Battle of Berlin ´45

 

Today, we visited a reenactment event in the Treptower Park. It was called "Battle of Berlin 45´" and was a kind of a live exhibition for the 7. Biennale in Berlin.

The Russian Red Army and the Polish liberation army defeated the Wehrmacht. I must say that the sound of the guns was very threatening. Honey took a picture of me and a very young actor.

dress: swen by hand in Berlin in the 40s

sling wedges: fleamarket finding

sunglasses (pic above): 40s vintage

cherrybrooch: 50s vintage

Have you ever been to a reenactment event?

colourful treasures

I'm collecting German vintage movie star cigarette cards from the 30s and 40s. I especially like the embossed ones. The have a 3D look-and-feel and have really a high quality.

The biggest treasure in my collection is an exercise book from a little girl full of glued in collectors cards, found on the fleamarket years ago. Not a propper album, just hand made and labeled in Sütterlin (an outdated German writing-style used from 1915 till 1941).

  Left: a backside of a cigarette card - Right: the exercise book cover

I cutted out all the little cards and framed the best ones. I created a pale pink background and a special passepartout for them. The big golden antique frame hangs in my floor and inspires me daily.

 My icon Marlene Dietrich is in the center, of course!

Some unframed ones, 

can you find out which crabby looking one Greta Garbo is? 

Usually the pictures come in albums like this:

Hans Albers, what a handsome man

and Marlene again, too bad that one is missing

What kind of treasures do you collect?

Bag change

When the first warm sunlight comes to Berlin I always change my workdays bag from black leather into a summerly strawbag. This year I bought one from etsy and I love it. It's a mexican souvenir bag from the 50s and the colours are still so bright.

I can combine it with some of my bangles, a colour matching mix out of vintage and new: bakelite, bamboo, lucite and celluloid...

poodles

Yesterday I visited my friend Gaby to fix her hair for a 40s party. 

This was my after work outfit:

Shirt: H&M (as seen in my favorite blog)

jeans: Lady K Loves (highly recommended!)

beloved pumps: Miss L Fire

Gaby's house is full of cute little nicknack and curios. 

This 50s poodle fitted perfect to my poodle-updo this day.

And this is what I did to her hair: pin curls on the crown and one large roll in the neck. She had not setted her hair before so I worked with little padding and pinning only.

 

It will look perfect to her 40s dotted playsuit, don´t you think?

Diana Vreeland again

I promised here to post some scans from the great catalogue from the Diana Vreeland exhibition in Venize with her fantastic work as editor-in-chief for Haper´s Baazar and Vogue trough four decades. I choosed some celebrity-stuff she did.

So here we go, hope you enjoy:

 

 

what a strange ad

Katherine Hepburn

have to copy that make up for OPALICON

Sophia Loren

Liz Taylor

and the great Diana herself in the 40s with one of her famous horse models.

shoomy

Sunday I visited my longtime friend shoomy. He is not only a great friend, he is also a very talented photographer. Two years ago we did the "Little Red Riding Hood" shooting together.

 

Yesterday he just did a few fast snapshots: no photoshop, no fancy background, no professional make up - just me doing stupid poses in my sunday-outfit.

Petticoat: 50s vintage

top: second hand years ago

patent leather belt: 50s vintage

skirt: 50s vintage - the flowers are handpainted and even signed, 

the colours are still sooo bright - but I can never wash that piece of art)

fishnet tights: Falke

snakeskin pumps: 40s vintage

hair flower: etsy

lipstick: MÄC ruby woo

OLE!

The Ufa divas

Old Movies are my world, that’s a fact. And over the years I dived deeper and deeper in it. So I’m always searching the fleamarkets, antique stores and ebay off course for special literature about it. One of the great findings is this:

Just the cover was worth the money for me…

 

When you think about the glamour in the golden years of the German movie production UFA you should also include the reality of the Nazi-regime, which was a brown and cruel era. It started in the early 30s and came to an end with the ending of the WW II in 1945.

