Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo

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The past two nights have been TV-viewing heaven with the ABC screening their two-part docu-drama on the 1970s beginnings of Cleo magazine, a groundbreaking publication which articulated a new way of thinking for women and their role in Australian culture and society.

Paper Giants: The Birth of Cleo tells the story of 30-year-old journalist and editor Ita Buttrose and a young Kerry Packer (heir to the ruthlessly powerful publishing empire) who in 1972 established the first risque yet empowering magazine for women, during a time when magazines and print media were king. The ABC writeup sums it up nicely; 'Cleo was a womens magazine with a libido and a curiosity about almost everything...'

Here is Ita's first editorial for Cleo:

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Seeing the story unfold (albeit with a bit of creative licence) gave me a newfound respect and admiration for Ita Buttrose. She didn't accept the status quo and challenged the entrenched patriarchy in society, giving women an opportunity to be heard and dictate what they wanted, rather than being told what to do.

This was at a time when Ita, who was financially supporting her husband while he studied, couldn't apply for a bank loan without her husband's signature (unmarried women couldn't get a loan at all...). She forged a new path for women in the workplace at a time when women were expected to quit work on becoming pregnant (she worked right through her pregnancy and returned shortly after giving birth).

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What I loved most about the show was its representation of Cleo's role in early 1970s women's liberation and the fashion. The 60s wave of freedom and womens-lib issues such as politics, contraception, equal pay, work-life balance and sex for female pleasure caught on a little later in Australia, heralded by the end of decades-long conservative government rule. The show captured the sense of anticipation that change was afoot. As Ita said to one of her bright young proteges, 'you can be anything you want Leslie, this is the 70s!'

The fashion of the day was an extension of this - clothing wasn't about conforming any more, it was about pushing boundaries and expressing yourself. I couldn't get enough of the clothes, look at these outfits!

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The pink shirt-dress!

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The three-piece wide-leg pant suit with matching red shoes and bag! And the translucent umbrella!

And I must add - Asher Keddie does a brilliant job embodying Ita, carrying herself with Ita's characteristic elegance and grace, right down to her noticeable lisp. Asher is currently up for a gold logie for her role in the Network Ten drama Offspring, but if the Twitterverse is anything to go by it's in the bag just based on her role in Paper Giants.

I was so inspired by the fashions - here I am today at work, 'channelling Ita':

What about you, were you 'dressed by Paper Giants' today?

Or did it at least leave you wanting to trawl ebay for vintage Diane Von Furstenberg or raid your mum's (or grandmother's!) closet?

Australia's shame

I'm the first to admit I'm not well-acquainted with aboriginal culture or aboriginal people. I live on the land of the Bunourong people but thats about where the relationship ends.

Hop on a plane to New Zealand and Auckland airport's glossy billboards welcome you in Maori on arrival; Maori culture is central to New Zealand's national identity. The difference in how we treat our indigenous peoples is stark.

I've always felt that the way our Government treats indigineous Australians and the livelihoods they endure is the ugly underbelly of this supposed 'lucky country'. The White Australia policy and the 70 years of forced removal of children from their families for the purposes of 'assimilation' was a long and dark chapter in this country's short "white" history but how much further have we really come?

Not far, if you read Chloe Hooper's account of the 2004 death of an Aboriginal man in custody on Palm Island. It left me feeling angry and overwhelmed with the insurmountable problems White Australia has created for Aboriginals. And the inherent racism of many whites living alongside Aboriginals is quite plainly, repulsive.

Talk to anyone who's been to Darwin, and the stories aren't pretty. Drinking, petrol sniffing and abuse are daily problems among the Aboriginal population. But how did it get this way and who is responsible - and more importantly, how do we fix it? These are complicated questions with no hard and fast answers, and Hooper doesn't pretend to have these, but you're left wondering what we possibly can do to improve the situation and make meaningful inroads to reconciliation.

The Tall Man provides a harrowing insight into the inequalities between white and black Australians, and the tragedy of the senseless death of one Aboriginal man at the hands of police, and the impact on his family and community. You should read it.

Home made tomato chutney!

I happened upon this crate of over-ripe tomatoes on a recent shopping trip and couldn't go past it - i'd been wanting to try my hand at preserving for ages! It also gave me an opportunity to use the gorgeous jars I bought for our wedding.

