Our Lips Aren’t Sealed

10 Things You Probably Didn't Know About Lipstick

By: Alex Chronopoulos, Stephanie Chunoo, and Tabitha Poeze

A lot has happened in the 5000 years since the dawn of lip paint. Wars, corruption, harem pants—the list goes on, and somehow, lipstick has survived. But everyone seems to have an opinion on it—Sarah Palin calls it the distinguishing factor between hockey moms and pitbulls. Holly Golightly can’t read the paper without it. Yes, we have very intimate relationships with our rouges, and below, you’ll find our list of 10 facts that’ll blow your mind about this colourful cosmetic.

1 // Don’t Forget Your Lipstick, Mummy!
Cleopatra used henna and carmine to paint her lips, and in her time, women were encouraged to be buried with two pots of lip paint so they would look good on the other side.

2 // Red-Lip District
The Moulin Rouge may have been hoppin’ in the 19th century, but alcohol-, prostitute-, and lipstick-induced good times date back to the Ancient Greeks (and perhaps even earlier). For the Greeks, though, the cosmetic was popular amongst women of the night, coming to signify poor social standing and low morals.

3 // Lipstick for the Lawless
At one point, wearing lipstick was actually illegal. During the French Revolution, lopping the head off a king may have been acceptable, but lipstick was completely banned. Wearing it was considered to be sympathetic to the monarch, and anyone caught with it was condemned to the guillotine. To borrow a line: off with their heads!

4 // Hot off the Production Line
Women (and a fair amount of men) added the cosmetic to their daily beauty routines in 1880, when French company Guerlain produced the first commercially successful lipstick. It was composed of a mouth-watering mixture of grapefruit pomade and wax.

5 // Portable Beauty
Women’s handbags welcomed a new addition in 1915, when Maurice Levy designed the first sliding metal tube. Thanks to this innovation, applying lipstick in public became socially acceptable. Instead of lugging pots of lip paint around, women could bring the convenient little tube with them wherever they went.

6 // Ain’t no Stalin our Lipstick Production
Lipstick experienced a resurgence of popularity after World War I, when women wanted to maintain their femininity while taking on new roles in the workforce. Fast forward to the next World War, and lipstick is prioritized by good ol’ Churchill when he rations all makeup—except for the precious tubular commodity. He felt it boosted morale on the homefront.

7 // Lipstick Fit for a Queen
Lipstick became a coveted Crown gem in 1952, when Elizabeth II commissioned her own shade to match her coronation robes. The royal rouge was named Balmoral after her Scottish country home.

8 // Lady in Red
On her film sets, Elizabeth Taylor required that she be the only person wearing red lipstick. Everyone else would have to wear a different shade or none at all.

9 // A Moment on the Lips, Forever on the Hips
A whopping 92 per cent of women wear lipstick regularly and buy an average of four tubes a year. But this magical substance doesn’t just stay on your lips; the average woman consumes four to nine pounds of lipstick in her lifetime, making the inside just as pretty as the outside. Not.

10 // Read my Lips
According to Dior makeup artist Eliane Gouriou, different lipstick colours convey different messages. Beige means “I don’t want to be noticed for this aspect of my personality.” Red evokes the feeling that “I have sensual and luscious lips, which I accept and which I offer.” Dark brown or violet means “I provoke, I impose, but my mouth is not to be touched.” Our thoughts? Let your lips, not your lipstick, do the talking.

photography // Stephanie Chunoo & Tabitha Poeze

further reading // Lipstick: A Celebration of the World’s Favourite Cosmetic. Jessica Pallington, 1998

More is More

10 things about the Great Canadian Burlesque

By: Whitney Wager

Surrounded by suitcases bursting with incandescent crystal-laden braziers and fluttering ostrich-feather fans, trays of pasties, and women decked out in the best of pin-up vogue, it was like I had stepped into a different era. A warm era, with soft curls and hard eyeliner. I spoke with a handful of next-to-naked women of the Great Canadian Burlesque (GCB) troupe, getting ready to trade their bodies for applause and whistles that night at the Mod Club. I was dazzled by the flashy costumes, so delicate and intricate up close; and by the dancers themselves, who were stunning, with confidence and charisma any stage performer would aspire to have. I settled in to watch my first burlesque show, unsure of what was to come. By the end, I was cheering louder than anyone, completely caught up in the electrifying atmosphere and the sex that filled the air. However, I did manage to learn a thing (or 10) during my time with the talented ladies (and men) of the GCB.

