tenderoni you've got to be, spark my nature, sugar fly with me

"This is the new British girl. Observe her. She is a novel phenomenon." 

So begins the introduction by Anthony Haden-Guest - a glorious outpouring of praise and adoration for these girls that epitomized a particular time, place, and moment in history. Haden-Guest explains that who this girl is: "She is Loyal, also Fickle, Obstinate, Gentle, Suspicious and Trusting. Also Sharp and Feckless, Realistic and Fantastic beyond belief. Just as in the horoscopes, which she never fails to read, make your character diagnosis, and it will seem to fit. Until you diagnose the opposite, and that fits too." 

"There are no rules, only exceptions. Except that the British girl is suddenly the most attractive, the most desirable, the most startling girl in the world. This is a rule, and an exceptional one.

She is a new animal, a shock genetic mutation, and she has appeared everywhere, like a new model of car, or an epidemic, or the flowers in the Spring."

"But there is, of course, a reason for everything. A new animal must be observed in its environment, and especially in this case when the British girl has exploded into a radically altered environment, which she has created, or which created her, or whatever, and which has become known as the London Scene. The Scene ... an exhausted phrase now, an adman's phrase like Image. The Image of London, the London Scene, both phrases over-used, almost to death, but always resurrected, because they are irreplaceable. There is a new way of life, and these girls are part of it.

The new girl belongs to this moment in time, and only this one." 

Pattie Boyd

"Pattie Boyd always looks on the brink of being startled by something utterly fantastic. The eyes and mouth are assuming delicate saucer shapes. The blood is about to rush from a milky and tremulous face. She has already been startled, by a precipitous success as a model, and she startled everybody else by marrying a Beatle, George Harrison, the lean one who is trying to master the Indian sitar. What more utterly fantastic things can life hold?"

Charlotte Rampling

"Apparently without trying much, she is maintaining an impressive rising graph, from toting a guitar around Spain, through modelling, to acting. There was a flash of a scene in The Knack and quite a slice of Georgy Girl - two crucial movies of the new London - and now onwards. In Georgy Girl she portrayed a Swinger, 'a really vile and hard sort of woman' in her own words. But everybody calls her Charly." 

Sue Murray

"Sue Murray is a model, and one of the bright lights of the post-Shrimpton wave. She is one of the moxt successful in Britain, or, for that matter, the United States, where she works constantly. Why? John d Green says that she doesn't have to work at it - she just stands there. She is the perfectly natural girl." 

Title: from "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)" (Michael Jackson)

the british (birds) are coming!

This photo is a testament to my supreme nerdiness; and to assure that this moment - as captured on my computer - will not be used against me as blackmail in future I am sharing it with the entirety of the interwebs. Also, because I am a bragging lil bitch. 

Today I experienced my version of Christmas morning - I received a copy of the much sought-after, hard-to-find coffee table book / dolly girl bible Birds of Britain in the mail today. As you could guess, I am beyond excited about it. The copy I purchased in excellent condition that it doesn't look like it's been around for almost forty-five years - the pages are unwrinkled and the binding is in great condition (this is the nerdy vintage archiver in me coming out now). The photographs are so excellent that they surpass all of my expectations and anticipations. I have seen many of the photos on various websites and blogs discussing the book by John D. Green (or as credited in the book 'John d Green' ... yeah, the sixties were too cool for proper grammar), but the images are such high quality works of art that my retinas are exhausted just looking over the book from cover to cover. 

What I love a lot is the text here - it's amazing on so on-the-nose about all of these girls and the scene they were a part of. The inner flap of the book starts, "Miniskirts and the Rolling Stones, the Beatles and now the Birds. That means girls - feathery and soft, swinging and defiantly independent. London has cracked out of its sober chrysalis into an ultravisual supersonic capital-of-all-the-arts, whose theatre annually swamps Broadway, whose fashions ripple down the Main Streets of the world, and whose girls are its most visible assets." And those are just the first three sentences! I wish I could write that gorgeously all the time - seriously, the mind reels. How can so much excellence and beauty be in one book?! Yeah, I'm not exaggerating in the slightest.  

Tomorrow and the next few days, I will start covering various aspects of the book - including photographs and text regarding this "incandescent maelstrom" of British birds. 

look at me, who am i supposed to be? who am i supposed to be?

I return to the blogosphere well-rested and well-shopped after a spontaneous road trip to visit some of America's greatest vintage shops I've always wanted to go to. The excursion freshest in my mind is New Orleans, as it was the last place we visited.

First we went to Lili Vintage Boutique, an adorable store full of pastel prom dresses, silk nightgowns, and feather pillbox hats. I scored a great Armani poet's blouse with puffy sleeves and a high collar for $43, as well as a paisley mu-mu style dress that was probably stolen from Mrs. Roper's closet.

Next we ventured over to Retroactive, probably one of the most overwhelming store I've ever visited. Every inch of the store is covered with clothes, sculptures, and gadgets that you never knew you always wanted. If you ever desired a rhinestone and marabou feather headdress and four watchman devices, but you never knew where to look, I invite you to visit this store. I bought an autographed Debbie Harry-Pat Benatar poster that mashes up their faces, and a gold leopard print sweater.

The morning after I shopped 'till I dropped, we went to Brennan's, a very well-known restaurant famed for its delicious breakfast desserts. While visiting the washroom, I made friends with the attendant, a kind 82-year-old woman who told the restaurant patrons how to ward off negative spirits. As I spoke to her, she turned to another woman in the restroom lounge, and said, "She looks just like Hayley Mills, don't she?"

I've never been likened to this former Disney princess before, but I was intrigued. I've been told I looked like everyone from Jessica Simpson, Katherine Heigl, Linda McCartney, Quinn from Glee, Christie Brinkley ... basically any gal with blonde hair and a toothy smile. The Brennan's lady got me thinking about Ms. Mills and her four-decade career. From her start as Walt Disney's go-to girl during the early 1960's to her iconic portrayal of Miss Bliss (forever changing Saturday morning television), Hayley Mills was one of the first child actors to successfully transform herself into a legitimate grown-up actress. Her inclusion in John E. Green's legendary book Birds of Britain solidified Hayley's role in the Dolly Rocker Girl universe.

Image sources for Lili and Retroactive