KING.  Again with the smoking?

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It’s the little things in life that bring a smile to your face while you’re belting along a city street trying to make it to the tray of champagne before the rain really gets going.  Like the guy selling The Big Issue opposite Parliament House today, selling his wares by song as I passed – “you’ll love this magazine it’s really a ripper, you’ll love it almost as much as  I love those boots with the really long zipper…And actually they give me a really…” At which point a tram went by and I missed the rhyme, which try as I might, I can’t fill in.  If you can think of anything please let me know.  Or maybe just make something up?

In any case, I made it to Craft Victoria with my hairstyle still intact, and was treated to the most fabulous selection of work from the best of this year’s design/art/craft graduates, as the Fresh! exhibition.  I’m particularly taken with this origami shell-kind-of-thing by Kaori Kato.  If it had sleeves attached I would call it the perfect party jacket – when needing time out in the corner due to bad behaviour/embarrassing gaffs/seeing undesirable exes, you could just find a spot and squat – hey presto, where’s she gone?

And I had to include a pic of this incredible blown-glass installation by Emma Lashmar.  It reminds me of the orbs at Amanda’s house, and I want it in my hallway.

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There’s a certain je ne sais quoi about St Kilda rd in Melbourne.  Could be the fact that I’ve laid naked on the wet bitumen of Princes Bridge at dawn to be photographed by Spencer Tunick….

Or maybe it’s being so close to my favourite building in Melbourne, the NGV International.  So obsessed was I with the reopening of this building after its 2 year closure for renovations in 2003, that I – along with my then-boyfriend, both juiced up from a long boozy birthday lunch at Reserve – used my Jedi mind-trick to walk past security and into the exclusive first-look for investors and benefactors.  Was it his chutzpah or my Stella McCartney suit?  Who cares, we got in, and we graciously accepted Steve Vizard’s thanks for all our support, and dutifully filed past the wall of names as if we really did expect to see ours amongst them.

Either way, I’m using this as an excuse to sit here in the sun and contemplate the scary to-do list sitting on my desk back in the studio.  But in all fairness, work brought me here in the first place – I just had a sneak peek at the Drape exhibition opening tomorrow at the NGV – look out for more on this later in the week.

In the meantime, have I done the blog post on Nevada Duffy’s delicious new offerings?  No!  Far too busy sitting here on the grass.  So instead, I offer this – some of Sunday’s sketches at Dr Sketchys…

A couple of hours ago I returned from what felt like a tour of ‘nam.  Given the questionable mother that I am (hey, I grew up in the country where hessian bags of kittens were routinely thrown into rivers – and yes, of course I ran downstream and tried to fish them out, but nevertheless I am from the school of tough love), I can count the times Patsy has been to the vet on one hand.  This also supports my belief that money is much better spent on a pair of shoes than a vet’s bill.

Nevertheless, since she was beaten stupid by the neighborhood thugs last weekend, it had to be done.  So after 5 minutes or so of being bitten scratched and hissed at, it was off to the Lort Smith.  Her mood didn’t improve as we stood 15 minutes in line with an array of perfectly behaved pets, while I tried not to notice that my cat-carry backpack was howling and hissing like something out of The Exorcist.  She behaved much better for the vet, as they do, but as he stuck that thermometer up her arse she looked at me with a look that said “My bladder and your studio gotta date when we get back to our place, and if I were you I’d shut your bedroom door tonight.”

She needn’t have bothered – the bill was all the punishment I needed.  And because I’m into self-harm I decided to have a look on Net-A-Porter to see what I could have bought with that money – and apparently, the answer is quite a lot.   Like this Vivienne Westwood Anglomania dress I’ve been obsessed with for 2 months. Now who’s howling and hissing?

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