1 // More is more
When it comes to burlesque costumes, you can never have too much of anything. Performers adhere to the three S’s like religion: sequins, shine, and shimmer. “The flashier the better,” says Fionna Flauntit, GCB performer, founder, and producer. Costumes are over the top, both in theme and application. There’s more Swarovski crystals at a burlesque show than a Michael Jackson impersonator convention (Miss Mitzy Cream’s Glamophone outfit has over 43,000 of them, trimmed with plenty of 18-ply ostrich feathers). “In any other application it would be cheesy as hell, but in the burlesque world, it’s perfect,” laughs Flauntit. But performers exaggerate the theme of their characters, too. Ms. Chaos Divine’s black widow costume, whose black nail polish was drying as we spoke, incorporates a spider web-cut leather corset and garter belt, a spider’s nest fascinator, complete with floralytes, a bouquet of roses I’m assuming for the funeral of her not-so-dearly departed (and digested) husband and a spider perched on top. Oh and spider-web pasties just for good measure.

2 // Face time
Makeup is an important part of every performer’s ensemble. It can contribute thematically to the character, like in Cherry Typhoon’s geisha routine, or simply enhance the drama of a performer’s look, like the seductive Sassy Ray. Performers sometimes paint themselves from head to… well, you can imagine… in which case makeup is one of the most prominent features of an act.

It gets heated onstage under the spotlights, so makeup needs to cover sheen, while amplifying facial features with fake eyelashes and gauche blush so even the audience at the back can see. Veteran Miss Mitzy does her own makeup meticulously in a little bathroom above the stage before the show (pantless, I might add), smudging foundation and powder onto her cheeks and forehead, and carefully applying dramatic eye makeup. Some performers like Miss Mitzy use their own products from home, while others have their makeup done professionally. Coco Framboise had her Cleopatra-inspired visage crafted by Stacey Laureyssens, a Toronto-based stage makeup artist and owner of theOriginalFace. The decision to use a makeup artist or DIY can depend on the complexity of the performer’s character, and how big a part the makeup plays during the performance. Hint: Flauntit’s Mystique costume is pretty heavy on the makeup.

3 // Size/age is just a number
Perhaps in response to the rail-thin young white models that grace most of our runways and fashion spreads today, burlesque has joined the ranks of counter-culture, frequently offering up a diverse array of performers that vary in size, ethnicity, and age. From size 2′s to 24′s, GCB succeeds in showcasing women from all walks of life that defy conventional beauty: black, white, Asian and Latin women, PYTs to impressive legends Tiffany Carter (Miss Nude Universe 1975) and Tempest Storm (one of the most iconic women in the industry). I think Forrest Gump once said that burlesque is like a box of chocolates. And he was right.

4 // A pastie party

Pasties are pieces of material that performers use to cover their nipples. The tradition of wearing pasties is about as old as burlesque itself; troupes in the 1920s used them as a way to get around moral laws of the time (no nip, no foul, right?). They come in countless forms—like the traditional conical shape, hearts, stars, X’s, alpha letters, or just plain glitter—and can encompass various features, from dangling tassels that spin rhythmically with any slight upper body movement, to the flaming ones that Tanya Cheex courageously dons. Dancers can buy them online, or locally from women like Cheex or Patte Rosebank, who make them by hand and sell them on platters at events. They are attached securely to the breast using double-sided adhesive tape, or wig-tape, which occasionally can be painful to remove. But it’s better than having them fly off during a particularly intense twirl.

