The last couple of weeks I’ve been in styling heaven. All my events have been centered around the 1920’s & 1930’s and I’ve had a blast with a Vintage Styling Pop Up Salon for the Miss Fisher Jazz Lawn Party, Some Swing Dancin Fun at the same Jazz Lawn Party, then a 1920’s Styling Workshop a few days ago. Our Collaboration with Old Government House and the Miss Fisher Costume Exhibition has been simply… “The Cats Pajamas!” The team there are so engaged, helpful and enthusiastic to make this exhibition series a success … and that it is!
It’s hard to say what was my favorite part but I must say, a definite highlight was our Styling workshop and getting up close and personal with 20 amazing ladies who came to play and learn with us. I also LOVED working with my long time friend Miss Sammy (Our leading Charm School Mistress of Style who has been away from us for the past year!).. I also loved having Miss Tahlia Shontelle on the lens capturing moments and stepping in to be our model when we needed it. Tahlia is such a trooper and will be a killer stylist by the time I’m finished with her!
Especially awesome at both events was the collaboration with Wendy Louise Designs! Wendy has such an amazing eye and her millinery, jewelry headwear and all things flapper are just divine. She covers all eras too! You will see some of her work in the below pictures.
Lets face it.. the 1920’s to the 1960’s Fashion and Style, Lifestyle, Quirk and everything in between is SOOOO “On Trend” again.. well.. to me.. it always is… Hence The Lindy Charm School for girls is still going after 15 years! THANK YOU to all who keep supporting us! I think what we do is “The Bees Knees!”
Tell your friends to subscribe to our newsletter and they too will know when our next workshops and Pin Up Photoshoots and Pop Up Salons will be happening.
From now until the end of the year, we will be in Newcastle, Maryborough, Brisbane, Gold Coast, Sydney and Melbourne.. Maybe Canberra and Adelaide too if we can fit in.
Here’s some pictures of the days taken by Tahlia Shontelle, Troy Galvin and Anthony Weate:
Get down with some Jazz speak of your own for your next Speak Easy Event: Taken from The Atlantic Website:
On small tables like those at which “zozzled” (drunk) flappers and “jelly beans” (their boyfriends) once illegally imbibed “foot juice” (cheap wine) or “jag juice” (hard liquor), you can read explanations of speakeasy slang.
Speakeasy slang! Language was truly so much more evocative then, wasn’t it? If you don’t request extra foot juice tonight at that dive bar where you order the subpar pinot grigio, you are doing something wrong. In honor of this exhibition, I’ve scoured the Internet for a list of twenties-era words and phrases that we need to add to our contemporary conversations. Did you know that in the ’20s, bimbowas used to mean “a tough guy“; butt me was “to take a cigarette”; and handcuffand manacle meant engagement and wedding ring? A person who was divorced was out on parole, a gimlet was “a chronic bore,” and the exclamation “Nerts!” meant “I am amazed.” Herewith, a dictionary of awesome twenties slang.
The Duke is a classy guy, his heart is “18 karat.”
Bee’s knees. No dictionary of twenties slang would be complete without this one, which means, in simple terms, the best. (Synonym: That’s the berries.) In related bee-talk, say something is “none of your beeswax” when someone who is not the bee’s knees is butting into your beeswax. Where did “bee’s knees” come from? From World Wide Words, “It’s sometimes explained as being from an Italian-American way of saying business or that it’s properly Bs and Es, an abbreviation forbe-alls and end-alls. Both are without doubt wrong. Bee’s knees is actually one of a set of nonsense catchphrases from 1920s America, the period of the flappers, speakeasies, feather boas and the Charleston.” (Other such phrases: “elephant’s adenoids, cat’s miaow, ant’s pants, tiger’s spots, bullfrog’s beard, elephant’s instep,caterpillar’s kimono, turtle’s neck, duck’s quack, duck’s nuts, monkey’s eyebrows, gnat’s elbows, oyster’s earrings, snake’s hips, kipper’s knickers, elephant’s manicure, clam’s garter, eel’s ankle, leopard’s stripes, tadpole’s teddies, sardine’s whiskers, canary’s tusks, pig’s wings, cuckoo’s chin, and butterfly’s book.”)
Clam. A dollar. “Can you spot me a few clams?” Other slang for money: cabbage, kale.
Dewdropper. A young, unemployed guy who sleeps all day. Alternate synonym: A lollygagger.
Egg. Man. “He’s a funny egg.”
Fire extinguisher. A chaperone (aka, a killjoy, an alarm clock).
Gams. Is there a better way to say legs, even if one is being objectifying? Pins?Stilts? Or maybe getaway sticks. “Cheese it; it’s the fuzz! Move your getaway sticks or you’ll end up in the cooler.”
Hotsy-totsy. Perfect; the cat’s pajamas.
“I have to go see a man about a dog.” To go buy whiskey.
Jake. Okey dokey. “Everything is Jake.”
Know one’s onions. To know one’s beeswax; to know what someone’s talking about.
Let’s blouse. We’re out of here.
Mrs. Grundy. A prudish type. Maybe also a fire extinguisher. Definitely a wurp.
Noodle juice. Tea. (But noodle on its own means head.)
Ossified. Drunk, probably from having been on a toot, or a drinking binge. Also:splifficated, fried, blotto.
Phonus balonus. Nonsense. (Related: baloney = piffle).
Quilt. A drink that warms its drinker.
Rhatz! “How disappointing!”
Soup job. To crack a safe using nitroglycerine. (Safecrackers were yeggs.)
Tell it to Sweeney. Go say that to someone who’ll believe your phonus balonus.
Voot. Money, lettuce.
Wet blanket. Someone who is no fun, no fun at all. Someone who does not likewhoopee (to have a good time).
You slay me. You’re hilarious.
Zozzled. Drunk.
Til then,
Let’s Blouse!
Miss Chrissy xxx
