WHAT I'VE BEEN UP TO

MAY

Poor updating here on the blog lately.. I've spent a lot of time enjoying the company of my lovely friends and family and also visited Stockholm last week for work. Great weather in Sweden by the way! Felt like summer.

Anyway, May is always one of the most interesting and inspiring months for me. All the Finnish fashion events are just around the corner and the weather allows you to dress much lighter. Bare ankles are finally here to stay! For couple of months at least..

WHAT I WORE

ON INSTAGRAM

Sorry for the absence, I've been busy with life. 
Been planning my Copenhagen Fashion Week visit, the last two Finnish Fashion posts (yes, everything comes to an end..) 
and life in general. A new year always brings some pressure even though in a good way. 
But yes, the FF-post will be up later this week! Stay tuned.

A SELFIE AND IT'S META VERSION

Last night at the club night I co-produce -RubiesKlubit -Nancy took a photo of me and these two gold sparkling performers, Bébe and Bent, while we were indulging in the act of taking mandatory backstage selfies.

I probably have a thousand of photos like these by now in my phone, smiling fab people with a lot of glitter on them squeezed together to fit an instagram square (as well, as fit in a tiny backstage). But they keep on appearing, just the heads in a different order, after every show...

SNAPSHOTS

Yesterday we shot a thing with huuuuge hair!

Today we filmed a thing with sleek hair and a cool leatherjacket.

And now I'll go to sleep on a lonely mattress in my empty city apartment as I am off early tomorrow morning to Prague to perform! I'll also teach a workshop on Sunday; join in if you're over there!

LIFE LATELY

INSTAGRAM SNAPSHOTS

Life's a party. Seriously, can't remember the last time that I didn't have anything to celebrate on the weekend.
 Lately it has been all about great friends and my dream team at home. Wouldn't change a thing.
Also to get back on that superficial side that this blog is about - a wardrobe that feels like ME is something to be happy about. 
Makes life a lot easier.

AT THE PIN-UP FINLAND FINALS

One thing about getting older, I've noticed, is that you get more tired doing things that before did not tire you as much. So after a weekend of working for about 30 hours, of which half of those hours in high heels, walking an uncountable amount of time back-and-forth between stage area and back stage at a huge fair center (note to self for next year: bring a pedometer!) it does take some days, not just a, to recover. But because work and moving apartments and such those days have not yet appeared; this is the first time in a week I managed to sit down by the computer and do internet-stuff from a bigger screen than the one in the palm of my hand. Phew!

Here are a few shots from the Pin-Up Finland pageant that we were working on last weekend -
It's not really a pageant per se, that focuses on looks, but a modelling competition that values over all style and how to embody the modern pin-up, as well as modelling skills live and in front of the camera. The pin-ups this year were between ages 18 and 35; the age range is usually quite wide, as is the style of the contenstans. We produced the final event with all it's hundreds of bits and pieces and also help coach (=calm, mostly) the girls for it. As said before, I've never been much for competitions myself, but as one competitor put it: it did not feel like a competition; more like a pin-up camp. All contestants usually become great friends, plus get a lot of new opportunities via the events around the competition.

 My hosting-face.

 Our lovely ladies on stage of the first round, that they get to style themselves.


Milkshake break!
@Nancybites snapped this one of us.

 Backstage with the girls before the second show of the day.

We had one go-go themed round and Eija sew these amazing groovy outfits our of vintage materials for the girls! So much want there!

Cherry Liqueur, who would win the competition, at the final show of the event, featuring beautiful robes and fluffy pyjamas from VintagEija's, and and on-stage boudoir we put together with furniture borrowed from Kymen Viiri

 After the show with our winner Cherry Liqueur!

We will produce the Pin-Up Finland 2017 finals again next year, and also work on the photoshoots and other happenings around  the event, so if you want in as a sponsor or to see your products featured throughout the summer season do get in touch.

Photos by Harri Antikainen and Operation Rocking Piggy.
(Instagram photos by me.)

SHOWPONY SCHEDULES

Ah, Mondays, Tuesdays, beginning of the week. Mondays used to be may day off to adapt from the weekend rhythm to the weekly one, but this year Dag goes to his play-club on Monday mornings too, which means Mondays has become as shitty as everyone else’s, waking-up wise at least.

When you are away performing it’s often odd to adapt your weekend work schedule to your week-schedule. Although I am used to an irregular routine  - the last four years of my harbour work, when I was working as the supervisor, we did five days of evening shift from 15hrs to 1 am, then three days off and then seven days of morning shift from 05:30 to 14:30 (and then we had six days off). I remember reading that mixing shifts like that is not good for your sleep (or for you) as you never really adapt to any regular rhythm, but I can’t really state that my routines would have improved that much nowadays either...