5 // To prop or not to prop
A giant gramophone complete with rotating platform. A feathered crown composed of removable fans. A classic stripper pole. Depending on the performer, acts can incorporate varying degrees of accessories. Some performances keep it simple, involving only a chair or an umbrella filled with rose petals, a choice that puts more focus on the dancer’s choreography. Others lean toward the more sublime of sets, like Divine’s subterranean lair, a world rife with jars full of creepy crawlies, baroque furniture, and gloomy drapery. Coco Framoise included some “sex slaves” as props in her Cleopatra routine, and Sauci Calla Horra used her male volunteer’s (ahem) props to juice some lemons.

Choosing to use props can depend on the context of the routine: they can get in the way of choreography-heavy performances like those of troupes (the Harlettes, Glamourpuss Burlesque), but they can add to the laughs in more comedic acts. I’m certain old Will Shakespeare would approve of the glitter shower Akynos (the Incredible Edible) gave herself on stage, or Miss Mitzy’s baby that poops and vomits crystals.

6 // The show must go on
What happens if a performer steps on her hem and her whole outfit unravels, or a pastie flies into the crowd? “You just roll with it and make it look like it was meant to be,” says Flauntit. It helps that burlesque is rooted in comedy, but having to stop to wrench open a zipper mid-act sort of kills the mood. Not many women have the issue of unfastening a zipper (it’s generally the opposite we struggle with, trying to fit into too tight jeans). But Divine has experienced that one. “I think the mark of a seasoned performer is one who can manage a costume mishap, because it’s going to happen,” she says. And there’s always wig tape and safety pins for quick fixes. Worst case scenario, a performer pulls a Janet and the audience gets an eyeful. But something tells me they wouldn’t mind.

7 // Howling at the moon(s)
Wolfman, like his time-honoured shark fin suit(?) that he purchased at Winners for Girlesque 6, is a mainstay within the GCB organization, though he came into his role almost by fate. Playing off a nickname bestowed upon him by bullies in his adolescence, Wolfman had pitched a song to the fledgling company to use on stage. Back then, GCB was spookier (Miss Mitzy “Scream” was a vampire, and founder/producer Chris Mysterion, a local mentalist, hosted the shows), and the werewolf thing kind of fit. Before long, Wolfman started hosting due to a chance double-booking, and the rest is history. Like many others in the industry, though maybe more appropriately, he moonlights at the burlesque shows, and graces the stage of many other events locally, emceeing everything from rock shows and magazine launches to animal rescue events and fundraisers. Awoo!

8 // The stuff characters are made of
A sexy song, an entertaining figure in the media, an especially inspirational fabric: burlesque performers’ characters are born in many ways. Flauntit found a particularly hideous dress in a thrift shop (crushed velvet, lime green, over $300 of crystals sewn on). But with some alterations, it was perfect for her Green Lady performance. Divine is occasionally motivated by chakras and energy, or deep emotions like heartbreak, but more often by the costume itself as she pieces it together. “The character usually develops as I start creating the costume and start rehearsing,” she explains. “It’s funny how I can feel myself changing into something else, and embodying whatever I’m doing after I put the costume on.” Sometimes the performance is entirely about the costume, like Miss Mitzy’s self-described look at my pretty outfit routine. But each performer has an extensive rotation of characters they can embody on any given night. Miss Mitzy has over 65 different acts, each with its own costume. You can imagine her closet!

