The Travelling Yellow Skirt Freak Show

It's here, it's here! The Travelling Yellow Skirt Freak Show's in town! Well, not town exactly - but having been hatched by my idol Melanie of Bag and a Beret, it soared to Sarah of Misfits Vintage, winged its way to Helga von Trollop-licious from whom it flew-flew-flew to Edie Pop of Homesick Blues, and most recently alighted over by Tami of Thrift Shop Commando before touching down for a spell in the country at Butane Anvil.

I asked a feathered friend along - you met Starr Ethel Steele last summer at the bottom of my most popular post. I did have to wait a while so she could lay her egg first, and took way too many pictures while the sun cranked its volume.

vintage handmade snakeskin-print rain cape (on tree limb): Black Market Clothing (Toronto), early 80s, previewed here

t-shirt: Denver Hayes, Mark's Work Wearhouse
obi belt with leaf-pattern topstitching: Good Times Barcelona, etsy, worn here (Aww! Bring me Kahlua chocolates!)
our meanest (alpha) hen: Starr Ethel Steele, TSC ~ 2 yrs ago
Travelling Yellow Skirt: Joe Fresh with hand-customizations, via the Sisterhood, wee video here

Madame Royale fleur-de-lis necklace: Wendy Brandes
deer and Colossus of Rhodes necklace: vintage shop on Montréal's rue St-Denis, early 80s

It took time to figure out how I could best honour the Travelling Yellow Skirt, particularly because this blog is about outfits I actually wear as I go about real life. However, I have lately been working with symbols, and thinking on concepts of metaxy and the liminal. I decided I needed to reach back across my life for the earliest similarly iconic pieces that I have worn, and complete the ensemble with a smattering of more recent bits and pieces, some from the present, all integrative-like.

I acquired the vintage vinyl snakeskin cape when I was 14 or 15 and used it as a raincoat all through high school. Like my vintage fun fur maxi skirt, it's a handmade piece whose existence I take to be evidence of the world being at least in part a good place. Or at very least a humorous one. Though the cape is a facet of my Yellow Skirt outfit, this wasn't a rainy day, and knowing ahead how chickens feel about poufy tulle ballerina skirts and therefore being somewhat able to surmise their thoughts on tremendously billowy yellow skirts and flapping snakeskin capes, it mostly stayed perched in the plum tree.

I'm wearing my Wendy Brandes Madame Royale fleur-de-lis pendant for the first time. Fleur is one of my middle names - I translate into yellow flower. The larger necklace is another treasured artifact, and probably the most excellent piece of costume jewelry I have ever seen. It's reserved for special occasions because the silvery coating has been flaking off its fringe-y dingle-dangles for decades. I've tucked a picture below the jump of 15-year-old me wearing it (with stupendously enormous 80s hair).

I vividly remember spotting the necklace in the case and being unable to hand over my moolah fast enough, and how the shopkeeper went all abrupt. My friend said they'd probably expected me to haggle over price, which at that age would never have occurred to me, plus $18 seemed entirely reasonable for such a fabulously mythological objet. I still find it to be brimming with secrets and implications.

The boots, the boots, the legendary boots, what to say? As is clear by their wear, back in the day I tromped many, many satisfyingly jingly miles in them.

black satin half-slip: Linda, Sears ~ 7 years ago
perfect tights: Ralph Lauren, Winners ~10 years ago
(loved so much, went back for multiples)
pointy buckle boots: shop on Queen West I can't recall (Toronto), early 80s,
previewed here
plum blossom confetti: Mother Nature

silver water ring: some booth or other ~20 years ago, and
silver and onyx dragon ring: Courage My Love (Kensington Market, Toronto), mid 80s
worn together here
and check out that sweet button-closure on the cape

Overall a fair assemblage for transcending time, space, and dimension, yeah? A white bird, the light's gone liquid, and life is extraordinary in its audible crackling.

But for truly transcendent expertise, I defer to Melanie's extraordinary post today: How to wear a place of mind dingle-ball style. You must go! There are dingle-balls! Also, have you seen her interview with Roz at The Citizen Rosebud? And that's only Part One!

For anyone who's come back and / or is still here, what's on my mind and wants to fit here too is a follow-up to the tulle-and-teacup phenomenon, which was also inspired by Melanie: I did photos last September (surprise! I took way too many) and made some "virtual party" appearances but never formulated a stand-alone post. I've collected a few images after my 80s hair below the jump. Starr won't mind returning the favour and letting MJ-the-hen visit the fluffy bottom of her post - they are flock animals after all.

Stay tuned for the next landing of the Travelling Yellow Skirt, which is presently in migration to the Forest City Fashionista. In the meantime, join us for a fly-by over at Patti's Not Dead Yet Style for Visible Monday. A very special thank you to my Travelling Yellow Skirt Sisters!
Safe journeys, all.

spring 1986 genuine unprocessed '80s hair of righteous and spectacular amplitude: Dep gel Final Net hairspray (WendyB reminded me of the smell of Dep, which triggered reminiscences of the bubbly colours - and the spackly sound of it, ew!) black hairband: self-made from the leg of a pair of tights deer and Colossus of Rhodes necklace: vintage shop on Montréal's rue St-Denis, early 80s big black trench coat: thrifted at the Sally Ann, worn in other 80s pics here spiral-bound sketchbook: Studio/Derwent (with the line drawing of a pen nib on the cover), surgically attached black sweatshirt, long stretchy pencil skirt, tights and socks
pointy lace-up shoes: Le Chateau men's section
***
Tulle-and-teacup intro here. Re-contextualizing the ballet costume I was wearing at age 12 while a dance teacher body-shamed me onstage during a dress rehearsal. My hen Maryjane Frystack was a big help with making things right, RIP dear girl.