August 8, 2009

Pretty Link Roundup {August 8, 2009}


Happy Saturday greetings, my sweet dears! How are you each on this sizzling August weekend? Things are pretty much peachy-keen on this end. The fuse box woes I’d mentioned last weekend have been fixed, the weather hasn’t been too cruel this week, and I’m still bubbling with celebratory feelings from my husband’s birthday on Thursday.

While sweet hubby’s foot isn’t quite up to a night out, he treated himself to some take-away sushi on his birthday and last night I set the weekend off on the right foot with homemade thin crust pizza (zucchini, orange bell pepper, and sweet onion for me, prosciutto for the Mr.), which got me thinking about the fact that pizza, one of the absolute most widely available foods these days, was an absolute novelty (outside of Italy, that is!) to most people before the 1940s.

Reflecting about the fact that pizza soared to popularity so quickly has got me itching to ask both of my grandmothers how old they were when they first remember trying pizza, and when, in their respective opinions, it become a commonplace culinary staple.


{Click on the image to see a larger version and get the 1959 recipes for “baby pizza” and “American style pizza pie”. Vintage cookbook page from Eudaemonius’ Flickr stream.}


Just as pizza is a true modern day classic, so too are great blogs, and this week’s gathering of links is teaming with fantastic stories from some of the coolest vintage sites around. With posts spanning topics from lovely black and white photos of people relaxing at the beach to a handy tutorial for refilling a vintage powder compact, there’s plenty of yummy old school goodness for everyone to enjoy!


♥ ♥ ♥



* Vintage Life Magazine: The lovely MaryDeluxe brings breaking news for vintage fans everywhere in this recent Deluxeville post. Turns out that a new magazine devoted to the vintage lifestyle in on the cusp of releasing its first edition (scheduled for October ’09). “Vintage Life” as the publication is known, is a UK based glossy spanning the decades of the 1920s through to the 80s, that will be published six times a year. Subscriptions can already be placed and are available to people worldwide. Here’s wishing this fledgling magazine tons of success!


* Hosiery History – 1940s Fashion: A thoroughly pretty array of vintage ads (some colour, some black and white) for ladies hosiery fill this post from Glamour Daze.


* 40s hair accessories: This week Casey highlights an interesting topic that appeals to me a lot: what beyond flowers, were used as hair accessories during the 1940s. Full of beautiful images and inspiration, this post is a must read for anyone who loves to adorn their locks.


* Pretty Dress and Thoughts on Vintage and Retro Fashion: Blogger Angel shares a pretty dress she’s recently acquired and writes about some of her thoughts on what drives her love of wearing vintage styles (many of which I’m sure the majority of us echo as our own reasons).


* How to refill a vintage powder compact: If you yearn for the days when I lady was often heard to say “I just need to powder my nose”, than you may be a fan of old school powder compacts. Fortunately for vintage fans these charming containers can still be found from a myriad of sources (online sites, estate sales, vintage shops, etc). If you’d like to refill one that you’ve unearthed with fresh powder, follow the five easy steps in this post to ensure your powder compact functions as well today as the first day it was ever used. (*1:30AM, August 9th. Please note, by sheer coincidence I just happened to discover that a very similar post to this one that appeared in November of last year on Vixen Vintage, and thus I feel that Solanah deserves to be mentioned here as well.*)


* Tom Sawyer Champs: A series of absolutely adorable, well taken photos of some of The Snail and The Cyclops’ blogger’s favourite vintage toy finds. From an abacus to a precious brown teddy bear, there is certainly something to make everyone nostalgic for their own childhood playthings in this post.


* Let’s go to the beach: With temperatures breaking record highs in some parts of the world this past week (such as Washington State), it’s clear that autumn is still just a distant dream for most, which is all the more reason to head to the beach for some respite from the heat. If that’s not possible for you however (goodness knows I won’t be able to dig my toes into the sand this year), you can still imagine visiting the beach with the help of these wonderful vintage photos from Life magazine.


* 50s Italian Summer: This week The Cupcake Diary channels the crisp, clean looks of late 1950s Italian tourists and locals alike through images from movie The Talented Mr. Ripley.


* Golden Hollywood Glam | Jeremiah Goodman: Some of the absolute most gorgeous watercolour paintings of 1940s home interiors I’ve ever seen are posted in this beauty-filled entry from the terrific blog, Nest Party. I wish I could have prints of these glamorous rooms to put on my walls for endless daydreaming inspiration.


Vanity Fair’s “Ain’t we got style”: Karen highlights pages straight from the August issue of Vanity Fair in which modern day stars replicate looks from classic movies such as It Happened One Night and My Man Godfrey. These spreads have been expertly styled and shot, and really do a marvelous job of paying homage some of Hollywood’s most timeless films – and actors.


Unparalleled elegance flows through this week’s Youtube feature, a true gem of a compilation video with clips from various 1950s fashion shows, magazine photo shoots, and Hollywood movies. Not only are the women and the gorgeous looks they spot breath-taking, but the video’s poster has done a superb job of pairing background music with these images to create a soulful film-like atmosphere that further adds to the undeniable allure of 1950s ladies wear feaatured within.


{1950s and Women’s Fashions}





I always love putting together the weekly link list. It’s a way to share with you some of my favourite recent blog posts and also for me to draw inspiration a second time around the things that are catching the eyes of my fellow vintage lovers this week. I hope that the links above captivate you, too! Please feel free to share any articles or images that have filling your heart with bliss or your mind with inspiration lately with me, too.