9 // Hand-made-ens
It’s rare that a performer can find exactly what she needs off the rack. There is a strong DIY culture in burlesque, as women often need to alter a fantastic thrift shop find to fit their measurements, or adorn it with crystals or bows. There are performers on a shoestring budget who you would never guess shopped at Dollarama, thanks to their darn-ed skills. Some performers are quite talented seamstresses, like Divine, who has been sewing and putting on fashion shows since she can remember. Most of her outfits have dual purposes, starting as one thing and then transforming into something else. “I like having versatility in the way I look,” she says, and like many performers, she would not wear something straight off the rack. Other performers may not have the skills themselves, and so employ others in the industry to create their costumes based on their direction. “I’m horrible at it, I’m hopeless at making costumes,” admits Miss Mitzy, whose glamaphone outfit was created by fellow performer and costume designer, Patte Rosebank. Alternatively, performers can shop at various specialty stores, like Danger Dame or Lip Service, and piece together an outfit like a puzzle.

10 // All the dance classes in the world…
When it comes down to it, a burlesque performance isn’t just about one thing. It’s about the way the costume, the makeup, the choreography, and the sex appeal all come together. “It’s the whole package, it’s about how you feel on stage and how you come off on stage to the audience,” says Flauntit. It takes guts to get up on stage in a room full of people and take your clothes off. It’s seemingly simple, but it’s hard to do well, in a way that makes the audience laugh, get turned on, and widen their eyes in awe at the same time. “You know, you have to have the charisma, and the audience loves to see when you’re enjoying yourself,” Flauntit emphasizes. “You could have the most elaborate costume, but if you don’t have stage presence and the personality… Personality is the one thing you can’t teach people.”

photography // Claire Ward-Beveridge

Dye Hard

The punk rock origin story of Tish and Snooky's Manic Panic

By: Jenna Danchuk

For many “dye-hards,” Tish and Snooky’s Manic Panic is a way of life. It’s a temporary hair dye that comes in a range of outrageous colours, first popular with punks and goths, and now seen almost everywhere (runways, the drugstore, perhaps on your little brother). For brand founders, radical entrepreneurs, and original punk rock queens Tish and Snooky Bellomo, it’s been more than just a way of living. The sister duo have been through a number of ups and downs over the past 35 years—turning the shop they started in 1977 while in their twenties into an internationally recognized brand with a cult following. It’s no wonder this bright hair colour is so popular with a do it yourself audience—the brand’s DIY story makes it a compelling choice for colour.

You guys are known for your line of hair colour and cosmetics that has this huge following all over the world. But my understanding is that you started your business without any experience, opening a very small (and very legendary) punk boutique on St. Mark’s Place?
Tish > Well there were no punk boutiques in the Americas and we started the first out of necessity. There was nobody selling anything like it.
Snooky > We were always on stage, or out at clubs, and everybody liked our style and wanted to know where they could get something similar. So we thought we could sell stuff as a sideline to our singing career. We had no idea how to do it, but we just decided we would try. We learned how by doing everything, every step of the way. We had no business background, no business experience. We were just singers and we still are singers! When we were kids we were always putting on shows—charging pennies for entry and serving Kool-aid and stuff, you know, selling them refreshments. We had a little monopoly going on. It’s funny how things turned out so similar.

What kinds of things were sold in the original Manic Panic shop?
Snooky > Basically, everything and anything we liked.
Tish > I was sewing clothes and Snooky was knitting. We were selling cosmetics, hair colour, things we picked up in thrift shops.
Snooky > Debbie Harry had turned us on to this great basement full of unused vintage shoes—all these incredible stiletto shoes still in their boxes. It was like this goldmine. We would go there and bring back tons of beautiful ’50s and ’60s stilettos and sold those. My boyfriend at the time, rockabilly singer Robert Gordon, drilled holes in the wall, and we stuck the stilettos into the holes. That’s how we displayed them. When we started Manic Panic, we each had $250, and any money we made we just put back into the business. Luckily we were young (I was 25 and Tish was 23) and living at home with our mother, so we didn’t have a lot of overhead. When we first opened, we hardly had anything to sell. But we got so much coverage from all the media—every newspaper, magazine, and TV station covered our opening because it was the first punk store in America. So we got all this press and people started coming; then we had to get stuff to sell because we didn’t have enough! We just learned by doing and it’s been great.

