These posts are all about fashion, hair, sewing and collecting vintage clothing
I met my Canadian twin and her name is Liz Gruening. I stumbled across her blog and was instantly smitten. Like me, she writes about her Lindy Hopping experiences (one), social media coordinating for Toronto Lindy Hop (two), vintage shopping at her fav stores (three), live Jazz/Swing/Rockabilly music (four), and other random vintage and swing dance related […more…]
Bridging the Generation Gap with Postmodern Jukebox by Tam Francis As you loyal readers may know, I’ve taught swing dance with my sailor hubby for fifteen years and published Swivel: Vintage Living Magazine at the height of the swing resurgence. Now I write vintage fiction, you can check it out here. PRE POSTMODERN JUKEBOX What […more…]
IT’S ALIVE! The Girl in the Jitterbug Dress is finally ALIVE! Yes, I feel like Doctor Frankenstein, more so than with the release of Ghostoria: Vintage Romantic Tales of Fright. Doing a collection of short stories is tough enough, but the novel feels like an opus. And what was I thinking writing a parallel story […more…]
Recreating Vintage Swing Dance Photography Here’s a little story about how we recreated vintage swing dance photography, what we learned, and how you can do your own photo shoot. The Impetus and Inspiration As I approached the publication of my vintage swing dance novel: The Girl in the Jitterbug Dress, I needed cover art for my talented […more…]
All Time Favorite Vintage Christmas Movies You’ll Love by Tam Francis It’s that time of year when we dust off the old DVDs or even VHS tapes. Oh yes, we still have some of those. Of course many of these movies can be found on the handy-dandy Netflix, but to much sadness, too many haven’t found their […more…]
~Some Girls, Some Hats And Hitler: Book Review with a Vintage Slant~ By Tam Francis The Synopsis Some Girls, Some Hats and Hitler by Trudi Kanter (originally self published in 1984, republished by Virago Press 2012), is part love story, part Holocaust, and very much vintage fashion and lifestyle memoir. We follow Trudi, a half-Jewish milliner, […more…]
~ Politically Correct or Censorship? ~ by Tam Francis THE ALERT After posting a link to reddit (scary over there–talk about an odd form of censorship or bullying), it was brought to my attention that a song I had chosen for one of my chapter titles and listed on my Soundtrack page contained very offensive, racist lyrics. I […more…]
Remembering the First Camp Hollywood By Tam Francis In honor of this year’s Camp Hollywood, I go back in time, into the archives of Swivel: Vintage Living Magazine and tell you what is was like to be at Camp Hollywood that first year (1998)… The First Night Blinking lights beat the rhythm of the Hollywood […more…]