Performing life when away often looks something like this, only the small details vary.

DAY 1

06:00am Leave to airport far too early, especially taking into consideration evening teaching (in this example, you can fill in : performing sometimes too) the night before and late night packing (as always, no matter how well you think you’ve prepared it this time).

Consume crazily expensive coffee and smoothies at airport. 

10:00am Arrive to destination, drag your just-a-few-grammes-below-maximum-weight-suitcase(s) along in public transportation to where you are staying.

(Here we are arriving in St.Pauli in Hamburg the other week. The rest of the details and pics will come from that trip. -)

Wait for about an hour for the man with the keys to show up. Enjoy some coffee and a random baguette (the rest of the trip will be healthier!) while you wait.

12:00pm Then sleep. Sleep sleep sleep

18:00 Get up, do some stretching and go grab something as healthy as possible around the corner. Buy some almonds for backstage snacks.


(a little good-late-afternoon-morning peek-a-boo from the next window)

20:00 Put make up on

21:00 Head over to the venue.

23:00-02:00 Perform. Sip on that one; just one, backstage GT during the evening.

03:00 snack on some almonds, project:wash-your-face-and-roll-your-hair-for-the-next-day and then to bed.

DAY 2

13:00 get up. Do pilates. Colleague does yoga. Have some lemon water, almonds and bio yoghurt. Whoop whoop!

14:00 out for a walk, some fruits and soy latte.

(We saw somebody who'd just gotten married.)

16:00 Soup and summer rolls, yum!

17:00 Back home to do some office work - and have a liiiittle bit of prosecco while at it.
(Here working on the Ruby Knuckles Sextet website, by @ruskarieban)

19:00 Late afternoon/early evening power nap

20:00 make up time!

21:30  Heading over to the venue. No GT today, this evening will be healthier

(Backstage. The usual.)

23:00 -02:00 showtime ok maybe that one backstage GT after all

03:00 SHOTS! (oops) 

04:00 MORE SHOTS (oh shit)

05:00 apparently more shots, or something.

DAY 3

12:00 Lemon water. almonds. Damn it, why don’t we have any chips!

13:00 painful movement from place A to B. About a litre of mint tea and a grilled sandwich that could have had so much more cheese on it.

02:30 realising you are way too tired, even though you just had half a litre of cola, to spent time in one of the most awesome places there is (well nerd-wise at least; MiWuLa) and that you are just going to have to come back here the next time SANS shots the night before instead.

03:00 drag yourself up the stairs

SLEEP

06:00 force yourself out again to eat and at this point anything goes

(But we were lucky that this was really good though. Vegan comfort food at Saints & Sinners. Have to go back the next time and eat up the rest of the menu.)

20:00 A quick yoga nidra to try to even up the lack of sleep from last night

20:30 On with the face again

21:30 stack up on chips on the way to the venue. Arrive. No GT’s

(Arrived. Face glued on. Ready. I can do this!)

22:00 ok one GT.

23:00-02:00 Showtime!

03:00 chips. packing

04:00 SLEEP

DAY 4

(peanut butter and vegan cheeseeeemmmm)

09: wake up, grab soy latte, drag 20-something kilos of costumes and make up to the airport, unpack (well MAYBE, if you’re good to yourself). Go to sleep and then wake up and it’s MONDAY, DAMN!

SEQUINS

INSTAGRAM SNAPSHOTS

VINTAGE top

Yet another forgotten favorite. What do these finds really mean? That I have too many clothes? I'm in denial, I still think of myself as that type of girl who gives away as soon as she gets some more. But seriously, - these gems that I've found in my own closet lately?! They don't deserve to be hidden.

PARTY IN A SLIP DRESS

INSTAGRAM SNAPSHOTS

I'm having a busy week at work but at times like these remember to follow me on 
instagram (@fashionworries)!  

IN LONDON & VIENNA

I am out in the archipelago celebrating Midsummer for a few days, but meanwhile here are some snapshots from my workations in May -

We were a mere week in London for the London Burlesque Festival!

I rented a fab air b'n'b in a old bank-building-turned-aparements in Holloway.

We hooked up with our old pal from Norway Miss Knockout Noire and hit the town as The Scandinavian Leather Jackets. That included a lot of laughter.

And then I paid a bunch of money to see Daniel Craig (drool) and Johnny Depp (drool) in wax.

The most interesting were the really old dolls though.

But we did indeed work there too - here in the middle of getting into drag for our boyband act.

And later the usual glittery burlesque setting as well!

A week later, very early in the morning, it was time to gather the boyband again and fly over to Vienna and the Vienna Boylesque Festival!

A too-early wake up can be balanced up with a prosecco breakfast upon arrival, meeting up the rest of the Finns who had been there for the first nights of the festival already.