The cosmetics that you guys were selling, were you importing them or were they your own formula?
Snooky > It was a variety. We were bringing some in from the UK, we were buying some from various local companies. We were putting it all together. None of it had the exact selection we wanted. We wanted to make what we thought was the best cosmetic line in the city—which I think it was, actually—and there was nobody, especially in the downtown area, that sold anything that was the least bit theatrical. You could go to the theatre district and go to some of those makeup stores to find extreme colours or weird stuff, but I think it was our store that had the biggest variety.
Tish > Oh yeah, we definitely did. And we had cornered the market on cosmetics downtown. All the other store owners in the area were mostly men and didn’t know about cosmetics or beauty products, so they couldn’t compete with us. They knocked us off in every other area, in every other category of items we were selling. You know, we would find great stuff in England, great pantyhose or really cool stuff, and the next time we’d go back there, they’d say, “Sorry, we can’t sell to you anymore, we’re selling to your competitor down the street and they asked us not to sell to you.” But we introduced a lot of these lines to America.
Snooky > Our competitors would say to these companies We’ll pay twice as much as them, or three times as much as them, so sell to us. They used to send their employees in to buy stuff. We realized soon realized that we were just giving them all their ideas. But they couldn’t really compete with us in beauty.
Tish > That’s right, we were and are more beautiful.
Snooky > We knew what we sold. We wore what we sold and we loved what we sold. We were walking advertisements. But we still did really well with clothing despite the market. We just had to keep being one step ahead, and find other sources for fashion.

How have your personal styles evolved over the years?
Snooky > Mine hasn’t really evolved. It’s like I’m stuck in a time warp in the ’70s. I still have all the same clothes—only more of them now—that I did when I was like in high school even! I still have the same things that maybe don’t all fit, but I still have ‘em and love ‘em. My style did evolve from more vintage to a little more punk over the years.
Tish > I think I’m more of a fashion-follower or whatever, maybe a fashion leader. I like to change more than Snooky in general, I think I buy more stuff than she does and I’ve evolved over the years. I was like the kid that had to have pink, I had to have turquoise. I couldn’t bear wearing anything that wasn’t feminine. And when I became older, we had no money, so we took all the hand-me-downs we got, and I liked to sew, so I took the sewing machine and would make all these ’50s outfits into new shiny dresses and revamp everything. I have way too much stuff. My attic is cracking my ceiling. Clearly, I have way too much, but I still keep buying and still keep wearing this stuff. I still have, of course, a punk attitude in most of my clothes.
Snooky > Tish is more tailored.
Tish > That’s right, you know, somebody told us that the way he remembered the difference between Tish and Snooky is that Tish is tailored. T for Tish and T for tailored.
Snooky > So my husband said, “Well I guess that’s S for Snooky and S for sloppy!” Which is about right.

What was the St. Mark’s Place scene like?
Snooky > Well at first it was dead.
Tish > It was a pretty burned out neighbourhood, tons of empty storefronts.
Snooky > There were some vintage stores around the block.
Tish > Yeah, that was the look back then.
Snooky > And then when we opened, we were the wacky punk rock store end no one knew what to make of us.
Tish > As a matter of fact, we tried to sell some of our stuff before we opened to some of the places on St. Marks, and they thought they were disgusting. But then a year later they were opening up their own punk boutiques too.
Snooky > Yeah, they saw all the TV cameras coming into our store, and thought, Hmmm, I guess there is something to that. That looks like a good thing.

