Monday's school outfit

Voilà! Here's the 50s skirt I bought in Rouen!

It's home-sewn, out of felt - or something similar. Then a whole - or part of a whole - song has been embroidered on it! I still haven't had time to play the song, to hear what it sounds like, but I can imagine it's a French folk song, or something like that. Maybe a song that meant something special for the person who long ago spent a lot of time embroidering it on the skirt...

Felt it needed some extra fluff, which was easily done with a crinoline from "Bettie Page Clothing".

To this I decided to wear my Thomas Sabo charm bracelet. The three charms I have, so far, have all been gifts from my family.

This "sheet music-skirt" really fits my latest project at the PR-class. Together with four other girls, we have been given the task to do PR for a new Swedish singer, named Simon Hassle. The other groups got to work with products and pension saving companies, so my group definitely got the funnest "thing" to work with! Some of you - at least if you're living in Sweden - might have heard of Simon's cousin - Erik Hassle - who's also a singer. Simon himself has so far released two singles, and is about to release his third one, so we'll see how much we five girls will be able to do for his career in the three weeks that remain of this PR-course...

We were all glad to hear that the boy can really sing! - Compared to some other so called "singers" in the industry. The music he makes falls under the "pop" category, and if he - and we - really work at it, I think he could get a prosperous career!

Here is the video to his first single "Now Is Here". And of course you can "like" him on Facebook!

Rouen part 2

Yesterday I wrote about mine and Fanny's vintage mission in Rouen. Today will be about what else we did in this little French town.

Rouen actually looks more Bavarian than French, with many old, crooked buildings, and streets laid with square stones. I really liked it!

Here is Fanny on "Rue d'horloge" (The Clock Street), named after the big clock in the photo. 

The thing Rouen probably is most known for, is it's huge cathedral - a very impressive building in the gothic style!

Fanny confessing her sins. I didn't though...

We found many cool little shops, selling all kinds of things! In one of them I found the old eye test board in the picture above. Didn't buy it though.

I did buy the brown little tilt hat I'm wearing in this photo though! It has feathers on top, and a bow in the back.

Chocolat shoes! In the background you can see chocolate iPhones...

The food was great! Except for what Fanny ordered on our first night there:

We both knew it had something to do with veal, but after texting Fanny's French-speaking dad, asking what the dish's whole name meant, we found out it was calf kidneys...Before knowing that she had fed me a piece of it, just to see if I recognized the taste...

The "moules marinières" (marinated mussels) we had for lunch another day were so much better! When the waitress came in with the first one of those casseroles, I thought me and Fanny were going to share it. But we got one each! I managed to eat maybe half of it...

All the different wines - and Champagne - we drank, was excellent though!

One day we took a walk in the Jardin des Plantes. There we found this old greenhouse. Fanny went very well with the surroundings. Can you find her in the picture?...

After that we went to La Musée des Beaux Arts. We were surprised at how close you could get to all the art. There were no lines to stand behind anywhere! Here's a few things we feasted our eyes upon there:

The last painting is depicting Moses receiving the holy commandments. My only question is: "Why does he have horns?". It could be part of the divine light over him, touching his head. But it looks a lot look horns to me...   

The last day we went up at 5 am to make sure we had enough time to go to the airport. It should have taken about one and a half hours to get there. Because we got lost it took three hours! And then I ended up driving as fast as 120km/h (74 miles/h) on a country road...When we had returned the car I noticed my purse was missing. After going back to search the car, I then found it in the trashcan in which I had thrown our breakfast bag earlier...What can I say about that? - We were extremely stressed out after our three hours long getting lost and racing through France experience. When we checked our luggage in, we had fifteen minutes until we had to board the plane...

Many things - except from the story above - went wrong during this trip. But I'm glad we manage to sort everything out, and get back to Sweden with the right plane - bringing about 150 vintage dresses for Fanny's shop Kellerman Vintage with us! Mission completed! And for all you people who can't visit her shop in Stockholm - I have some good news for you: Kellerman Vintage will turn into a web shop some time after Christmas, so you can shop there instead!

Fancy Fanny!

You can read more about this trip on Fanny's blog. With more pictures, and the story from her point of view - the passenger seat in the car...

So. What did I learn from this trip?:

• Always drive as fast as you can! You never know when you might get lost, and need a few extra hours to get to the airport.
• Never order "rognons de veau", unless you want to get a plate of meatball sized kidneys for dinner.
• If you find an empty safety island it's completely ok to park there...It's actually completely ok to park anywhere where someone hasn't already parked.
• I understand French quite well when I read it. But to understand this language when someone speaks it is more difficult - because the French speak as fast as they drive. After four days in Rouen I still can't speak like the French, but I sure can drive like them!
• Don't throw your purse in a trashcan. Especially if that purse contains your passport, plane ticket, and iPhone. This just causes a bit too much extra stress...

Rouen part 1

So. Here comes the truth about this secret vintage mission to Rouen: Fanny owns the vintage shop "Kellerman Vintage", and had been contacted by a vintage retailer in this little French town. They sell clothes by the kilo, and you have to by at least 25 kilos to be able to shop there. With this in mind Fanny needed someone to go with her to help her carry everything back. She doesn't have a drivers license either, and needed someone who could drive from the airport to Rouen - around 150 kilometers - to the retailer, and just generally. Here is where I come into the picture. The only problem was this:

AAAAAAAAH!!!!! I haven't used one of these manual thingies since the day I took my drivers license - over nine years ago...An automatic car cost three times as much as a manual to rent though, so a manual it became! I got to practice in my ant's car for about 20 minutes before the trip. But that was it! It went better than I thought though! And after all the things that happened to us during the trip, I now feel like a very secure race car driver! But more about that later...

The day after we arrived we went to the retailer to buy a lot of vintage dresses! 

When we arrived, we were shown into a huge warehouse, where clothes were collected in piles or in big plastic bags. In this picture you can see vintage fur garments. This is where I found the lovely, short fur cape I wore in yesterday's "Monday's school outfit" post. That one I bought for myself - which I was really glad of later, since the weather in Rouen was a bit colder than the forecast said it would be!

Here is Fanny dealing with the retailer. We were both glad we new how to speak french - more or less (Fanny a lot better than me) - because this guy didn't speak a word of english - like most other people in that town...

Another picture of the place. After some time there we went away with around 150 vintage dresses that will be sold at Kellerman Vintage in Stockholm!

Here you can see Fanny at our hotel, with the clothing bags she bought - happy as a child at Christmas! And for all you non-Swedes - the shop Kellerman Vintage will soon turn into a web shop, so people from all around the world can have the pleasure of shopping there! When we went through all the dresses, and repacked them in our luggage, I made a little pile of dresses I wanted to try on myself. The only one of my favorites that fit my skinny body was a lovely, dark blue dress from the 40s. I bought it from Fanny right there and then!

One day when we were wandering around in Rouen, a French boy stopped us and started talking to us because he liked our style - we were probably the only two vintage dressed people in that whole town! He showed us to the only good vintage shop in Rouen!

They had some really good stuff in that shop! I ended up buying a 50s skirt there, which I'll show you later...

Of course we didn't just by vintage clothes in Rouen - we did some touristing too! But that we will talk about tomorrow!

Here comes a little bonus pic though. This is Fanny and her senile chiwawa Ricco. He is seriously the sweetest dog I have ever met!