An Illustrated Fashion Blog by Angie Réhe

Juiced up on free champagne, I’ve just returned home via the no. 86 tram with the Kurt Cobain not sound-alike, from my friend Rodney’s new label launch, THANH Winter 2010.  And what  a launch it was, at the crazy-beautiful State Library.  What excited me most though, even more than the sight of the table full of cocktails, was the sight of the illustration I did for the invitation blown up to life-size, standing in the foyer, staring me off.  Yes, I had arrived.

Thanh is a beautiful collection of fully-fashioned knitwear, done in the finest gauges and most gorgeous yarns, in the most unlikely shapes like evening dresses (see sketch).  I want it now, hurry up Rodney.

My champagne-fueled excitement only grew when I bumped into fabulous people I haven’t seen for years (hello Marissa, the greatest supporter of my own label way back when), and others I have immortalised in pencil on this very blog (hello Gabby and Anthony) – who P.S. were oblivious to their  illustrated selves.  The fabulous and exuberant Gabby responded with some crystal-shattering squeals (which, note to future subjects, is my preferred response), while Anthony unfortunately gave me the 15-minutes-of-fame post-project-runway brush-off.  Never mind, I still think he seemed very nice on the show.

Watch this space for updates on Thanh hitting the stores…

Been cruising some blogs lately, and my, it seems almost everyone except my 10-day-old grand-nephew has one these days. (Ahem, er, I don’t count because I am insane enough to spend the wee hours, previously spent sleeping, drawing these sweet little artworks.)

Well suffice to say, a person could spend their entire life watching other people’s lives unfold through their blogs. Trouble is, it’s not always so interesting. Which makes it all the more pleasing when you do find one that interests you, and one that gives you backdrops of New York streets you wish you were standing on, and wait for it – one that also has a store to shop at! Yes! I can drink my coffee in bed + live in New York vicariously through someone else + shop for vintage clothes and accessories – all at the same time!

So let me introduce Mimi of BROOK&LYN. Mimi is a graphic designer living in Brooklyn (no kidding), who, as she puts it, started blogging to share her likes and dislikes, which are basically fashion. The addition of the very excellent BROOK&LYN Boutique is much more recent, and you can see me wearing the result of my first visit below. Or at least, what I believe I will look like wearing it, when the nice postman places it in my greedy little hands.

If you peruse Mimi’s blog you will notice her extremely covetable jewellery collection (thankfully many nice things make it to the store – that would not happen if I had a store), and there surely must be some sort of subliminal “you must wear more jewellery” thing going on, because I have now gone bonkers for jewellery – as many pieces at once as possible. It’s not unlike 1984 after Madonna released Borderline.

So meet Mimi and see her style for yourself. Besides the luscious necklaces, this outfit was apparently about the crop tee, which reminds me of one I used to wear in 1987. It was wider, more cropped, and by Chong and Merkel. Being 18, and summer in Sydney, I of course wore it sans bra. Until one day crossing a busy road with both hands full of shopping, the wind blew it up and right over my face. Not a damn thing I could do about it – I couldn’t even see where I was walking. I just remember a guy crossing in the opposite direction saying as he passed – “thank you”.  Well at least he had manners.

Mimi:

And this will be me in my new dress:

Don’t you just love people who are like walking quote books?  I love them from afar, like Karl Lagerfeld, and even better up close, like my friend Anne, in whose company I panic if I am without a notebook to scribble down said quotes.

Just last week over coffee I was dribbling on about “figuring it all out, should I take this job/date/etc, bla bla bla”, and with a customary toss of her head and a wave of her hand she quipped ” Well you know what Rita Levi-Montalcini, the oldest female recipient of a Nobel Prize (and incidentally the only recipient to ever reach 100) says the secret to longevity is?”

‘No food, no husband, and no regrets.’

So there you have it, what are you waiting for?  Get out there and throw up your lunch, divorce your husband/cancel your wedding, tell everyone what you think of them/kiss everyone you have a secret crush on, and watch that longevity unfold before you.