Tell me about your careers as singers.
Snooky > We’ve done it all. We were this wacky show at the Bowery Lane theatre called the Palm Casino Revue. That’s kind of where we got our start. Yeah, you know, we were doing stuff before that, but nothing you could call Palm Casino Revue professional, but that was like a different level for us. On a real stage and in an old vaudeville theatre show.
Tish > It was really cool, with all different wacky acts and lots of drag queens. They’d sing a little song, and do a little tap dance or something. So Debbie Harry and Chris Stein (of Blondie) saw us at the show, and asked us to come to one of their rehearsals, and then we were in their band. We were in Blondie for a little while and we’ve been in lots of other bands since then. Right now, we sing with this adorable band called Blue Coupe, which is the founding member of the Alice Cooper group, Dennis Dunnaway, the original bass player. And Albert and Joe Bouchard from Blue Öyster Cult.
Snooky > So we sing with them, and we also still sing with the Sic F*ucks, our old punk rock band that started back in ’77. The same year we started Manic Panic we also joined the S*c Fucks.

What was CBGB like?
Snooky > In the beginning, it was really pretty empty. When we were in the Palm Casino Revue we used to go across the street to CBGB with Eric Emerson, who was in the Magic Tramps; he was like a Warhol character. The place was basically dead, as a biker bar—the Hells Angels used to hang out there. Eventually there was a really small crowd of people in this very tiny bar. But it was this really cool underground club that nobody knew about, just a select few. It was like a secret society. I think everybody found out about it when Lisa Robinson came down to see the Ramones and wrote about it, and then everybody started coming and it became really popular. You could go on a Wednesday night and run into Lester Bangs, or Lenny Kaye from Patti Smith, and if you were in the scene you knew a million different people. And every night you went there, you knew everybody in the place. And it was all the big bands going to see other bands. It was the Dead Boys, Ramones, the Dictators, the Talking Heads, the Cramps. I mean it was just so much fun. You know, I think I used to go almost every night.
Tish > And the owner Hilly was like our father figure—we grew up without a dad.

How do you feel about Manic Panic’s popularity over the years, and the acceptance of “not normal” hair colours? Having your hair dyed a bright colour is something friends of mine used to get beat up for.
Snooky > It was something you got beat up for, it definitely was.
Tish > I did!
Snooky > Oh, we got made such fun of and tortured. And it’s great now they’re using models in all these magazines and on the runway, and you know we just feel like it’s about time the world caught up. It’s so great that young people dress just like we dress. And I love that, you know, I love seeing kids in bright red mohawks. It’s just the coolest thing.

How do you guys come up with the shades and the names for your hair colours?
Snooky > Coming up with oddball names was a fun thing that we did in the very beginning, and then lines like Urban Decay and Hard Candy started coming up with weird names for their products.
Tish > But we were the first!
Snooky > When we were younger we always loved cosmetics and we always thought that we’d have a cosmetic line and make really funny names. I mean I won’t even mention some of the names!
Tish > We might still use ‘em!
Snooky > Save them for other types of shops.
Tish > An X-rated line is coming soon.
Snooky > But we just loved colour and tried to do colours that other people aren’t doing.
Tish > It’s still all about what we like, colours we like, names we like. We like to do what we like!

Do you guys have a best-selling colour?
Tish > It varies throughout the years, I think for a really, really long time, Vampire Red was our biggest colour. Now I’m wondering if it’s still Vampire Red or if it’s Hot Hot Pink?