Wishing you each a joyful, serene, beautiful weekend!

15 comments:

  1. Dear Jessica,
    Thanks so much for such a fantastic list - off now to check them all out!

    Hope you & Hubby are having a wonderful weekend,

    xxxLOL LOLA:)

    ReplyDelete
  2. I always love your link roundups! Can't wait to find out how to refill my vintage compacts!
    Thanks,
    MaryDeluxe

    ReplyDelete
  3. Great highlights this week. I find so many cool new blogs through your site. You do fabulous work dear.

    Best Wishes,
    Amanda

    ReplyDelete
  4. Mmm pizza sounds nice :)

    Always love your link lineup, get to see some new sites. Thanks honey.

    Take care,
    xxx

    ReplyDelete
  5. How to fill your compact. I never knew all it took was making your own paste of loose powder. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Great links, as usual!
    I like the bit about the pizza (pizza is my favourite food after all) - my maternal grandmother was Italian so I'm sure it was a food she grew up with! My paternal grandmother was Australian, though, so I suppose she wouldn't have had pizza until a lot later in life. =]
    -Andi x

    ReplyDelete
  7. Amazing list as usual and thank you for including my post in it too...I'm blushing :-)

    ReplyDelete
  8. @ Nora & Lola, the pleasure is all mine, my lovely dynamic blogging duo :) Thank you in turn for your continually marvelous, super sweet comments!

    @ MaryDeluxe, thank you very much, darling! It think doing so sounds super easy and I'm now eager to find the perfect vintage powder compact and refill it.

    @ Amanda, thank you deeply, honey. I'm truly touched to know that you enjoy and find inspiration from the links I post. It warms my heart to know that ♥

    @ Dustjacket Attic, thank you, sweet dear! Please feel free to swing by for pizza any time. Being married to a native son of Italy, I usually have the required ingredients for this scrumptious dish on hand any day of the week :)

    @ Sher, you're very welcome, hon! If you try this method out, I'd love to know how it works for you.

    @ Andi, thank you, sweetie! How awesome that you have Italian heritage, I'm a total Heinz 57 of European nationalities (French, Russian, Scottish, etc), but as far as I know, do not have an Italian in me. But I more than made up for that fact by marrying my darling Italian husband :D

    @ AlicePleasance, you're very welcome! Thank you for posting such a lovely blog entry, my dear.


    Thank you each very much for your terrific comments, lovely ladies. It is always a joy to hear from each of you!

    Have a beautiful Sunday, everyone!
    ♥ Jessica

    ReplyDelete
  9. The video made me laugh. The fashion is exquisite but the person who is talking reminds me of the caterpillar in Disney's Alice and Wonderland :)

    ReplyDelete
  10. i always look forward to your Pretty Link Roundup at the end of the week! great job with it, jessica!

    The pizza you made sounds absolutely delicious! Pizza is probably my favorite food in the sense that I can never get sick of it and could eat it every single day if i had to. Maybe I'm a little partial because my parents are italian, but nevertheless, i <3 pizza!

    enjoy your sunday hun! hope your hubby's foot is getting better!

    ReplyDelete
  11. Thanks for the link roundup, great job! I particularly enjoyed the "powder my nose" part, and I had fun with the pizza one, being Italian! You know, if pizza was pretty popular in south Italy, my granny, who lives there in the north of the country, never ate it until the 1960s...

    Can I add a recipe? The adorable Fleur from "Diary Of A Vintage Girl" talked about the "cold cream", so popular in the 1940s/50s, some weeks ago, and I just found a way to do it at home: just mixing
    60% oil (vegetable oil, peanut oil, almond oil, whatever),
    20% water, and
    20% beeswax (you can found it into a herbalist's shop, but I bought it at a local fruit and vegetables market, where farmers had honey and royal jelly, too).
    Heat until the oils melt, and mix everything together with a whisk. It turns out very soft and fresh!

    ReplyDelete
  12. @ Couture Allure, thank you very much, I'm glad you enjoyed the links!

    @ Madison, awesome assessment, I hadn't noticed the similarities in their voice before, but absolutely see it now. Great observation!

    @ MissRedLips, thank you very much, sweetie! I love putting it (roundup) together, and am so delighted to know that my readers adore it, too.

    Pizza is so fantastic, I don't think I could ever tire of it either, especially if it's homemade or crafted in the style of the pizzas one finds when in Italy.


    @ PaperDoll, thank you for your awesome addition! I'd mentioned the link to Fleur's article that you mentioned in an early roundup post, and really appreciate you adding your own cold cream recipe. It sounds seriously fantastic and appeals to me soooooo much because I have insanely sensitive skin and am always trying to make things at home so I can truly know what does (and, often more importantly, doesn't) go into my beauty products. Thank you very, very much for sharing your wonderful recipe!


    Many thanks to you each for your fantastic comments, I hope you all have a beautiful week ahead!!!

    ♥ Jessica

    ReplyDelete
  13. Thanks for putting my post in such great company! I have a lot of great reading to do!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Hi Karen, the pleasure is all mine! Your blog is fabulous, I hope any of my readers who haven't discovered it before will pop by and check out all the vintage wonderfulness on your beautiful pages.

    Wishing you a terrific Friday, sweetie!
    ♥ Jessica

    ReplyDelete