After researching preserving methods and fruitlessly searching for parrafin wax (which apparently isn't recommended these days anyway), I found some lids at Spotlight which fit my jars and the cooking got underway.

Following the method outlined in the Country Womens Association recipe, my good friend T and I washed all of the tomatoes, cored them and criss-cross sliced the bottoms before boiling them (she thought she was just coming over for a relaxing dinner - ha!). We then removed the skins, chopped up the tomatoes and sprinkled them with salt before going in the fridge overnight.

Fast forward to Monday night after work, and it was chutney-making-time.

Here's what went in the pot:

5kg tomatoes
4 large brown onions
4 Granny Smith apples
4 cloves garlic
2 cups apple cider vinegar
250 gms sugar
1 tsp cayenne pepper
10 cloves

Everything except the sugar was brought to the boil and then left to simmer for 1.5 hours. The sugar was added near the end.

While still warm, I spooned the mixture into clean, heat-sterilised jars (just washed then put in a hot oven for 15 mins) and screwed on the lids. To create a vacuum seal and 'preserve' the chutney, I used the boiling method - I placed the jars in a pot of water, completely covering them, and then bought it to the boil. I left them in the pot overnight with the lid on and by the morning the seal had formed. Because the water was still quite hot I let it cool before taking the jars out, drying them and putting them in the pantry...

Voila!

Quiet contemplation

Today is actually the 2nd of March so this half-written post has been sitting in my drafts for yonks . Why? I'm constantly thinking about what makes good blog fodder but not actually writing - i've decided I think too much and should just write random stuff. So i'm going to. Expect lots of 'I-read/watched-this and you should too' stuff coming up. Because I like soap-boxing and jumping on bandwagons.

Launching into a new year on the back of six weeks of unbridled adventure is particularly promising on the scale of motivation-for-things-one-wants-to-achieve, yet for the first time in years I begun 2011 without even a couple of new year's resolutions to half-heartedly attempt come 1 January.

Now, two weeks back in Oz, i've done enough navel-gazing and mental life-list-creating to keep me busy well into 2012. Anything to combat the post-holiday blues I say.

When it's all over

I've been a very bad blogger, but i'm here to tell you i'm back, married and refreshed after six weeks of amazingness in South America. Drunk on life with a dip in my hip and a glide in my stride in fact.

The realities of cubicle-dwelling have taken the shine off a little of course, but that's another discussion. The wedding was awesome. Twelve months of planning boiled down to that one surprisingly balmy Friday afternoon of love, hope, and rump-shaking fun.

And while our driver was 20 minutes late to pick me up, we made a few fumbled mistakes in the ceremony and I accidently threw my bouquet on the restaurant's roof, I would not change a thing. All those things paled in comparison to the overwhelming feeling that things don't get much better than this in life.

Not long before the wedding a recently-married colleague at work told me to try and take time to remember every moment as it happens, as it really goes by so fast. Many people recounted a similar story in their advice to me during wedding planning, but this stuck with me - maybe because it was a guy saying it perhaps. As I stood next to my soon-to-be-husband during the ceremony, I did just that; looking out at the familiar faces of dear family and friends I saw a cross-section of our lives together, these wonderful people giving up their day to be there for us - to celebrate us.

So if I could go back and change one thing I'd slow time down, because it flies by so fast it's almost unfair.

{image via fffound}

sore cheeks + warm fuzzies

This photo captures the hilarious good fun that was my hens last weekend. There was bountiful penis paraphernalia; very embarrassing, too-much-information-for-my-mum pass the parcel, hilarious garbage brides strutting the catwalk and shiteloads of mojitos and malibu.

But what overwhelmed me most was how lucky I felt to have such amazing girlfriends. And that's what this is about. It's not just me and Marcus getting married, our wedding is also an occasion to thank everyone we love, because without them we wouldn't quite be who we are today. And that's awesome.

older but no wiser

This was me on Sunday two weeks ago, however it was much less dignified. I may have even been wearing snowboard boots. It was my birthday and we went to Mt Buller for the weekend for one last hurrah before the season ended - it was fun! I was very spoiled and got to enjoy an awesome ride and dinner with a great group of friends. But I was doomed to driving the porcelain bus when I reluctantly succumbed to a tequila shot in full snow gear at 4pm. Thank god these only come around once a year.