The most important and inflentual gents in the movie business were surely Joseph Goebbels, the secretary of propaganda and the “Führer” and Reichskanzler Adolf Hitler himself. Both were crazy about the movies. Hitler had his private cinema, a private film archive and watched up to three movies a day. He loved the simple ones about the homecountry and mothership and – weired enough - funny american stuff like Mickey Mouse.

 

UFA-Palace in Berlin decorated for the Führer's birthday

The agitator Joseph Goebbels was a small and ugly man with a limping. But he had the power to decide which actress could play in which movie. Needless to say what other inhuman things he could decide and what he did - especially to Jewish artists. Please remember: My idol of that time is Marlene Dietrich, who decided not to be part of that play. 

Goebbels was after all of starlets and stars, especially after the “not arian”-ones like the dark-haired Lida Baarova. His clandestine nickname was “the buck of Babelsberg”. Babelsberg is the place near Berlin where the UFA Studios were.

Lida Baarova - the favorite concubine of Goebbles 

Lil Dragover - Hitlers favorite actress

The women in most UFA-movies were smart characters who were at the same time devoted to their husbands and children. Type-casting was a big thing. The gents where mostly good and dolish. The women played always a leading role.

A big star was the Russian-born actress Olga Tschechowa who was starring in a lot of movies and was close to Hitler until the end.

One of my favorite movies is “The Big Love” with the swedish redhead Zara Leander, 
THE  “Third Reich”-superstar. 

  

 

 

I think that she was more a singer than an actress, I love her incredible deep voice. She had a lot of hits, these songs are still legendary for many Germans. The movie played while the World War in 1942 and is full of simple contemporary propaganda, a dramatic lovestory with great songs. Because Zara Leander was tall and corpulent, the chorus ladies next to her were soldiers in women’s clothings, so she looked more feminin.  

Those movies were called „Durchhaltefilme“, which means “movies to stay the course”. And after the war had ended, the Germans seemed to need this kind of escapistic movies badly, so a lot of them had a comeback. “The Big Love” was first banned by the allies, but after some time admitted again. 

I want to end with something more cheery. I love the movie “We make Music” with Ilse Werner. It’s a spectacle picture and the best 40s UFA musical comedy for me. The stagedesign and the costumes where state of the art in 1942. Enjoy:

Bunny ring travelling

As a girl born in Saxony I´m proud of the capital city Dresden. Honey had never been there, so we decided to pay a little visit during the Easter holidays. I booked the hotel, grabbed my bunny ring and we hopped into the car.

  

We had such a freezy weather, so we spent most of the time visiting museums and exhibitions.

 At the "Albertinum":

40s style halo hat: ebay.uk

skirt: H&M

bag: Gucci

Giant: "Berserker 1" by Stella Hamberg

Seeing the original paintings of Caspar David Friedrich and Otto Dix was very impressive.

Afterwards we had a guided tour through the incredible opera house Semperoper. What an opulence! Just one little detail from the ceiling:

Aphrodite

But Easter is also about a lot of good food, wouldn't you think? We enjoyed our great German specialities at the antique restaurant "Dresden 1900".

50s Clipons: ebay.uk 

Wiggle dress: ebay.uk

Lipstick: Guerlain - excess de rouge

As a supprise, there was a special decoration at the gents' restroom:

We got a little pink Easter cake and enjoyed it while relaxing on the hotel bed.

But Dresden is not only a town full of beautiful renaissance buildings and baroque treasures, it also has an upcoming nightlife. We had a drink in a Heavy Metal bar and I loved the "Heavy Metal Last Supper"-painting on the wall, starring Lemmy Kilmister as Jesus - he is the God of Rock´n´Roll for me, too.

Looking for some more entertainment in the Neustadt, we stranded in the little Blue Note Bar. What a great place! We were listening to brilliant live jazz music, had some more drinks and talked to the sweet little barkeeper Anna for hours. 

After the sun had shown up the next day, I celebrated with my last bunny cake for this year and we said  "Goodbye Dresden, you treated us very well!"

PS: If you have to walk a lot, need comfty shoes and still wanna look like a queen, wear this:

Pumps: Miss L Fire

Tights: Falke  (they perfectly fit my 50s Clipons)