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Given that I became Aunty Angie at the age of 6, it’s not all that surprising that the younger generation have lapped me in the reproductive race – Particularly since my eggs’ reserve light is now flashing and I still haven’t moved on that one. However, I really can’t help feeling a little left behind.  And note to the next generation:  I don’t appreciate it when you barely stifle your guffaws when I say “oh sure, I’d like to have one, you know, when I meet someone who a) drives and has a car, b) is not a homicidal maniac, c) thinks that my pmt is cute.” (yes, good luck to me on that one).

In any case, Saturday saw the arrival of my eighth grand-nephew/niece – a boy called Dakotah Lawrence, born to my niece Carrie-Anne.  Welcome to the nut house Dakotah.

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As the sun sets on another week and I am faced with the fact that I have not posted for a week (insert aghast expression), I figured it was time to sit here with my  G&T and reflect on the week.  And what the hell I have eaten this week that is causing these leather pants to be making a permanent kink in my large intestine like they are.  (Oh, flashback to Mrs Underhill’s soiree last sunday.  The cakes, the sausage rolls from the cute little bakery, the nachos, the champagne, Cindy’s babka cake.  Yes Patsy, that would explain it.)

Certainly, this week has been a far improvement on the last.  If there was one thing I learned from that business seminar a few months ago, it was that you can’t do everything yourself.  Outsource, outsource, outsource.

So after spending the last 2 weeks trying to convince the company in Sydney that had procured my services to design their winter 2010 ranges, to pay me (seems logical), I decided to take the advice of the experts and outsource.  Enter the debt collector.  Joy be mine, so instead of sitting here in disbelief at just how heartless and corrupt some people can be (I’m talking about you, Natalie), I am again enjoying the headspace to blog and be free, and make as many G&Ts as I like, and that’s a lot.

Oh the freelancer’s lament. Please pay me dear honorable debtor, though I’m just a lowly designer-illustrator.  Oh seriously, kiss my arse Dolly Dolly.  Heeeeeee!

The initial looks that got me the job, copyright me:

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I’m always happy to see drawings in print anywhere.  When they make it onto the cover of a magazine like Vogue, I am ecstatic.

So happy was I then to see the 50th anniversary edition of Vogue Australia not only come with an illustrated cover, but a set of 4 to collect!!

I would just like someone to explain to me then, why the 50th anniversary of an Australian publication, touting its virtues as promoter of all things Australian, featured on its cover illustrations by a British illustrator?

We have so many amazing illustrators right here in Australia: Kat Macleod, Rebecca Wetzler, Jayson Brunsdon (does anyone remember the “Follow Me” cover he illustrated?  He is brilliant), and Patsyfox for godssake!!

Je ne comprends pas.

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(Sigh).   I have just returned home from seeing Pericles, starring …(sigh)… Marcus Graham.

(Sigh), and despite the fact that his pinkie toes don’t touch the ground, might I ask, is it my imagination or is it hot in here?? And the theatre.  And the tram on the way home.  3 weeks of walking past the poster on the side of the Arts Centre (it wasn’t just the lovely view of the city & the sun sparkling on the early morning Yarra that inspired me to walk a bit before jumping on the tram) and I just couldn’t resist his invitingly outstretched hand any longer.

I never did see The Blue Room when he was in it, and that goes down in my book of missed opportunities.  Pericles was not going to suffer the same fate.

Dear Marcus,

I was front row tonight, and wouldst thou spit have sprayed in my direction rather than to the right hand side of the stage, thou wouldst have seen a happy woman.

Regardless of missing out on said shower, I believe I speak on behalf of all the women in the first 3 rows when I say, wouldst thou have invited me backstage, thou couldst have been sure of me dispensing with the formality of outer garments, and presenting myself to thee thus…

What say you?

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I can often be heard touting the virtues of wearing no make-up.  “Have you seen the photos of Pammy sans make-up??  She’s prettier!”  “Men don’t like make-up anyway!” “How ridiculous to need to wear make-up!” And god knows how much mileage I’ve gotten out of Alannah Hill’s statement a few years ago that in the (approximately) ten years or so with her ex-and-father-of-her-child, he never once saw her without make-up (yes, it is sad and insane).  And yet should I have to venture further than my mail box, there is no way in hell I will do it without at least a lick of mascara and under-eye concealer.