(image via fffound)

special delivery

Yesterday I got an email from the work receptionist letting me know that two boxes had arrived for me. I knew it was too soon for the ebay jars, so it had to be my wedding invitations - and here they are!

When my mum and I started the design process with the Save The Date cards six months ago I hoped we'd end up with something pretty awesome, but these have far exceeded my expectations. My beautiful mum has worked tirelessly on these and put up with me changing my mind and throwing up different ideas here and there, to produce something she can be very proud of. Thanks mummy!

Together with having a mum who is a graphic design teacher and Adobe Illustrator whiz, I was lucky enough to have a designer and printer I use through work offer their services as well. The designer made some final tweaks to get the files print-ready and my amazing printer sourced paper and created the envelopes, all as a wedding gift. Very sweet since all I was asking for in the first place was whether he knew any stockists of string and button envelopes!

for the love of dogs

Meet Simba, our eleven-year-old heart-melter extraordinaire and RSPCA rescue. We gave him a second chance when we brought him home in 2006 and he has given us so much more in return in the years since. We always wanted a dog having both grown up with them, but I know I didn't quite expect to feel my life so much more enriched by the experience.

Enter Bronco:



You know how people sometimes say that they wondered where they'd find the capacity to match the love they have for their first child, when thinking about a second? I think that's the same with bringing another dog into the fold. But we found it pretty quickly, even if he does think that the [socks/pen/remote control] taste pretty good.

ebay win (I hope)

I just snapped up six of these pretties for $8.74 on ebay. Trouble is, they're in the US and when I asked about postage costs the lady told me after the auction that she doesn't ship to Australia.

I'm hoping she'll give me a sweet price to post them to Florida where I can use a parcel forwarding service to get them here. I think shipping could be about $80 - $100 so they're certainly no steal, but they would be perfect as vases together with some plain glass jars, plus they'll go splendidly with our vintage photobooth.


(image via google - the ones i'm looking to buy were photographed with tatty old carpet as a backdrop, not nearly as pretty!)

dancing shoes

Together with bad music and exhaustion, stiletto-challenged tootsies are guaranteed to send people off the dancefloor.

So i've got a plan to put paid to that old chestnut. Thongs. A whole basket of them. So ladies there'll be no excuses not to bust a move!

{image via once wed}

the first dance

We heard this while listening to Splendour Bender on the way to Mt Buller on Friday night and loved it. It's Angus & Julia Stone's rendition of You're The One That I Want from Grease. This could be it!

hiatus OVER

I went through a month or so of complete ambivalence over the wedding. I couldn't even look at a wedding blog (apart from APW, but that's different) or even feign an interest in talking about the details of the wedding. I needed a bit of time out. Hell, I was even looking at mummy blogs as a diversion - what's THAT about!

Hitting the four month mark has been the smack in the face I needed to get back onto it (much to my mum's relief - not the smacking part obviously). Refreshed and revived, i've had a red-hot go at a proper to-do list and man is it long.

Among locking in a DJ, rings, makeup artist, boy's suits, cars and doing the invites, there's also the post-wedding BBQ and six-week honeymoon to organise. So much for spring snowboarding!

i want this DJ

"Flashdance is an idea that has been brewing for nearly a decade... Way back in the day Whitney [of Our Labor of Love Photography] and Michael [our genius DJ] dreamed of having their own company together...

We didn’t get into this business because we thought it would be an easy way to earn a buck, we did it because our weddings were the most amazing days of our lives, and so much fun, that we decided to trade in the grind of corporate events, music festivals, and nightclubs, to make love and happiness the biggest part of our lives.

The music that I play at any event is determined solely by the people in attendance. I can confidently cover the last 50 years of soul, jazz, funk, & rock. More recent stuff includes mainstream and underground 80's, 90's and current hip-hop, electronic, disco, house-party hits, and dance music of every variety.

I AM NOT going to tell corny jokes on the mic
I AM NOT going to play trance at your wedding!
I AM NOT going to play desperate, crappy disco to try to “Please everyone”
I AM NOT GOING TO PLAY DESPERATE CRAPPY ANYTHING!
I AM NOT going to be an ego driven “artist” and only play what “I” want to hear
I AM NOT going to be a shitty wedding DJ!
I AM NOT going to play thug hip hop at your dinner (unless of course…)
I AM NOT going to play ipods/cds

I AM gonna play VINYL (remember that format?)
I AM going to play the perfect music for the mood of the people in attendance.
I AM going to be able to read the crowd and build the energy accordingly.
I AM going to seemlessly blend from dinner to dance party
I AM going to make you dance your ass off.
I AM going to make you laugh
I AM going to make you cry
I AM going to make your friends jealous.
I AM going to create lifelong memories…"

Sucks that i'm in Melbourne, and they're in the US.

