I thought it was about time I posted something including myself, not just empty dresses, even though I prefer taking pictures of them rather than posing myself. This picture is from September 2008, outside of Kägelbanan in Stockholm, where the lovely burlesque club Hootchy Kootchy was hosting that night, and I finally made it there with two dear friends. I had wanted to go since the first time I heard about it, but for different reasons it took me a very long time to make it happen. Part of the great fun of the night definitely was prepping in my apartment: dressing up to the teeth, putting make-up on, painting nails, drinking champagne, choosing the right music to get us into burlesque mood. We even made up burlesque names for the night, which was great fun! I decided to go with this pretty red vintage dress that I got in Barcelona 5 years ago. Not surprisingly it's polyester, so not ideal for going out dancing, but it was okay. The tattoo I'm showing off is brand new, hence the showing off. It's the initial P, for my husband, that I redesigned from an old Victorian font.
The dress doesn't really look that good just hanging like that, but I like it a lot, and it was one of very many good buys from an excellent long weekend stay in Barcelona. I've always wanted to go back since, and one day I'll make sure I will. My guess is the dress is from the 70's or early 80's, and I've remade the sleeves a bit, cos the fabric on the back looked a bit weird and there was just too much of it, almost like a cape.
The music I wanted to pair this dress with is the new album by my very own brother,
Rasmus Kellerman, The 24th, released about a week ago. It's called his debut, cos it's his first album under his own name, but in reality I believe it's his 6th album. I guess you could say that I'm pretty biased, him being my brother and all, but you just have to trust me on this: it's a really really good album! I've been listening to it so much lately, and it reminds me of home. I think home is where you make it, but also an original place, where you come from. Not necessarily a house, or a town, or even a place, but a feeling of where you became you. Sure, changes will happen during the way to adulthood, you may move around, people come and go in your life and leave different things behind or show you the way to new places, but that abstract "home" will always stay the same and you always carry it with you. That's what this album is about. In my opinion. The amazing cover painting is made by
Andreas M. Wiese.
The second dress of today is here seen on me in spring of 2005, if memory doesn't fail me. Maybe it was fall, or even 2006? Either way, it's me with my former band, Dexter's Moon, at Landet, Stockholm, performing as one of four acts at the "Kellerman Night", a one night club only. How this happened was that me and my brothers have old friends that had this club, and one time we started talking about putting all of our groups together for one night, that it could be kinda fun. And it sure was. Apart from Dexter's, my older brother's band Statemachine performed, as well as Rasmus (as his project Araki I think) and his wife Andrea/Firefox AK. It's a pretty small venue, but it was packed with mostly friends, and when we weren't playing live we were also dj-ing, which is something I really love doing, and used to do quite regularly for a while. As a final treat at the end of the night we all did a cover together (me, my brothers and Andrea), The Luckiest Guy on the Lower East Side by The Magnetic Fields. It was a very good night indeed, and it would sure be fun to repeat sometime in the future, depending on whatever we're doing then. Oh, and in the background there's a horror movie looping, but in this exact moment something else entirely is going on as you can see ...
The dress is an adorable polyester one, full of flowers, from Stadsmissionen at Nytorget, Stockholm, many years ago. Probably from the 70's, it had long sleeves and was full length, but I changed it as you can see. I really like it still, and it's nice to wear with a top, so as it's almost like a skirt too.
Yesterday my good friend, and also music producer,
Juni Järvi, released a new single from his upcoming second album. You can listen to it
here. I think it's quite lovely and summery and happy and makes me want to dance althrough a Swedish bright summer's night! Can't wait for the album release in September, but I can reveal I've been fortunate enough to listen to some wonderful snippets when I've visited the studio to work on my own stuff. It promised big and bold and beautiful, and I want to see Juni and his band play live many times this summer and fall, so I hope there will be plenty of bookings for that too. Oh, and obviously the single cover is completely divine too! Very much my cup of tea, but I suspect the album cover might look even better, I won't tell you why though. You just wait and see. As will I, eagerly.