How did you guys move from importing cosmetics to developing your own formula? When did you move from being a small shop to an international brand?
Tish > We’re kind of, Snooky and I, I won’t say lazy because we work more than anybody on the planet, but we’re so easygoing in a way: ride with the tide and go with the flow. We had our little shop, and to tell you the truth, if we still had that little shop, maybe we wouldn’t have grown so much in the wholesale business. So circumstances have always brought us up to new levels, I feel. It seems to happen organically.
Snooky > What happened was our lease on St. Mark’s Place was up, after like 12 years, and the landlord was quadrupling the rent, and gave us two weeks to get out. So we thought it was the end of our lives, the end of the world. We didn’t know what to do. We had started wholesaling by then, so we just put all the merchandise into storage and just focused on the wholesale for a year, from my boyfriend’s studio apartment. It was like three flights up so we went and received the dye that we were importing and we would roll it up three flights of stair. The two of us would pack all the orders and be on the phone taking in customer calls. And then we’d roll the boxes back down the stairs, put ‘em in my car and race up to UPS every night. But we were focused on wholesale, and if we hadn’t lost our lease and been forced out of the retail business, we probably couldn’t have focused so much on the wholesale. So it was getting bigger and bigger, and the supplier in the UK couldn’t keep up with the demand, they were like three months behind on the shipping.
Tish > Plus they were cheating on us. You know, we had an exclusive deal with them and they were selling behind our backs to our customers. It was another worst time of our lives, ’cause our mother was dying at the same time.
Snooky > So it wasn’t like we could even spend our time fighting, ’cause our mother was dying, and we were at the hospital with her for months, so we ended up saying, “screw this, let’s just make it ourselves!”
Tish > We tracked down the guy who invented it originally, and had him make it to our specifications. And we came up with more colours that we really liked, and it was just an exciting transition, but everything kind of happened because somebody was mean to us, I guess!
Snooky > First the landlord raised our rent and then the supplier was cheating on us, and our mother was dying, but we just kept growing! And you know, that’s the way it’s always been.
Tish > And we always know when things are awful and people are being really mean to us, which some people have been lately, we know it’s just the start of another level for us. A higher level.

Do you guys have advice for young lady entrepreneurs?
Tish > Sure, we’ve got plenty of advice!
Snooky > You know, sometimes we speak to the Girl Scouts, or different organizations.
Tish > And we always tell everybody, if you do something that you love, and it’s your passion, you’re guaranteed to succeed. I mean, everything we do we loved. So, when we were singing, I can’t even tell you how many times I forgot to get paid because I just loved doing it. And it’s the same thing with this business. Well, it’s not like we forget to get paid because we have a bookkeeper.
Snooky > Thank god! You have to love what you do and do what you love. And you also have to never take no for an answer. That’s our other advice. Because we’ve been told so many times, oh no, that’s it, you can’t do that. And we’re like, but wait a minute. What about this way? What about that way? And we always seem to get it done. You know, there are times when you can’t, but in general, where there’s a will there’s a way. You just keep fighting for what you want. Young women are getting better at that. But the one thing that I do see, that I think we have that some younger people don’t have is that people need to have a real passion for something and not think that somebody else is going do it for them. I don’t know what they’re teaching in school nowadays, but some younger people have an attitude that the world owes them something, and I don’t think the world owes anybody anything. I think you have to make your own world. You have to carve it out yourself. And you really have to take the initiative and not sit back.
Tish > Yeah, and you just have to be ready to live and breathe it, 24-hours-a-day.
Snooky > It doesn’t leave you. You know, it’s not like a regular job where you can go home and forget about it. It haunts you in your waking and sleeping hours. And there’s a lot of heartache that goes along with it as well as incredible joy. It’s not really meant for everyone. A lot of people prefer to go home and forget about everything after your eight hours—if that’s you, don’t start your own business. We have a friend, Cleo Rose, who was a movie star in the ’50s. And she started out with nothing. She was like us. She started out dirt poor. She was an actress, and didn’t really like that too much. She got into real estate and dealing art, and all sorts of other endeavours. And now she has a castle in Italy, a townhouse in London, and a chapel in Tunbridge Wells in England, and all sorts of other places. You know, but when she was a little girl, she wanted a castle. And she got her castle! So anything’s possible. She’s our role model. She will just not take no for an answer. And our mother, too. Our mother wouldn’t take no for an answer either. When our father left, she had two little girls. And at that time, it was really difficult. It wasn’t like today where people get help, and it was a shameful thing to have children and no husband around. She went back to school when she was in her fifties. She started a whole new career; she was a greeting card artist, a commercial artist. And that paid so little that she went back to school and became an occupational therapist, one of the first occupational therapists in the country. And then she was asked by the head of visual arts at her school to start a program there and be the chairperson of the visual arts art therapy program. She worked until she passed away when she was in her late seventies.