Thanks to A Los Angeles Love for proving that it is possible to find a non-cheesy kickass wedding DJ.

Just need to find one here.

(image via once wed)

the journey

We're heading up to Mt Buller tonight. One of the many things I love about it is the drive. There's a soundtrack in my head for certain stretches of road when i'd drive up after uni each week, and a different one for a couple of years later when Marcus and I would use our days off to drive home from Buller and work on the house we were building.

These days with city jobs and a commuter lifestyle, driving home past endless green paddocks, little country houses and rolling hills is cathartic. As I fantasise at the laid-back pace of life in the towns that dot the main road, I often entertain the idea of living a simpler existence, but quickly convince myself i'd be bored out of my brain.

But would I really? is this kind of reaction just a symptom of living life at a pace where we think in weeks or months, not days, always focusing on that next thing in the future?

(photo by me, 2008)

bridemaid dresses

I've expended far more energy on the hunt for bridesmaids dresses than I have on my dress. My dress was easy - I bought the first one I tried on. No messing around and to date, no regrets. These were harder because I knew I wanted something a little bit different, while ensuring that each of the girls are comfortable and feel beautiful (it goes without saying they'll look beautiful as they're all stunners). I also wanted to find something that worked well with my dress, which is a grecian-inspired silk Lisa Ho number.

So lo and behold I was quite ecstatic when my bridesmaid K and I stumbled on this little number at Satch and I came home with three of them. MMS messages and reassuring and excited phone conversations flew back and forth between me and the other girls before I made the purchase and now i'm happy to say that all the girls have tried on their dresses and are very happy (or they're doing a good job of hiding it!). Despite their wearability, i'm not deluding myself into thinking that all the girls love them and will wear them again, but I'll sure be borrowing one!

marriage, feminism & stuff

I'm a massive fan of Meg and the insightful, intelligent discussion over there, so when I noticed that this book was listed as a must-read I promptly added it to my shopping cart. In case you can't quite make out the title, it's called The meaning of wife: A provocative look at women and marriage in the twenty-first century.

The author examines how the role of wife has been shaped over the decades, interweaving pop culture references to provide commentary on women and wifedom. She also examines the growth of the wedding industrial complex which has turned 'bride' and 'wedding' into consumer icons (I think this is particularly true in America).

I found it an enjoyable and interesting read, I've also heard that A Conscious Bride is supposed to be good, though it seems to be a bit more focused on the wedding rather than the marriage - anyone read it?

Yep, that's what I woke up to this morning. I think Marcus worked out early on that food was the way to my heart, and boy have I lucked in with him! They weren't quite the Jack Johnson variety but they were goooood.

We didn't go to the snow this weekend, partly because we've got to get a few wedding things done. Today it's the homework our celebrant gave us ages ago, where we write down how we met, what we love about each other, etc. etc.

More important to us than where we went on our first date or who proposed is our journey and what we've acheived together over the past seven years, so I think i'll pursue this angle rather than follow the template our celebrant set out for us (as helpful as she is!).

Seeing how other couples have made their ceremony uniquely theirs is inspiring. I hope I feel like this after our ceremony.

(image via woolgathering & miscellany)

on board

So i've been pondering the idea of starting my own blog for ages but it was the practicality of the thing, prompted by this post at Veiled Vows that finally got me on the bandwagon (it's almost like an email address, everyone seems to have one these days?!).

It's almost embarrassing how much time i've spent reading wedding blogs and engaging in wedding-related discussions on the interwebs over the past two years (and I haven't even been engaged for one yet). I go from being totally focused on the intricacies of stationery design to the emotion-laden topic of name-changing; I need somewhere to store my thoughts and inspiration, and now with just over five months to go, a place to find some clarity on the grey areas of indecision I often find myself in.

Here's to a practical, mindful approach to planning a (hopefully fun and beautiful!) wedding!

(image via woolgathering & miscellany)