After a few enquiries over the years about why I love Vintage things, old movies, Swing music and spending copious amounts of time on just the right hair style, I thought back to where it really all began.

Where I’ve narrowed it down to is Weekend Matinee’s with Bill Collins.  The days that were too hot, too cold or too wet outside, saw us watching old movies starring Shirley Temple, Gene Kelly, Frank Sinatra, Judy Garland, Lana Turner etc etc etc ….

As I grew up, I didn’t just enjoy the musicals, but just watching classic cinema opened my eyes to a lot of things that I realised I didn’t see day to day.  Women in stylish outfits wearing hats and gloves, men in suits  rather than in T-shirts and jeans, being able to use the excuse of washing your hair to get out of going out with a boy.  That last one I didn’t get until much later, when I was setting and styling my hair.

I was not confident enough as a Teen to embrace the styles that I loved, as a lot of teens weren’t in those days, so I dressed like my friends and to what ‘fashion’ dictated.  I was never really happy with how I looked, though.  I knew something was missing, but was too insecure to grab a hold of it and do what I longed to.

Years went on and I found myself in my final years of high school.  My parents took up Rockabilly dancing, and ‘dragged’ my sister and I to some social nights.  After a few weeks of trying to figure it out, in the bathrooms, we asked to start lessons too.  That was the kick start that I needed. That was back in 1992.  I took 1993 off for my HSC exams and picked up dancing again early in 1994.

I spent the next few years in dancing comps, all the while deciding to push my costumes back to more authentic styles.  Attending social nights in big poodle skirts with crinolines and little sweaters or collared shirts.  Then I discovered swing dancing, and my choice of clothing went further back in time. Around this time I was dancing 4-6 nights a week all over Sydney in saddle shoes or cute pumps/wedges, collegiate style outfits or swing dresses, I pulled out the crinolines on occasion too.  Hair was curled and pompadoured, lips were red and I started collecting vintage clothing.

Unfortunately over the years over half of my vintage collection has gone MIA.  Which is sad, because I had some beautiful dresses, and with the vintage boom over the last 10 years, finding great pieces in Sydney in anything over a size 8 is very hard to do.  Now I satisfy myself with making clothes with either vintage patterns, or altering modern ones so they look ‘right’.  I get a lot of inspiration for clothes and hair from my collection of vintage magazines and books, as well as all those old movies that Mr Collins introduced me too when I was a kid.

Thank you, Mr Collins!

I saw Angels & Demons last night.  Do NOT read on if you don’t want to know…

I love this book.  I totally prefer it over The da Vinci Code for so many reasons.  I think the story is better, even more ‘believable’.

However, I think the movie was far enough removed from the book to suck.

They wrote out several characters:-

1. Max Kholer
2. the BBC reporters

They changed several characters:-

1. Leonardo Vettra was “Sylvio” and not Vittoria’s adopted father
2. Olivetti was not in the Swiss Guard, but some “Vatican Police” force
3. Rocher is now “Richter” and not in Swiss Guard uniform
4. Moriati is now “Strauss” and a bit of an a-hole
5. Some lower level ‘cardinal’ (I don’t know what the purple ones are) is now there picking up some slack from the lack of Max and the movement of “Richter”
6. The camerlengo is no longer Italian, OR the actual son of the Pope and a Nun “maria”, but is only adopted.

MAJOR story points that have changed.

1. There is a full research team involved with the LHC, rather than just Leonardo and Vittoria, leads to not as hard to figure out that info could leak out
2. Vittoria is onhand and actually finds the body, rather than the whole Max Kholer story.  Which also rules out future parts of the story
3. Langdon never goes to CERN in the cool jet or sees any of the awesome that is there.
4. “Sylvio” is not branded with the Illuminati ambigram, NOR is there the “Illuminati diamond” ambigram.. I can’t tell you how much this pissed me off
5. The “Hassassin” is not a culturally born killer, nor a sexual deviot.  He’s just a ‘hired gun’ .. SO not as much fun.  He also doesn’t get killed by falling off a high balcony.. because… VITTORIA DOESN’T GET KIDNAPPED!!!  GUH.
6. Langdon doesn’t go up in the helicopter.  And you see the camerlengo parachuting.  WRONG WRONG WRONG .. the camerlengo appearing on top of the vatican is supposed to be seen as a miracle.  When Langdon shows up in the chapel, it’s meant to start to ‘undo’ the camerlengo’s story.
7. No Max = no camcorder, so they replaced it with surveyance equipment that is monitored by “Richter” .. not too bad.. for a patch up
8. This is the one that probably upsets me most.  There is no love story.  Langdon and Vittoria are supposed to get all hot and steamy for each other due to being thrown into a stressful situation together.. No end of movie sex.  Suckage.

There are more ‘little’ things.  But these are the big ones that just rattled my chains last night.

Completely unimpressed with how they chopped this movie up.  At least da Vinci Code was watchable after the book.

IMO, if you love the book, don’t bother.