Can you describe your sister in three words or less?
Snooky > Smart, practical and kind. Kind, she’s very kind.
Tish > I would say smart, determined, and also kind.

art // Katrina Cervoni

Muscovite Splendor

10 things about Olga Bulbenkova and the court dress of the House of Romanov

By: Megan Patterson

I had never heard of Olga Bulbenkova until a friend from high school added her to their inspirations on Facebook. I took one look at her stunning, opulent designs and knew that I had to know more about this woman and the style of the Russian court. Here are 10 things about this fascinating style and time period.

1 // Birth of a Fashion House
Olga Nikolaevna Bulbenkova (1835-1918), founded a fashion house called Madame Olga’s in St. Petersburg in the mid-1800s that went on to become one of the most popular for designing gowns for the Russian court, and specifically the Imperial Family. Not bad for the daughter of a priest.

2 // Not the Only Game in Town
Other important designers for the Russian court during this period include Izembard Chanceau, A.T. Ivanova, and the English designer Charles Worth. Each designer had their own unique look and specialty.

3 // Straw into Gold
Madame Olga’s house was known for its gold thread embroidery, which was done at the Novotikhvinsky convent. Convents were traditionally where this intricate embroidery was done.

4 // Palace Restrictions
All dresses made at Madame Olga’s followed the strict edicts for court dress that were set by Tsar Nicholas I in 1834. The cut, colour, and decoration of a gown signified its owner’s position in the court hierarchy. You could probably say that Nicholas I was a bit of a control freak.

5 // Uniform of the Court
This edict specified that women in the Russian court wear “Russian Dress Uniforms” (Paradnaya Plat’e). This was originally a white embroidered silk gown with a velvet overdress and long open sleeves in the Muscovite style. They had very full, bell-like skirts that fastened at the waist with a gold cord. These gowns were incredibly heavy and unwieldy, but were based on the traditional Russian style, as Nicholas wanted court dress to emphasize national Russian tradition as well as make it easier to tell the status of the women in his court. The style was eventually streamlined and modernized a bit, but still retained a look that was distinctly Russian. You know that amazing gown from the end of the animated Anastasia movie? It’s a very good representation of how the court style looked in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.

6 // The Topper
Elaborate jeweled headdresses called Kokoshniks were also required. Married women wore theirs with veils. Needless to say, I wish I had 10 of them. Luckily for me, you can buy them on Etsy (!!!!).

7 // For Royal Bods Only
The Edict on Court Dress also specified that only the Empress or the Grand Duchesses (The Emperor’s daughters) could wear cloth of gold, or cloth of silver. However, if the Empress was wearing cloth of silver, the Grand Duchesses couldn’t wear it at the same time. Unfortunately for the Grand Duchesses, the Empress liked wearing silver a lot, and the Grand Duchesses mostly got to wear it at their weddings.

8 // Colours of the Court
Attendants to the Imperial family could only wear gowns in two colours—garnet red and emerald green. It was always Christmas at the Russian court, apparently.

9 // Watch that Train
The length of one’s train was also important—the longer the train, the higher one’s status. I would be OK if we brought this one back.

10 // End of an Era
Madame Olga’s went out of business in 1917 when the Revolution came, since the dissolution of the court meant there was no longer any business for them. The house’s last large court commission was in 1913 for the 300th Anniversary of the House of Romanov (see above image).

And I had to add one more, because we couldn’t finish this without talking about what happened to these designers following the fall of the House of Romanov…

11 // Death of an Industry
The Revolution also saw the extinction of the ecclesiastical embroidery you see on the gowns that houses like Madame Olga’s made. Most of the women who did this work fled to France, and were quickly snapped up by couturiers like Patou, Lanvin, and Chanel (Russia’s loss was Paris’s gain). This industry is only just now seeing a bit of a resurgence, as there are convents trying to practice this traditional art once more.