No one was injured during the making of this Blog Post

What do you do when friends visit from out of town? Well, if you’re anything like us, you break onto the roof of your building and force them into modeling for you.

We got our cameras, outfits, and ourselves up the vertigo inducing chain ladder without any major incidents (did we mention that it was really windy that day?), and made it back down again with some pretty awesome photos.

Thanks to the fantastic Jen H. for not complaining even once, and to our neighbours for 1) supplying the bolt cutters and 2) not freaking out about the possibility of us crashing through the ceiling into their living room. 

Meet Jennifer!

We are pleased to introduce the newest member of The Automat family, Jennifer!

Our previous mannequin Dolores has been feeling a little rundown lately and clothes just aren’t quite fitting her the way they should. She has decided to retire from modeling, moving over to the alterations department, and in her place we now have the multi-faceted Jennifer (Arms! Legs! A head! Oh boy!)

A little about our new model…

Jennifer has had a long and varied career and most recently called Montreal home. She has supermodel measurements, with a 33” bust, 24” waist and 35.5” hips. She is also 6’ tall, thanks in part to her perma-high-heel feet (just like Barbie!)

Keep that in mind when looking at dress lengths- what’s knee length on her could be floor-length on someone of less statuesque proportions. 

We are very happy to have a new and improved way to show off all the gorgeous new pieces we have coming in for the Holidays; you’ll also notice over the next few weeks that many of our other recent items will be re-shot with Jennifer modeling.

Do you have any questions about sizes or measurements? Feel free to email or call us anytime.

And a huge thank you to the generous Jen Kyle for sending Jennifer our way!!

Fairytales

If you're a subscriber to The Automat's weekly newsletter, you'll know that this week's theme is 'Create your Own Fairytale' (and if you're not a subscriber, well, now you know!) 

We have a small collection of beautiful illustrations from a 1948 storybook that were part of the inspiration behind our recent Snow White photoshoot, and since we like looking at them so much we thought we'd share them.

 

 

 

We sure love beautiful dresses, imaginary or not.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Chances are most of you celebrated Halloween on the 29th this year, what with it being a Saturday and all, but don't let the 31st pass you by! 

 Even if you've already consumed all the sugar (and alcohol) your body can handle, here are some traditional spooky Halloween activities to entertain yourself with: 

You could try the Scottish way of predicting your future spouse, by carving an apple in one long strip, then tossing the peel over your shoulder. The peel is supposed to land in the shape of the first letter of your future spouse's name.

In the late 19th century, unmarried ladies would sit in a darkened room on Halloween and gaze into a mirror,waiting for the face of their future husband to appear in the mirror. If their destiny was to die before marriage, a skull would appear instead, which would probably be scary enough to become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

We're not sure what the whole marriage and Halloween connection is, but you could always skip the fortune-telling and go for a good, solid horror movie. Or more sugar and cocktails. 

 

The Scrapbook Hairdresser

One of the things we like about the location of The Automat’s office is that it’s in a neighbourhood that seems to believe pretty strongly in the whole “one man’s trash is another’s man treasure” principle. 
Interesting and unusual things are often left out for the taking, although we’re not so sure about who’s going to go for the slightly crusty purple toilet still out there waiting for a new home.

Anyway, the gem rescued this week by our best-neighbour-ever is a 40-ish year old scrapbook filled with magazine cut-outs of potential hair styles for categories like ‘young girls’, ‘teenage girls’, ‘women’, and ‘women as well as teenagers as the style is quite simple’. 

We’ve entertained ourselves by looking around at our long-time locals (of the right age to have been clients of the scrapbook hairdresser) and imagining which of these do’s they may have sported back then. 

Wife Dressing

One of our charming up-coming models just lent us an entertaining book: 1959’s “Wife Dressing”, a guide for the fine art of being a well-dressed wife. 

Written by designer Anne Fogarty (best known for using layers and layers of crinolines, and for frequently mentioning her 18" waist) we started reading expecting a whole lot of sexist, dated, un- relatable advice, funny at best and vaguely insulting at worst. There definitely is a fair amount of that…

…but Anne Fogarty also had a successful career, so along with tips about how to fulfill assorted wifely duties there’s also some pretty solid practical advice, as well as some wardrobe ideas that make 1959 sound like a whole lot more fun than it probably actually was. 

Here are a few more of the bits we enjoyed:

 

"I Would Wear That" - Album Cover edition

Buying music on vinyl has its disadvantages. Records take up a lot of space, get scratched if you leave them out, and weigh about 8 times more than you think they will when you move them.

But one of the great things about them is the album art, 

which is something we hate to see disappear as music goes digital. 

Here are a few of our favourite covers - chosen strictly by the criteria of

"I would wear that".