Shore Leave

So it's been a busy weekend, apart from working in the shop on Saturday I was out in Hackney on Friday night and Whitechapel on Saturday night. Friday was 'Girls Can't DJ' hosted by Heather and Gemma AKA London Loves. They proved that girls can in fact DJ, as I recalled when leaving at the sensible time of 2.30am while my friends danced to Britney's 'Piece of Me'. Oh well, some of us have to work.

Saturday night was spent at The George Tavern, at Shore Leave. Hosted by Trixie Malicious and friends (incidentally she also appears in my last blog), it was a night of rum-swilling and ass-shaking: SHORE LEAVE is a night for love-sick sailor boys and girls, world weary sea-pilots, stowaways, jazz heads, immigrants and lovers. All under the roof of the George Tavern on Commercial Road, tales of the sea and strange foreign ports will be told, with Rockabilly, Jazz, fucked up Sea Shanty’s and chanson from far flung ports. Here is some photographic evidence:

The Black Pearl Luau

As I have just started this blog there are a few things I feel need to be written about even though they happened a while ago. For this reason I bring you some pictures from a Hawaiian party I had in the shop in February. I served rum punch (complete with cocktail umbrellas, cherries and straws), gave everyone leis, and there was a performance by the fabulous Trixie Malicious. Behold:




Oh and this is me - Hi!

Welcome to Black Pearl!

First off, meet the ladies of Black Pearl, look how beautifully they work those hats! The one on the left is a vintage mannequin acquired from someone's garage. I went through a bit of a papier-mache phase and painstakingly covered her in torn up bits of paper printed with an old letter (which I found at Spitalfields market - there is a whole story to it, maybe I'll post it sometime...). The lady on the right is covered in an entire reel of ribbon (again, another marathon task, I seem to do a lot of those). The fabulous hats are a mixture of Sakura designs and a couple I made myself (like the pink sparkly one - ha ha!). Just in shot are some bras and knickers from the new What Katie Did collection (anyone into retro 50s style will probably know what I'm talking about - if not go here). The shelf above holds some of my knick-knacks and ephemera (or make that tasteful and well thought-out objects of desire!) - including an old ship in a bottle and a plastic lobster holding a telephone.

New in Black Pearl this week are these darling retro sunglasses - Lolita heart shaped or 50s filmstar - take your pick! Oh and they're sitting on a table covered in old postcards, again during the papier-mache phase (oh the memories, maybe I'll take it up again, I could try something ambitious like a television, or someone's cat, or maybe not...)