To be fair, it’s all very well for the Mediterranean amongst us to say they don’t feel the need to paint – they have visible features regardless.  Unlike the pale-face whities like me whose features disappear like water evaporating on cement without the aid of cosmetics.

Which brings me to a bizarre thing that happened today which throws so many of my theories out the window.

Having spent the morning on the phone pretty much harassing the world for dues, including the stupid place that installed my dodgy  heating, I was at 12.30pm caught during a full-flight whinge to my mother on the phone by the heater fix-it man, who decided to come 30 minutes early.  In my pyjamas, bed hair, sans make-up, in the middle of the day. I hate that.  After a full 60 seconds of “fuck, jesus, fuck,” (sorry about that mum), I opened the door a crack and gesticulated wildly – “give me one minute to make these pyjamas disappear, bla bla, very busy on the phone, bla bla, I’m not usually wearing my pjs in the afternoon, etc”.

The heating was fixed in around ten minutes and the problem explained.  I wouldn’t know what that was though, I was too busy wondering if he’d noticed I have no features.

Well clearly he didn’t as shortly after, I received a phone call from the office girl asking if I was single, as the guy wanted to ask me out on a date.

So go figure.  I put all that effort into killer outfits and make-up to wind back the years/pigmentation/eye bags, and the guy thinks I’m a bit-o-alright just as i rolled out of bed.  Bless the blind, there’s not enough of them.

Not one to take chances however, next time I answer the door in pyjamas I think I’ll make it these ones from Agent Provocateur.

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Like each of my ex-boyfriends, though with far greater longevity, Venice has that certain je ne sais quoi that makes me keep loving it, no matter how crap it is at times.

My first visit was at the height of summer – i.e. 45 degrees centigrade.  This was the first unexpected Venice experience.  (I’m sorry but show me one Venice postcard where people’s noses are melting off their faces?)  Alighting from the train to find myself on summer camp with half the population of America was the second.  After getting off the vaporetto a stop too soon and schlepping my suitcase over approximately 473 steps and 378 campers’ toes (including my own, the blood from which, had I become lost, would have made a perfect trail back), I spent the next 3 days seeking 2 square meters of Venice which might be free of complaining, overweight, pizza-eating-as-you-walk aforementioned co-campers.  Had it not been for the discovery of the Peggy Guggenheim museum and the $3 glass rings, I may not have fallen in love at all.

I sought an alternate Venice experience on my second visit, having a crack at Venice mid Winter.  Oh Patsyfox, your naivety is so cute.  The other noses I haven’t seen on postcards are the ones snapping off peoples faces from the extreme fricking cold.  Ok, I never listened in geography, but why hasn’t anyone ever told me how close Venice is to places that get seriously cold?  I expected the foggy Venice of Don’t Look Now, not the clear-skied ice winds of the north pole! Willing to sell my body for 3 minutes of warmth, I did the equivalent and went to Harry’s Bar for a respite from the wind and the warmth of a red.  Unfortunately Harry’s Bar doesn’t sell wine – this would make it too hard to get the shirt off people’s freezing backs.  I settled for a thimble of the house classic bellini at 15 euro.  Had I wanted to feed my rumbly tumbly, a bowl of minestrone would have set me back 25 euro, and a main course 55 euro.  True, I wrote it down.

What no ice winds, $25 lattes, smelly drains or summer campers can take away from Venice however, is its absolute beauty of colour, form and ambience.  But she is not to be beaten, this beauty.  Sitting on a (free) step in the shade of Piazza San Marco, albeit with my $10 bottle of water, I thought I was the only one smart enough to crack the code.  Until with one swift drop, a Venetian seagull, surely with an arse the size of the piazza itself, dropped a load that covered my head like a yarmulke, cascaded down my shoulders, onto and inside my bag.  Talk about multi-tasking.  Only mildly perturbed, I finished this drawing.

Venice, I still loves ya.

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