Streelights of love in Vienna!

The world's best boyband, next to the world's without-a-doubt-best-female-boylesque performer Lou Henry Hoover, before the show.

Backstage post-show photo by Neil Kendall (@neilnezkendall). So many men and so much glitter!

THE BIG T IS BACK!

I'm still traveling but meanwhile here's a little happy story about a happy old car:

You may remember I have an old car. It's from the seventies. And I am rather fond of that car, even though it has been neglected for quite some time now. It's spotted in many of my outdoor pictures as it has been waiting next to the apple tree at the farm. Or one could say: has been stuck.
(The photo above is of overgrown sad car, 2014. It looks the same now with appleblossoms and all but the car is not sad anymore.)

And waited it has. I parked it there almost five years ago, when I was pregnant with Dag and started driving a more family-friendly car. I took it off registration and insurance after about a year, and at some point that dear husband of mine insisted of driving a bit with it (which is just good for the car, to drive around and not just wait outdoors) and also on keeping the keys, the only set of keys there were -you may see where this is going- and then of course ending up losing/misplacing/what-f'ing-ever-they-were-gone-anyways the keys.

So my poor old Taunus stood there for a few years growing moss. (Literally)

But now he is sad now more but happy shiny and running again!
My friend Asko have been fixing on the issue during the winter; we've ordered different keys from car sites of other old Taunuses to find one that'd hopefully fit the ignition. None did, but we did get one set to open the door. In the end we ordered a new whole ignition from a veteran car site and some time ago Asko came over to set it in (demanded a bit of work due to a lot of stuff and technical details I guess there is not much point to get that much into here.)

So we played the 1950's for a while where the guys could mend the car and the women stay in the kitchen and prepare food and drink wine.

Well I did go out to sort of help too (read: check the situation), it is after all my car.

But the next time I went out they -plus the men from next door - were already blissfully driving around with it.

Mossy car drives away.

Shiny car comes back!

And I finally get to hop in! (Note, hop in, not behind the wheel yet...)

And it's sooo happy and shiny again! Woop-woop, car-woop!

THE LAST OF APRIL

Voom voom, time flies and it's almost May! Yey!  I've been busying around, but here are some of the things that happened during the last week of April (as my instagram saw it)...

Ok, this is the shittiest picture I have ever posted, no doubt about it. An iPhone really is no night time camera. So in this picture you can se an in-real-life gigantic full moon to the left, and two huge moose to the right. Or you can if you could.

I was driving home to the countryside from the studio late at night, as usual, when I saw a big moose (or actually, elk, as they are called over here) standing by the road. And they are huge. Majestic. It really is a sight, especially if they are standing still and not running away. They are rather shy, so you don't get to see them that often, although this time of the year the elks and deer move around a lot.  I stopped the car and stepped out to take a picture of the animal who had joined another moose on the field. With poor result. They just stood there a while and stared at me and I stared back and drove off and spotted a crowd of white tailed deer skipping over the road at the next turn. The following night as I was driving home from a gig, at a spot a few kilometers before I had seen the animals earlier, just before I turned off the big road up to the farm, I saw a big dead moose along the road; it had been hit by a car. They were trying to ligt  it on board a pickup. Elk-accidents are dangerous, and often fatal for the weaker part, but can be for bothm as the animals weights several hundred kilos; you don't want one trough your windshield. Those warning signs you usually see on tourist mugs and t-shirts are not just for fun.... I drive a lot and see lots of roadkill during the summer months but I've never seen a moose crash before. It was so sad to think of the beautiful animal by the road before, and now to see a similar (or, probably the same individual) dead the night after.

I finished filming the music video for Dark Country. It was cold and raining, as it usually is when filming outdoors, and I was happy from the waist-down-shots, strutting around in my summer dress plus knitted dance-wear-pull-on ballet stretch pants, knee socks and boots (and later, to make it even more stylish: rubber boots).

Filming in dark and wet woods. Phone-shot by @jamipietila.
There is some awesome behind-the-scenes footage from the shoot but that will be for another time!

Dag had a masquerade at his playschool, and he had planned to be a lion for some time now. But then he suddenly grew up to become a big boy and didn't want to be a lame lion anymore but a kick-ass red ninjago ninja. And for those who don't have kids (or are Lego fans), that's a Lego character.

And at the end of the week I received my Peak Pilates advanced matwork instructor certification!
I have had the certification for some time already, but to get the actual paper is always a final manifestation of the achievement. Yey! (I intend to continue the education with apparatus but that will have to wait for a little while now.) Pilates is the most awesome thing you can do for your body (it really is!)  so do come and try out a class, wink wink!


And today it's Vappu! Cheers!